After a late start, we had a breakfast of cookies (such a backpackers meal) and decided to walk to Museo Larco which is in the San Isidro neighborhood not too far from where we were staying. There's always a sense of mystery and excitement when walking off in a country abroad; you don't know the neighborhood, you don't know the people, you really just don't know much. It's a bit like walking blind except you have a map (ours is printed out version from Google... hey it's worked so far).
We walked about 20 minutes with lots of Peruvians honking (not sure if it was towards us or towards each other). Strolled through many residential streets; many of the houses have fortress like fences and high walls.
The Museo Larco is housed in a big, beautiful, 18th century viceroy mansion. It costs 30 soles (~$10USD) each to enter and I can tell you that money is going towards the grounds. It has a huge garden full of flowers and green grass which won the prize for best garden in Lima in 2009. The museum was started by Rafael Larco Hoyle who started collecting the pieces with his father. As he combed through over 40,000 pieces, he realized that many of the pieces didn't "match." Doing further research (including going out to excavations himself), he "founded" 5 civilizations which hadn't been recognized earlier. /end history lesson.
After the exhibit hall, you can then go into this other "storage" room which has thousands and thousands of pieces of art, mostly of pots and drinking vessels. It's amazing to think how these pieces of survived thousands of years and many of them are in great shape. The storage room was seriously ceiling to wall of pots in about 7 different rooms. Downstairs, there was an "erotic gallery" which had pottery and other art pieces depicting.. well, I'm sure you can guess!
We left the Museo around 3PM and made a decision to hail a taxi. I don't know if I have ever told you guys this before, but I really try to walk everywhere when I am traveling somewhere abroad. This stemmed from my trip to Europe: I usually didn't speak the language of the home country and couldn't really figure out buses/subways. Thus, I usually just walked. I then discovered that it is the best way to really get to know a city and explore to ones content. So, hailing a taxi was a big deal for us as I have discovered my Spanish is quite poor. There are a few rules to getting a taxi ride in Peru. First off, there's no meter. You have to negotiate the price before you get into the taxi and if they won't give you a fair price, you can wave them off. This can be quite a challenge for tourists if you don't know how much it should cost to get somewhere. Also, (from our hotel), you should make sure not to take a small yellow taxi, you shouldn't get into a taxi alone, and you should choose a middle aged well kept driver.
The first one GZ hailed wanted 20 soles because of "el trafico." Whatever, dude. We waved him off and the next guy also wanted 12 soles but GZ offered 10. The taxi driver then upped it to 20 soles when he realized we were foreign, I think, so then I said no, no. Then he dropped it to 15 and GZ said 10 and the guy went back to 12. When we got in, he thought it was very clever that we could bargain. We then had a small chat in Spanish which was fun and he told us our Spanish was not too bad! (I think Peruvians are just nice and like to flatter). He had to stop at a gas station shortly after and I told GZ that if we were on The Amazing Race, I'd be so bummed. There's something about riding in a taxi in a foreign country that makes me feel like I'm on reality TV, except no one's watching.
After worrying we wouldn't get to our destination due to a car that kept dying, the Mr. dropped us right at the Plaza de Armas in Lima Centro. It's all very colonial looking with great looking architecture all around. We hit up the Catedral del Lima (Lima Cathedral) first which is your typical Catholic Church in Europe. About 12 altars around the church plus the main altar and some crypts as a bonus. A beautiful church, the Catholics sure know how to make things grandiose.
We walked around after that for a bit and met a local man named Peter. I'm pretty sure he was trying to just get money from us but here's the interesting thing about Peru. You don't have a lot of panhandlers/beggars around. Even the most downtrodden are usually peddling small candies, gum, or drinks. Peter wanted to offer us his company over beer (I bet) and practice his English (which was surprisingly good). As we waved him goodbye, he asked us for some American coins for his "collection." He was quite disappointed when GZ pulled out a dime and kept asking us for a dollar coin or quarter. Sorry, brother! He had given us an old sole in exchange so I'm sure he was bumming on us.
After escaping Peter, we walked around until we found the Catacombas and Museo de San Francisco which was a former monastery. I'll save you the history lesson but basically we got to go down into the catacombs and look at a lot of old bones (it was a public cemetery for awhile and they say about 20,000+ people were buried there). The remaining bones are mostly femurs and skulls because they hold up the best over time. It was super creepy but interesting as well. Now only friars and monks who live/serve at the monastery (the new one is next door) are allowed to be buried down there. I can't believe they just let a bunch of tourists hang out down there.
We were supposed to meet Marco for dinner around 6:00PM so we realized that we better start booking home starting around 5:15PM. For some reason we kept seeing these mini-mobs at 2 different banks. Maybe it was pay day? Anyway, thanks to our trusty map, we decided to walk back as it was rush hour and the taxi ride probably wouldn't be very fun. We took many wrong turns and right around the time I was super hungry (remember, we just had cookies). GZ saved our lives by stomping for a beef empanada and a churro. The churro was so delicious, I made him buy another one for himself.
It was starting to get dark and we all know that it's a bad idea to be out after dark alone, in a foreign country. The timing ended up being perfect as we walked up to Peru Star right when it got dark. Turned out we had missed Marco's call by at least an hour so we figured plans were off. Instead we went down to the cafe and had another delicious dinner in the hotel's restaurant. This time we ordered "Arroz con Mariscos" which is Rice with Seafood while GZ had the Crem of Vegetable soup which actually wasn't creamy in the dairy sense but more like smooth. They were both super delicious!!
Lessons learned today: 1) My Spanish is not as bad as I thought 2) Maps are your best friend 3) When you are hungry, eat
2 comments:
the best way to know the place you visit is to walk and to watch the people, the street and food stalls. It sounds fun with expected minor adventure. Dad
I love the taxi stories. Its always a mystery what kind of driver you are going to get. Some are the nicest in town, others grunt and charge too much.
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