Lima, the first real encounter
Trip Start
Oct 20, 2008
1
17
19
Trip End
Dec 06, 2008
Lima,
Peru
Monday, November 10, 2008
The north is done. Wrapped up in 4 gigs of photos and some amazing memories and now we have the exciting prospect of Cuzco on the horizon, and the legendary Machu Picchu to come.
We flew to lima early in the morning to give us a day to climatise and maybe see some sites before we move on again.
The guide mentioned Hotel Espana in the center describing it as part labyrinth, part museum. How incredible it feels when the reality matches your imagination.
This place is incredible. Greek statues, huge oil paintings, mirrors, nooks and cranies and more levels then that C64 classic Bubble Bobble (geek alert).
Seriously though, this place is a hide and seekers paradise. It goes up about five levels to an overgrown roof garden and beyond and the décor has to be seen to be believed.
The security on the front of it seems a little basic. Just a padlock and a key that they give you at the front the desk to lock your room on a clasp. The place is pretty secure though. There are staff walking the halls at all hours.
The place has it´s own I-café (where I am now), and the only slight downer is the all the bathrooms are shared so you may find the odd one is a bit messy. There are plenty of them though, so just look around for the cleanest (first floor, round to the left, passed the strange clay Buddhist temple thing, is my recommendation).
Anyway enough about the hostal. Lima.
On the square near Hotel Espana. The Plaza de Bolivia the museum of the inquisition is well worth a visit, seen as it´s free and there are tours in English by the butler from Hudson Hawk. You know the one with the knives up his sleeves who gets his head chopped off in the end.
Also, next to the hotel itself is the yellow walled, Monastery of San Francisco. It the crypt here was buried more than 80000 people. You can still see thousands of bones sorted into femurs, pelvis´, skulls in different pits today.
The monastery itself has a rich history dating back to Saint Francis himself, and is still home to an order of Franciscan monks today, and has a peaceful ambience about it.
In the evening we three split up. Ewa to go out with a boy from the hotel, Wojtek who knows and I explored the rest of the hotel and went for dinner in the resteraunt next door.
At about 11pm Wojtek popped his head in and after they closed we were walking back when we got chatting to the chef, who invited us out to the Munich bar.
Munich bar is an underground pub where you enter through the end of a barrel into what seems like a war time Parisian cellar straight from a movie. Maybe Casablanca. It´s dark with wooden furniture, a barman in a black waistcoat wipes a glass and there is a live piano player; I´ve got his name somewhere, playing the golden oldies.
I just had to do it you know. Put in a request for ´As time goes by´.
So me, Wojtek, Andrei (the chef) and his girlfriend, had a few jars of beer, and the piano player kept breaking into ´The star spangled banner´ because hey, he speaks english, he must be American. Either that or he thought that that was the national anthem of Great Britain.
It was a cool night though. I can live without ´God save the queen´ until the next world cup.
Off to Cuzco tomorrow:)
