Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Sunday Afternoon - Lima City Tour

After church at the CDSP, we headed to Lima's Plaza Mayor. Peru was colonized by Spain, and like most European cities, the cities in Peru have town squares where people congregate. We ate a delicious Peruvian lunch of pollo de brasa (rotisserie chicken) with chicha morada (a sweet drink that looks like red wine, made out of purple corn).

We then met with a tour guide who told us a lot about this particular part of Lima, Peru's history and guided us through the Convento de San Francisco. I was pretty tired from traveling and unfortunately don't remember much of what she said.




The Presidential Palace



Some pictures of the Cathedral (which we did not tour)




This couple is dressed in very traditional, Peruvian clothing for people living in the mountains. We saw them in the town center/square in Lima and they looked very out of place. Later in the week, when we were in the mountains, we saw people dressed like this everywhere we looked.






Cute Peruvian twins playing outside in the plaza



We toured the monastery of San Francisco or Saint Francis. We were not able to take photos inside, but go HERE to see some.




Our last stop before returning to the hotel was the Parque del Amor (Love Park). It overlooks the Pacific Ocean and is devoted to the old Peruvian custom of courting in public gardens. As you can see from the pictures, it was very cloudy, which is normal this time of year in Lima (reminded me a bit of winter in Oregon!)





The mosaics were beautiful






El Beso by Victor Delfin, the giant kissing statue




3 comments:

Grandma Dee Dee said...

Your pictures are beautiful. Really like the gardens. But the best pictures are of the beautiful people you were blessed to see and meet. Really enjoy your posts.

Watterson Family said...

Interesting statue!!

GinH said...

The Kiss statue makes me laugh! It's HUGE! I feel like I'd want to put blinders on my children!! ha! Such a stark difference seeing well dressed people and then those who have less all in one place. I always have trouble processing that while traveling. And it only reminds me that I just don't know what people have on their plates back here at home when I pass them in the grocery store, etc... Great pictures, Lima is beautiful.

 
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