Another early grey day in Lima. Better than it was a few hours ago however. I woke in the middle of the night feeling a little movement, sit up, and a cockroach runs out from under my pillow. That was me, freaked out, for an hour or so, sleeping in a room with three girls, wondering if I will be woken to the sound of screaming later. No, as it happens, but that's ok.
Today we are heading north to Central Lima, going to check out a few museums, walk around some catacombs, and look at some big churches. Just a typical Friday. We're up early enough to get breakfast, Sarah still has a dodgy tummy but we think we might be ok. The two girls who work in the kitchen teach me a little Quechua. We have our new Yankee friend Sonia tagging along for the ride too.
We tried calling our personal taxi driver Ricardo, but he was at the other end of town and preoccupied, so we took a street taxi there, PSN$20 for all three of us. The expressway runs up through the city; Lima has no Metro system, no trams, nothing but little rickety buses, great big good buses, and taxis. Millions of taxis. It means the roads are clogged, the standard of driving is abysmal, and the horns are permanently under the palm of the hand. Limenos wear the permanent sneer of the right-of-way when they are behind the wheel.
We blaze around Plaza San Martin and up a few side streets, dropped off at the edge of the Plaza De Armas. Its glorious, enormous, buttressed on all sides by grand buildings, the Palacio del Gobierno and the Cathedral. There's a brass band at the front of the palace blowing out a big tune, and plenty of tourists hanging around watching. A few guys just wander around trying to sell paintings. Its peaceful enough for the heart of the city. We have passed a lot of expensive hotels on our way here.
The Cathdral museum is PNS$30 to get in, and that is a little expensive at this point, so we head straight to the San Francisco Monestary, five minutes away. PNS$7 to get in, lots of good religious art, though we have to wait half an hour for an indecipherable English language tour, another that rattles around the site in doublequick time. The library houses 25,000 tomes in a dozen languages, the cloister is decorated with beautiful Sevillana tiles, hidden artwork abounds. We barely have a chance to read the descriptions of the paintings before we are led away. Up and down stairs, through the back of the church and suddenly we're at the door of the catacombs. If you've seen a cellar full of femurs before then you know exactly what you're getting. What's more interesting is when the metal grills we had seen in the floor of the church are directly overhead, and we can look up at the church from underneath, an unusual angle.
After the tour, back in the open air with a load of pigeons, the girls go shopping in a touristic gift shop and find bargains galore. Sonia heads back to Miraflores for a lunch date, and we wander down the main shopping street trying to find somewhere to curb my hunger. If I hadn't already eaten in Norkys I guess we would have gone there, the only fast food restaurant in sight. Otherwise the shopping streets are not good for food. We settle for Bembo's burger chain, where I receive an excellent and enormous burger. Somewhat unusually, we have a shopping arcade of fetish shops to look at whilst we munch on our fries.
A few shops later, a wander round the Plaza San Martin and a few more sidestreets, we end up on a street that brings joy to Sarah's heart: nothing but shops that sell beads for jewellry. She smiles from ear to ear. It's a little like watching Scrooge McDuck at the start of Duck Tales, diving in and out of his money. A few small bags later and we managed to walk on, far enough to hear another brass band. This time these guys are hiding out in the Church of Vera Cruz, celebrating the start of Semana Santa. A pity that we sit down, start to get into it, only to feel like we are privy to a Philip Glass piece. Someone is exactly one key out of tune, and the music sounds amazing. Amazingly bad. We run away to another church, get caught up in a Mass, and end up back on the street. It's dark and its home time.
Getting a taxi after dark is harder than expected. All the drivers want the easy local money, not the long drive to the suburbs. Still, we get back down home for another PNS$20, and at the hostel we discover a load of Donegal folk have turned up. Its good to hear a local accent again. Sarah and I head out to find a bar called Canas Y Tapas where, I'm told, we can get a fine local Barbarian Beer. Unfortunately the bar isn't exactly where I expect, and we end up on a little street of bars like something out of a Thai tourism reality tv show. We scout it out, its nasty and cheap, we even briefly stick our heads into the Bierhaus, which offers no beer whatsoever, instead it has a big screen tv and an supersize woofer. I feel like it should have a big sign on the door reminding me I'm 34 years old and don't go to places like this at home, let alone in South America.
Nevertheless, we end up in The Old Pub, an English pub full of post-work middle-aged folk drinking bottle beers. I could have had a bottle of Old Speckled Hen if I'd wanted it. However we have our first pints of Peru, Cristal, which isn't bad actually. We seem to be the only people actually having fun. The girls all sit on one side of the room in slutty clothing, the boys all sit on the other side and ignore them. For some reason Led Zepellin segues into Avicii. Ugly mixing.
Several hours and a couple of pints later, we mosey home as the bars empty and the clubs fill up. We try and buy a kebab but the kebab shop is closed which, I feel, pretty much sums it all up here.
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