Here’s me in another life.

“They’ll never believe it!” said Terry, one of the guys in our group, as Liz was taking the picture.


Today was a city tour of Lima. Our group has 18 people this time, most of whom are travelling with friends and family. They all seem great, though.

11 million people live in Lima. It’s the second-driest city in the world, after Cairo. Hardly any rain falls here.

1535 Pissaro established modern Lima. He visited in January, it rained in the mountains and so the rivers were full. It was sunny, and it has a great port. He thought this was the perfect spot for a capital city.

Everything else was the opposite in the rest of the year, except the port.

Oops.

Earthquakes happen here. “ Too late!” said the guide. “ You’re already here!”

Many centuries before Incas… 

… in 1981 they discovered this 5,000 year old pyramid. It’s solid. It was for ceremonial offerings, human sacrifice… always women, “because they had to offer the gods the best they had.”

(Our guide for the city tour was a woman.) 😂

They can restore, but not rebuild. We didn’t get out of the bus for this, which was annoying, particularly as I was on the wrong side of the bus.

1746 earthquake and tsunami. It was 7.9 on the Richter scale.Nowadays there are little tremors all the time. The buildings are built like the ones in Japan.
The older buildings are pretty much left abandoned after the 2nd floor, as people are scared of the risks of earthquakes.

The first thing we did was go to an ATM to get Peruvian Sol. I bought a crocheted Llama key ring from this girl, purely to get some coins. It’ll be my Peruvian Christmas tree decoration.

La Mercy church. 64% of the population is Catholic.

In Peru they celebrate Incan traditions in the Catholic Church. In order to get people on board, the Spanish had to become a little creative. I’ll show you a painting later on that illustrates this perfectly.

Still La Mercy church. She looks like she’s thinking about hurling herself off the balcony.

4,000 different kinds of potatoes are grown here. I love spuds, so Peru had me at “Land of the potato.” Come for Mucho Picchu, stay for the potatoes!

Back when the Spanish invaded, their culture was heavily influenced by the Moorish (Muslim) people who lived in the south of Spain. The women were not allowed out in public unless they were swathed in fabric like this, with only ONE EYE exposed so the poor things could actually see where they were going.

Balconies were built so that the women could see out onto the streets, without being seen themselves. Heaven forbid a man loses control if he sees a woman looking at him with two eyes…

Vultures on top of the cathedral next door.

The main square was fenced off because there was a political protest going on a few streets away. We could hear the yelling.
There’s a fountain here that, on their Independence Day, runs with Pisco Sour instead of water.
Damn! We came in the wrong month!

On the walk to the cathedral, look who I saw?

I’ve visited his tomb in Florence!

Atmospheric, isn’t it?

This is a statue of St Francis of Assisi in the Convent of San Francisco. Here, monasteries are where nuns live and convents are where monks live. The monks who live here are Franciscans and are dedicated to a life of service.

Every day, they make lunch for 400 needy people, and also provide medical care as well.

This place was founded in the 1530’s and has withstood many earthquakes.

The tiles used in this church were made in Seville and transported here in the early 1600’s.

Diego de la Puerto’s famous 1696 painting of The Last Supper — notably featuring guinea pigs and potatoes on the table. 
When the Spaniards first arrived and started spouting the gospel to the South Americans, they were met with very little enthusiasm. The Inca people worshipped the sun, moon, stars and nature in general. How could a man be God?

Quickly, the Spanish changed their propaganda, turning from sculptures to paintings, which can easily tell a story. The Incans conflated Mary with Mother Nature, which is why Mary is more central than Jesus to South American Catholics. Many Incan special days are celebrated in Catholic churches here.

Then we went down to the catacombs. Or over 200 years people paid to be buried here. The were wrapped in shrouds and all bundled in together. When the archaeologists found them, all the bones were mixed together.

Honestly, these were very sanitised. This arrangement was the only interesting part. It fell far short of the Paris catacombs.

See? It was a little dull.

”They had to pay to be buried here. Now the tourists pay to see them. It’s still a business.”

In a little street off the main square is this monument for all of the indigenous people who were killed by the Spanish.

Weirdly, it’s about 30 metres from a statue of Pissarro, the conquistador who started it all.

Our guide was raving about this ice cream called Lucuna, made from a Peruvian fruit. Amazingly, it tasted just like golden syrup.

Most people went to lush with Claudio, our guide, but I came back to the hotel. I’d locked my passport in the safe in my room, and I couldn’t open it. I definitely wanted to get it sorted out!
Once done, Liz and I met up with everyone and we walked to a viewpoint of the Pacific Ocean.

The Love Garden. Couples reproduce the statue.

I, of course, just had to cuddle myself.

The Love Garden is a popular place to propose. Unfortunately, too many rejected lovers were jumping off this bridge, so huge protective barriers have been put in place. Even so, there’s a policeman on either side of the bridge, just in case.

I’ve never been into Paddington, but it makes sense that he’s here. He came from Peru originally, after all!

Early night tonight. We leave the hotel at 3AM for our flight to the Amazon jungle…!

Dad joke of the day: