Plaza de Armas

After a decent breakfast at the Hotel – marinated pork, scrambled eggs, hot cakes and fried sweet potato – we managed to navigate the slightly mad bus service into Central Lima and found our way to the Plaza de Armas, where we fortified ourselves with coffee before hitting the tourist trail. We went to the Monasterio de San Francisco first and did a Museum and Catacombs tour before going into the church itself: a wonderful example of proper third world pagan Catholicism in all it’s glory, all gold and incense above and piles of skulls and femurs below. We decompressed in the Parque de la Muralla for a bit and enjoyed the views of El Misti and then went back to the square in time to have a look in the Cathedral – very grand but a little austere after St. Francis – before the scheduled changing of the Guard at the Palacio de Gobierno at Midday, which it turned out was delayed (or possibly even cancelled) because of some mad festival parade that was going on in the adjoining streets. So we checked that out instead: lots of women in carnival regalia and massive skirts, men in weird, armour-plated layers, some with bear masks and rattles, bands of brass and drums – and all parading very slowly but in carefully choreographed whirls and dips and spins. We walked over to the Barrio Chino for lunch – too much vegetable noodle and mushroom fried rice at Wa Lok – and then carefully made our way back through the dispersing crowds, the Square now thronged with riot police despite everything seeming very good natured, before almost getting trapped amongst the exhausted celebrants in the Iglesia de Santo Domingo. There were men sat on drums in the aisles, a cordon of ladies in some kind of clerical garb and the air was thick with incense but we managed to find our way back out again and retraced our steps gratefully back to the route of the bus back to Miraflores. Later on we had a wander round the neighbourhood – along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific before drifting back inland for some more ceviche…