Introduction to Lima

 Downtown Lima * Dinner with Mission Friends

Today we traveled from Trujillo to Lima. We left our hotel this morning to a plaza full of marching bands and students circling the Plaza de Armas. No worries though, our taxi driver had no hesitation honking at the children so he could drive through the streets. Even though Trujillo is the 3rd largest city in Peru, its airport has exactly 1 gate. In fact, most Peruvians would take the 9-hour bus ride to Lima rather than pay the $100 for an airline ticket.

After a short 50-minute flight to Lima we navigated the 1-hour drive to our Hotel in Miraflores - a nice upper-class neighborhood and a popular place for tourists. Plenty of nice places to stay and eat.

The Peruvian National soccer team played in a qualifying match for the World Cup and the President of Peru declared a national holiday for all public employees so they could leave work early to watch the soccer game. In fact, when we arrive at our hotel at 1:00 - the precise time the soccer match started - the bell hop put our luggage on the cart, and then quickly disappear to watch the match. We decided to join the hotel staff and several guests in the dining area for lunch and the first half of the match (0-0).

Our afternoon tour of the city started at 2:00 (just as the second half of the match was starting). It was great, the streets were deserted, and we had no problem driving to our first site - Santo Domingo Church with a visit to the crypt. On our way there we meandered through some upscale neighborhoods and past a couple of archeological sites. Huge adobe bricks structures right in the middle of Lima. I had no idea there were archeological sites in Lima. When we arrived at the church, there were only a few people there (probably all watching the soccer game) so we had the place to ourselves. It was beautiful, built in the late 1500s and one of only a few original buildings from that era. The woodwork and tiles were stunning. We also visited the spooky crypt below the church where human remains were artistically displayed in neat piles (mostly skulls and femurs).

After the church we visited the outside of the Presidential Place and Plaza Mayor. The Colonial architecture in Lima is amazing! And unlike Trujillo, there seems to be more financial resources to maintain the beautiful buildings. We also visited an old colonial mansion, the longest inhabited by the same family - Casa de Count Aliaga. It was stunning. Dark would with intricate designs, an interior courtyard, and extraordinary art and painted walls.

Our final stop of the day was the Larco museum. It’s nice to start to put together the many ancient civilizations of this area and the time frames and areas in which they lived. Across many of these ancient civilizations there are similarities in the art as well as in the facial representations of the pottery. Some of the pieces had faces that looked of Asian descent. The most interesting piece was a pot that had a design that matched a piece of art Eric brought home from Peru in 1990. He had no idea of its origin so was intrigued to learn that the original piece was in this museum.

For Dinner tonight we meet several missionaries from Eric’s mission at a rotisserie chicken restaurant near the temple. They were SO pleasant and enjoyable to be with. They spoke a few words of English, but mostly it was nice to see missionaries from 30 years reminiscing about all the great memories they shared together. The celestial kingdom is going to be a glorious reunion of all those people that had important roles in your lives. We chatted until 10:00 and graciously one of the couples drove us back to our hotel.