It’s the end of our full day 2 here. The toilets don’t really have a spiral to there flush at all, just downward. I can’t help but wonder if they would spiral if nudged to do so.
Lima keeps impressing us. Yesterday we found our way downtown on the bus. We arrived at the Presidential palace and happened upon the changing of the guard. There is a marching band and they play Condor Pasa which you’ll recognize if you’ve ever heard Simon and Garfunkel’s version. A bunch of fancily dressed guys march around the front yard of the palace and then go back inside. Outside the fence are some men with machine guns and some other men in dark suits. Maybe they are there to keep the fancy dress guards from cutting out early.
We headed out to find a park to sit down in. Jill identified a park to which we went. The darn thing was closed for 30 days starting on that day. Some signs said it was for security. We found some shade anyway.
We headed over to the Museum of Congress and the Inquisition. Odd bedfellows for a museum. It was an odd museum anyway. There were no explanations to a number of mannequins being tortured. We went down to some ancient foundation area. I think it was some original colonial wall. There’s no good way to explain it. The congress section was a little better but still lacking it felt like creeping around someone’s house. We were practically the only ones there.
We walked through a section of China Town. Then we headed over to the Gran Hotel Bolivar. Sitting on a porch thankful for shade we tried the Peruvian Pisco Sour. This is a cocktail made with Pisco liquor, Lime, and egg white.
We had a large meal and were pretty much done for the day.
Today, our first stop was Kennedy Park. Some park for JFK with more cats than you can shake a stick at. I made some friends and so did Jill. We ate lunch at The Bircher Brenner, a vegetarian restaurant that’s been around since 1972. It had many Peruvian meat dishes made with seitan. It was tasty and cheap.
We moved on to the most fascinating place yet. The Huaca Pucllana archaeological site rises like a pyramid of Giza out of a well to do neighborhood. It is a man made Adobe hill built up over 200 years. Adobe bricks are stood up in rows like a bookshelf. Millions of these bricks must’ve been used.
After that we grabbed some groceries and returned to our hostel and planned the next day.
Catching up on your blog posts, Martin. Do the toilets flush that way because you’re close to the equator? Is that a totally stupid question?
I don’t think that is dumb. Here in Tacna, Peru they go counterclockwise.