Lima mas rapido!

  Lima, Peru
Thursday, May 29, 2008

So I´m off!  I landed in Lima late on Thursday, May 22 and headed right for bed, but jumped in the next morning with a half-day city tour to see some of the sites.  We had an excellent tour guide & took in several key sites -
Plaza Mayor or Plaza de Armas - this is actually the name of the main square in all Peruvian towns, so prepare to hear Plaza de Armas again!

Plaza de Armas in Lima

Plaza San Martin - which boasts the hotel bar that created the Pisco Sour.  It is important to note that Peruvians are very sensative to the fact that some people think Chileans invented the drink, our guide was quick to note that it was the Peruvians. He was very pleased to hear I had thought it was the Peruvians all along.
Church & Covenant of San Francisco - in addition to the beautiful paintings and mosaics from the 1600s, the church has underground catacombs - public burial areas or cemetaries - where you can see thousands of bones from slaves & servants buried there into the 1800s.  I did say éwwww gross!´ like a little kid when we first walked in there.  Very impressive & intellectual observation of course.

Catacombs in Church of San Francisco

Huaca Pucllana - Huaca means `religious place,` these are ancient pyramid-like structures that remain from the Inca times.
Plaza de Armour - each Valentine´s Day Limeņos have a kissing contest - for the longest kiss - in this park along the coast with a large statute of a couple kissing.  The record from last year is 4 hours of kissing without the couple taking a breath!

Puckering up at Plaza de Armour

(I will not comment here given the mixed company - including my parents - that will be checking out this website. ha! :)

Often things not on the official tour can be most interesting.  For example, most streets do not have stop lights & stop signs appear to be optional.  There is alot of honking (which I was used to as a Washingtonian, but was quite jarring to my tour-mate from New Zealand), but much of the honking appears to actually be chatting - different drivers really saying hi to each other or taxis asking people on the street if they need a ride.

There are many street vendors sitting on the sidewalks or walking amongst traffic or on sidewalks.  I missed a great photo when we were stopped in about 5 lanes of traffic & there were dozens of vendors weaving amongst the cars selling things such as baked goods presumably from their kitchen, candy, bobblehead dolls for your car, rubber rats (?) (yes really), model boats that were about 2X2 (?) (again, yes really), finger dolls, sodas, etc. etc.

I spent the afternoon doing some wandering on my own.  A parade of little kids clearly celebrating something with their class were singing & walking through the park I was in, which was actually quite crowded.  When they stopped a little boy, after consult with his teacher, walked over to me & handed me a drawing he had done for ´Feliz de Jardincinta´-- apparently Happy Garden day [Okay, so I have since learned this is actually Happy Kindergarten -- it was my first week; the Spanish will improve].  I thought it was a good omen to receive the gift of a child on my first day in Peru!!
 

Children´s celebration Kennedy Park in Lima

Love & Miss -
KG