Yesterday we left Ecuador to fly to Lima, the capital of Peru. Lima is a huge city of over 9 million people; it’s based on the coast, so has lots of beaches, and is hot and bustly. We’re staying in the Miraflores district, which has lots of nice bars and restaurants.
Today we went to the central area of the city, a couple of kilometers away, starting off in the Plaza del Armes, which is home to the cathedral and President’s Palace.
Our timings were immaculate as we arrived just in time to see the changing of the guards – and then a huge parade!
We still don’t know what the parade was for (maybe to celebrate our arrival?), but it seemed that half of the city’s inhabitants had dressed in amazing costumes and turned out to entertain the other half – it was spectacular, a riot of music and colour – and it went on for hours, with different groups of people dancing around and around the square.
After an hour or so we left to check out the San Francisco monastery, where we had a tour of the church and old cloisters – and the catacombs, home to 25,000 skeletons – a real contrast to see this after having seen such a party a few minutes before! We then went to the Museum of the inquisition, and saw the torture chambers where people were bullied into Catholicism by the Spanish (nice…).
After those we returned to the Plaza del Armes to find the Parade still in full swing and stayed for another couple of hours watching the handsome men and tarty girls living it up!
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