As customary, a photo of Jonathan. We were waiting for a flight from MSP-ORD the morning of 13 April.
We are winging our way to Perú after a pair of seamless connections in Chicago and Houston. This trip was originally imagined for the previous year, but the opportunity to travel to Japan with Cindy, Mike, and Mason pushed this trip back a year. Country Walkers had offered a Perú trip that included an Amazon River cruise, unfortunately they did not offer it this year. (There’s Cancun Mexico down there.) So I went looking for other companies that offered the trip and located AdventureSmith. We coupled the Amazon cruise with an excursion to Machu Picchu. So when we arrive in Lima at 2300 we will be met and driven to our hotel in Miraflores.
I usually add a day at the beginning of the tour that could absorb any travel mishaps and missed connections. Fortunately we don’t have any problems (yet), so we will have a day in Lima to check out a museum or two before returning to the airport for the flight to Iquitos.
We left the cats in the capable care of Mary Davis. The day before we left, we noticed a number of spots in Pippin’s right eye on the iris. Suspecting melanoma, at our request Mary took Pippin to the vet while we were flying from Chicago to Houston. The diagnosis was not definitive, but also not dire, so we can relax and enjoy the trip.
The flight was uneventful and reasonably comfortable as we had upgraded to Economy Plus and got exit row seating. Deplaning in Lima we went through passport control, claimed our bags, and cleared customs. Our guide was waiting outside of customs with a sign with my name. Introducing himself as Ulises (Ulysses), he walked us by an incredible mob of people holding up signs for folks exiting customs. How Ulises rated the primo spot where we easily spotted him, rather in that mob, I don’t know and didn’t ask.
The driver, whose name went in one ear and out the other without encountering a synapse, loaded our bags into the van and we headed to our hotel in the Miraflores district of Lima. Ulises gave us a briefing/review of our itinerary while the driver veered through what little traffic was on the roads at midnight. I got the distinct impression that driving in Lima is a contact sport.
Ulises walked us through check-in and bid us a good night – he will be back at 1400 two days hence to take us back to the airport.
Since the city tour wasn’t until 1400, we slept as long as we could having gotten to bed at 0100 in the morning. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant that was included with the lodgings. It was served buffet style and was quite extensive, although not so extensive as to include smoked fish of any sort much to Jonathan’s disappointment. After all, the ocean is right there!
After breakfast we asked the front desk for a suggestion for a local activity, and she recommended that we walk down Avenue de José Larco to the waterfront, and along the waterfront, and then back up to the park nearby. So following the map provided, we made our way along the busy commercial street to the park on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. There was a shopping center built under the park and into the hillside sloping downward a few levels (nowhere close to the highway and beach below) that looked like it would have been at home in San Diego.
We walked along the street that ran along the edge of the cliff until we found our turn back inland at an arroyo that was terraced with tennis courts, with a gym at the top. We walked through JFK park at the confluence of Aves. Larco and Benavides and found it full of people and cats.
After the short walk from the park to the hotel, we had lunch in the hotel restaurant. It was buffet again but was advertised as a taste of Perú. There was fish (but no cuy) on the line this time in a sauce of chilis that was very tasty, but I like the pork better as it was moist and seasoned beautifully. I tried Inca Cola while Jonathan had coffee after the meal. Inca Cola looks a lot like Mountain Dew (i.e. fluorescent yellow) but was rather fruity with a strong vanilla overtone. I don’t think I’ll be drinking a lot of the stuff.
As customary, a photo of Jonathan. We were waiting for a flight from MSP-ORD the morning of 13 April.
An iPhone photo of the flight path as presented on the seat back video.
A bit after midnight, the necessities (charging the batteries) have to be tended to before going to bed.
A pair of ceramic pieces that graced a display case between our room and the exterior windows.
More reproductions. One could buy replicas of these figures almost anywhere.
A view of our room the following morning.
The sleek modern exterior is at odds with the more traditional bedroom decorations (wood beams, etc.)
At the end of the avenue, a shopping plaza built into the hillside - it looks a lot like San Diego to me.
On first sight, we thought it might be a casino, but it's a restaurant. The shore-side highway is also visible.
The first cat sighting - there are many many cats loose in Lima. In Cusco, we found out later, it’s dogs.
This guy looked like Pippin, although his hair was a bit longer.
A perch with a view.
At lunch, I tried Inca Cola. Doesn't it look like Mountain Dew?
Our guide for the afternoon, Floriano, met us in the lobby of the hotel and our driver was the same fellow who drove us in from the airport – Jorge Luis. Jonathan insists it was Jose Luis, but when I asked him to remind me of his name that afternoon, he said Jorge and not Jose.
Again Jorge Luis demonstrated why I could never drive a car in Lima as he drove us from Miraflores to the colonial district in central Lima. Floriano pointed out various buildings and architectural styles.
We got out of the van and entered the Convento de San Francisco, and a photo-free zone (dadgummit!). Floriano led us from room to room with various nuggets of information. The only two I remember clearly were the chapterhouse with the seats around the periphery and the library with the balcony circling the room with all the ancient volumes. I wondered why they hadn’t transferred the texts of Latin and Hebrew to a climate controlled environment to preserve them.
In one stairwell there was an ornate wood carved ceiling in the Moorish style. On the way down the stair Floriano pointed out some dirt on the stairs and ask what it looked like. I noted that it looked like mouse droppings. Close. Turns out that it was bat droppings. They make their lodgings in that ornate ceiling and have resisted every effort to dislodge them. Jonathan commented that it was a good thing that we both had our rabies shots.
From there Floriano took us down to the catacombs where he led us from chamber to chamber stacked with bones. The archeologists estimate that there are over 25,000 individuals buried there. They’ve dug up a lot of them and reinterred them but they seemed to sort the bones, so we saw a lot (and I mean a lot) of femurs. There were some skulls in evidence, but we didn’t see much in the way of ribs, pelvises, nor vertebrae, much less digits. There were a few crypts where those other bones could be seen, but the top layer of the bone well was carefully arranged.
From the convent, we walked a few blocks to the train station where there were a pair of large sculptures of vulture heads. We ducked through a corner bar that was 110 years old and then walked alongside the presidential palace coming to the Plaza de Armas.
The bishop’s residence was on the plaza with its ornate balconies, adjacent to the Cathedral of Lima. We took a fair number of photos inside (sans flash). Francisco Pizzaro is “buried” there with the casket that reunited his head with the rest of his body on display – almost like a saint, although there are decidedly mixed feelings about the presentation.
There were a lot of ornate altarpieces in the side chapels along with portable shrines that are carried in procession on the appropriate feast days.
We left the cathedral and walked across the plaza where Floriano identified various buildings, including the city hall that was flying a rainbow flag across the plaza from the cathedral. That gave me a certain sense of satisfaction. Floriano called the Jorge Luis and in a couple of minutes we were swerving and veering through the chaotic traffic to the Larco Museum.
Bougainvillea of many colors was abundant in the entry to the Larco Museum. The interior was filled to the ceilings with pre-Columbian ceramics. The collection was jaw-dropping as they were simply sorted by the theme – jaguars/felines on these shelves, frogs and amphibians on another, and so on.
The main exhibition has selected pieces of ceramics in addition to metal work (copper, bronze, silver, and gold), fabrics, and many other pieces. It was definitely worth the visit.
There was also the “erotic gallery” with a collection of sexual themed pre-Columbian ceramics. After leading us to the gallery, Floriano waited outside. I took a few pictures but I’m not sure I’ll post them.
The exterior of the Convento de San Francisco.
The surreptitious photo of the bone well in the catacombs of the convent.
The two large vulture heads outside the train station.
Reminescent of the Kamiya Bar in Tōkyō which is older (est. 1880), Bar Cordana is 110 years old (~1905).
Floriano leads Jonathan by the bishop's palace and its ornate balcony, to the Lima Cathedral.
Floriano telling about Pizzaro (and his tomb).
A shot of the soaring space in the cathedral.
The main altar of the Lima cathedral.
The strut work holding the ceiling. The cathedral is mostly wood and plaster, a good idea in a seismic zone.
The view down the nave of the cathedral.
A drawing showing the construction/design of the columns.
The feline welcoming committee at the Larco Museum.
The abundant bougainvillea at the entrance.
This was just one example of the many storage cases for the pre-Columbian ceramics at the museum.
Jonathan checking out a display at the entry of the museum proper.
A multicolored ceramic piece produced by the Huari culture (1 AD - 800 AD).
Close-up of a paracas mantle (shroud; ~1250 BC).
Jonathan takes a snap of the paracas mantle.
A stone figure.
The Chavin funeary gold piece that is used as the background pattern for the Perú travelogue pages.
Gold ornamental head gear.
A fairly bland piece from the 'Erotic Gallery'.The depiction of sex was highly ritualistic and metaphorical.
Evidence (dessert). The cherimoya was hard to taste.
Jorge Luis drove us back to Miraflores along the oceanfront highway at the base of the cliffs, eventually depositing us back at the hotel. We bid Floriano and Jorge Luis goodbye and went in to drop our stuff in the room and to seek out our first Pisco Sours of the trip in the bar downstairs while we worked on our journals.
The Pisco Sours in the bar were sweeter than the ones we had in the restaurant despite (supposedly) coming from the same bar. (Yes we had seconds.) Because we had an antipasto with the drinks in the bar, we only had main courses in the restaurant (alpaca for Jonathan, short ribs for me) and we split a cherimoya dessert. The cherimoya taste wasn’t very prominent being overwhelmed by basic sweet.