Peru trip - Lima

We spent the morning doing the necessary chores, like changing money, getting cell phone service and orienting ourselves around our hotel. One of the beauty of that trip, except for the late night arrival, was the total absence of jet-lag. Only one hour difference from home!

The Miraflores district is apparently the best area of the 10 million people city that Lima is today and the Pacific coast bordering it is pretty nice. In the afternoon, it was time for our first guided tour. We were just the two of us with our guide, and visited the colonial section of Lima, went around the Main Square, where the Presidential Palace, the Cathedral, the Archbishop’s Palace and the Metropolitan City Hall are located.

These are historic buildings that somehow never get totally destroyed by the some of the worst earthquakes the city endured over the years. Since Catholicism played such an important role in imposing the Spanish colonial culture, we got treated by the visit of the Santo Domingo church and monastery, a XVII century jewel, listed as part of Unesco's cultural heritage.

We saw a few singular sights on the way, like folks being expelled from their apartments, with all of their belonging thrown in the street, or like certain popular districts, dealing in specialized trade like construction materials, for example. We concluded our tour day by visiting the Larco Museum, a private collection that hold an impressive array of treasures from Old Peru, and makes visitors discover, understand and enjoy more than five thousand years of ancient history through more than 45,000 pieces on display.

At night, tired and famished, we returned to the ocean and joined the local weekend crowds for an earthy dinner in a popular spot overlooking the Pacific Ocean...