Lima, Peru

When we arrived in Lima, I remember thinking, "Ahh, so this is the place I heard about in Spanish class." Funny, I didn't remember learning about all of the American companies in Lima: Goodyear, KFC, McDonalds, Dominos... In general, Peruvians prefer to support Peruvian-made companies, but these businesses appeared to be doing well. We, ourselves, thought we were supporting Peruvian beverages by drinking Inca Cola until a Canadian friend informed us that the company was owned by Coke (but you won't find any Coke branding on the bottle because it would lose its popularity- and just to be clear, despite the "Evil Empire," we love us some Coca-cola).

We hopped a cab from the Flores bus company; I was surprised to discover that this was an impatient city, full of honking taxis. On one of the noisiest streets, I caught a sign that read "Silencio." It had a horn with a line through it... it seemed like a very ineffective method of solving the problem. I thought to myself, if I lived here, that's a protest I could get behind (stopping all the needless honking at the stoplights).

We did a fair bit of walking through the crowded, cobblestone streets of Lima, including a walk through the sales district that we were told was "muy peligroso." We left all of our belongings at the hotel and hoofed it through the crowded markets in search of a cheap replacement shaver cord for Mark (found: $3 USD), and a haircut ($1.75), and lunch ($7). We ended up going back later for a backpack stitching repair at a shoe sole replacement shop ($1.75). I liked that it was easy in Lima to live with a repair rather than replace lifestyle.

As you may expect, we ran into a couple more parades. We'd see people congregating or hear the music and wander over to see what was going on. The costumes and dancing were fantastic, though it did cause traffic to honk even louder (the drivers didn't want to wait while the parade crossed).

Parade float

One of my favorite things about Lima was our hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Espana which is a converted mansion/museum near San Francisco church, close to the Plaza de Armas in Central Lima. The rooftop garden was full of animals (birds, peacocks, a turtle...), and people trying to gain access to the wifi signal (which, to be honest, sucked, but we did get a super signal at the restaurant next door so we spent a lot of time over there drinking tea, pisco sours, and hot cocoa).

Rooftop of hotel

Ever get the feeling you're being watched? (peacock behind Mark)

Rooftop turtle, sharing a tomato with the other rooftop animals

2nd story of our labyrinth hotel/mansion/museum

Stopped counting the number of David statues (there were several)

Sculpture displayed in our room

Nothing creepy about old man baby Jesus and a bunch of cherubs staring at you as you try to fall asleep

Our room, before we pushed our 1950's twin beds together

South America is a bit weird for non-Catholics. There's a lot of attention given to dead things. It creeps me out, but it's part of the culture here. For example, in the hotel lobby, there were four skulls on display. For me, it's disturbing. For others, it's just part of the history.

Hotel lobby, 4 skulls displayed on bottom of case

Skulls on display in the hotel lobby

Mark had heard that there was an "Incan church of bones" in Lima, so we started asking around about it and found out that it was right next door under the church we'd walked past 100 times. It was ironic because I'd asked Mark earlier, "Hey, honey, you want to check out that church?" He was like "No. They're all the same." :-) We call that the "traveler's fatigue," (it happens when you've been on vacation for a long time and go through a phase where you lose interest in everything). We weren't permitted to take any pictures inside the Franciscan church (which is to say my husband managed to sneak a few), but what I can say is that the church has a lot of interesting dark art about the 14 stations of the cross and monks and Jesus. The restorations were incredible (mending paintings and wooden ceiling architecture which was destroyed by previous earthquakes), but the tour of the catacombs underneath was not my cup of tea. Sure, it was interesting, but something about viewing the 25,000 skeletons buried there just didn't seem right to me. These were monks, church-goers, families who were laid to rest, and the idea of others putting their bones on display just hit me wrong. I think for families here, there's a connection to their ancestors, but for me, it reminded me of Dacau, Germany, and the pagoda of skulls in Cambodia, and I just felt so sad about the whole thing. In the church's defense, I was experiencing minor depression from the grey blanket/cloud that parks itself in the sky from June through August. I guess after living in Colorado and Hawaii, where I get more than 300 days of sun a year, I've turned into a vitamin D addict.  Let's get back to the sunshine already!

Church of San Francisco, Underneath are catacombs with 25,000 skeletons

Posted with Blogsy