Downtown Lima

Lima, the seat of Spanish rule in Peru, is home to many colonial buildings, churches and monasteries. We walked around the civico centro neighbourhood, past the Plaza San Martin, to the impressive Plaza de Armas where the government buildings and Cathedral are, taking the tripod with us for night photos.

Churches and monasteries are a thing to see in Lima but Ramanan has a short attention span and usually about one church is all he is willing to see. We decided to go to the San Francisco Monastery, since I had read good reviews about the catacombs underneath it. The interior of the church is painted in red and white, fairly humble in design compared to many other grandiose churches we have seen. The monastery is quite the opposite, each room filled with specially commissioned paintings, beautifully carved wood furnishings with gold-leaf detailing, and Spanish-tiled walls. There is a painting of the Last Supper with Jesus and his apostles eating Guy (guinea pig), chillies and other Peruvian fare. The catacombs below the monastery was the first cemetery in Lima and was used for over 200 years. The monks buried the dead in communal graves and as you walk through there vaults of bones, actually three layers of vaults, you can see bones and some skulls of ancient Catholics that lived in the city. The bones were constantly being moved to make room for the recently dead. We had an English speaking guide for a change this time and so we actually understood what was being said. The catacombs made this monastery a really interesting place to visit and probably one of the coolest places we have gone so far. The only down side being that they wouldn't let us bring our camera inside!

The night we arrived, we couldn't help noticing the vibrant, flashing lights of the many American fast-food restaurants and casinos. In addition to the multitude of fried chicken places, in no other city have we seen so many KFC's and McDonald's. Peruvians take their food seriously, and there is no shortage of Chifa restaurants. In fact, right next door to us was a Chifa restaurant and down the street were three more. For about 6-8 soles, (2-3 dollars), you can buy Tallarin Saltado and Arroz Chaufa (stir-fried beef with noodles and chicken fried rice). So why so many Chinese in Peru? The Chinese arrived as indentured workers, “coolies” during colonial times and never left. Also at different times, there has been an Asian influx of immigrants from China, Japan and Macao and so there are Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese and Mandarin speaking Peruvians. Just by looking at their facial features you can tell that many Peruvian's have Asian ancestry in them. Diversity is always a beautiful thing and the Asian and Afro cultural influences in Peru make their food the most diverse we have had so far and by far the best.