Day 17 Lima, Peru

I was up early in Cusco to catch my flight back to Lima.  My tour of Lima centered around the older part of the city.   The city has some unique architectural styles that are remnants from the colonial Spanish times.  Earthquakes are a common occurrence.  This phenomenon has influenced the buildings since the ones that were not flexible are no longer standing.  As an example the Catholic cathedral in the central square looks much like many of the cathedrals I have seen in Europe.  High vaulted ceilings chapels and knaves on each side of the main area.  The columns holding up the high ceiling while they look like stone are actually made of a wood frame encased with plaster.   Apparently, after a number of collapses they learned that wooden structures had sufficient flexibility to endure the quakes while stone did not.

At one time Lima was the center of commerce for all of the western side of South America.   The Spanish used Lima as the distribution center for all commerce.  Today Lima appears to be a reasonably vibrant city.  Certainly the traffic I encountered testified to a significant level of activity.  The older part of the city is hampered by the narrow streets which were clogged with cars, motor cycles and it seems millions of taxis.

Conveniently situated on three sides of the  the main square, “Plaza De Armas”, are the Catholic Cathedral, City Hall and the Presidents Palace.  The square is nicely attended to with flowers, palm trees and a fountain.  Large iron gates protect the Presidents Palace making it look somewhat like Buckingham Palace.   Having spent enough time in government buildings when employed and not wanting to anger the President by swiping an ash tray I decided to tour the Catholic church.  You will see some photos of the wood carved choir chairs.   The craftsmanship is quite obvious. 

Next I was off to a Franciscan cathedral / monastery.   This church stood out to me because of the catacombs beneath it.  The catacombs are packed with bones from former members of the order.  There were large displays of femurs and skulls neatly arranged that you could view.  Some of the areas were covered with glass so visitors would not trot off with the bones.  I can’t imagine the cruise ship would allow me back on board skull in hand.  Apparently, photos would somehow disturb the bones so none were allowed. 

I then went through the new part of the city and saw a modern business district that any decent city in the states would be proud of.  One of the retailers, H Stern, offered passengers from the ship a free shuttle to a upscale shopping center.  While I did not go the reports were of finding it on par with many in the states.

Through my travels in Peru I was able to avoid two menu items which are common especially in the rural areas.  Guinea pig and Llama steaks.  I just couldn’t pull the trigger on these offerings.

Chris – Since I had a different experience I thought I’d write about my three days in Callao (the port city to Lima). Callao was established in 1537 as a transshipment point for goods  being sent back to Mother Spain. The items were mostly taken by famous pirates and looted from the Inca nation, Callao has suffered pirate attacks, frequent earthquakes and a major tsunami that almost completely wiped out the port 200 years ago. I took a large speedboat tour one day around the Palomino Islands off the coast of Callao. The islands protect some of the coast from the severity of the ocean. The islands also serve as a great wildlife spot with thousands of birds, sea lions and some penguinsThe islands are small mountains/large hills and are arid, dirt-like and have only one natural plant.There aren’t many of those plants and have grown there because they have air roots. There is one house on the island and it belongs to the President of Peru, I guess their answer to Camp David. It appears to be surrounded by imported palm trees. Around the backside of the island we were in the open ocean bobbing and rolling on our way to a huge sea lion colony. At night there are 10,000 sea lions and during the day we saw about 2,000 of them on the island and in the water. You could swim with them if you wanted. The 65 degree water made that a non decision for me even though they provided wetsuits. The most exciting for me was the colony of penguins we saw on cliffs outside some of the water caves. They are Humble Penguins named for the Humble Current running through there. It was a wild, fun day. The other two days I toured Lima and the surrounding areas. I was impressed by how clean their streets are. They have a fulltime crew that cleans all the streets. It’s a job given to needy people, usually single Moms and they get minimum wage (which we were told is $6 a week) …YIKES. Lima also gets NO measurable rainfall in a year so they also have a crew that waters all their plants, flowers and trees. Which is saying something since all their main boulevards have medians with trees and flowers. They don’t get any rain but they are often covered with a thick dense mist cloud. We had a lot of fog on our way to Lima, including very frequent horn blasts to alert other traffic that we were out there. Lima has lots of squares, three of which are distinguished by their different colored buildings. One square is the Yellow Square, one the Blue Square and one the Orange Square. I spent some time touring the oceanfront and found that they are constructing parks for miles along the ocean.They have reclaimed a lot of it from being a garbage dump and they have cleared it and put in soccer fields (dirt), playgrounds and picnic areas for tens of miles. There are some places where they have grass, but very few. They have a lot of tile walls and a lot of  statues and sculptures. I took the free shuttle to the upscale part of town overlooking the ocean and did walk around the open air shopping center. The shops were a mix of shops selling South American goods and Starbucks, Rockport and Columbia Sports. It was across the street from a pretty Marriott and down the street from the Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut. You never get toooo far from home! The rest of the time I toured the same places that Paul saw and reported about. I thought it was a very interesting and pretty place and would love to come back.

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