The wait at immigration was brief, although it was longer than it should have been thanks to my luck in picking queues. The slowest queue of the lot was, once again, the one that I chose. Great. Whilst waiting in line a young German tourist started talking to me, wondering what I was doing in South America. We had a brief chat and swapped stories, I was to do Maccu Piccu and she was to stay in Peru for serveral months with no specific plans. There's a contrast.
Our conversation ended when I passed through immigration and waited for my luggage. Luggage was being unloaded painfully slowly so I proceeded to the money exchange booth nearby, then went back to waiting. One thing that I always find a tad annoying about baggage collection is how everyone hovers around the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter where in the world I end up, people seem to always act the same way.
As soon as all of the passengers make their way from the plane to the corresponding luggage conveyer belt people line up right against the conveyer belt - restricting both vision and other people's access to the belt even if their luggage were to appear. Terribly frustrating. It would make much more sense if everyone stayed back a couple of meters then more people would be able to see the bags on the belt as they rolled through, and people would be able to collect their bags if they saw them. Simple!
Being the honest broker that I am I was stopped at the customs gate. The customs declaration form for Peru states that people are able to bring along 2 memory sticks for cameras for personal use. I brought three. At the end of the day it would be much easier just to say that there was nothing to declare, but I wrote in that I had 3 memory sticks. After a quick confirmation by the customs officer, I was waved through.
The taxi ride in from the airport to Hotel Maury was brief and only cost 45 soles, which equates to almost 18 dollars or so. Not the cheapest, though I didn't have anyone with me to share the cost of the cab. I managed to get to the hotel not too long after 7, and proceeded to have breakfast. I may not have arrived in time to check-in the evening before - but I was able to eat the scrambled eggs, toast, and jam breakfast that I was entitled to. Woo!
After waiting around with Jo for the others to wake up 7 of us set off to explore Lima. We only made it as far as a block or so before we all stopped. A shady looking money exhange vendor provided a decent rate and the money changing began. A group of tourists huddled around a dodgy money changer. Quite the sight. After a few trades the exchanger ran out of local money to exchange - he was willing to get more, but we decided to call it quits and move on.
We made it another block before we were interrupted by a street procession. The procession was lead by a lifesize figure pair of a woman and a baby child on a platform adorned with flowers, which was being carried down the street that we were walking down. We stopped to watch the procession, as did many locals.
The parade was a colourful and lively one, heading away from the central plaza. Perhaps it is preparation for a large event! We stopped to observe for approximately half an hour before deciding to move along to the Palace square - which was only a few streets away.
The sqaure itself was nice, although not fantastic. There were plenty of people in and around the square, particularly in front of the palace - where a parade was taking place. Obviously we took a look. Nothing too special. The most interesting component of the parade, was one of the guards on our side of the palace gates. A soldier with dark glasses armed with what looked to be an AK-47. Intense!
We watched the parade for about 15 minutes, at which point the parade ended. The crowd began to disperse. We decided to head off towards the Convento de Santo Domingo and proceeded to exit the area of the palace. Standing by the wall at the edge of the plaza was a column of police. The police saw the swarm of asians with cameras and beckoned one of the girls over, photo time. Apparently the girls didn't ask for a photo with the cops, but the cops did. Two of the girls in the group joined the column for the photo and one of them was lucky enough to have a cop drape his entire arm over her. Hillarious. The race for which girl could pique more interest was on! The photo detour didn't take too long, line up, snap, and we were away.
Downtown Lima isn't all that large, most touristy things are in a several block area. In no time we were outside of Convento de Santo Domingo. The group split into two groups, one to investigate the Convento de Santo Domingo, and the other group... wander around Lima, with a lunchtime meeting place of Convento de San Francisco. I was with the wander around Lima group.
Lunchtime provided much entertainment. The meeting place for everyone was to be at Convento de Santo Domingo, arguably the most important religious complex in Lima. In the courtyard some locals were selling food - an interesting assortment of local dishes. Not quite knowing what to get, we had a look at what was on offer and what seemed to be popular. One of the ladies that worked on the food stall sprung to action, visibly excited that some Chinese people had stopped by.
I don't really understand the total fascination with Chinese people by local Peruvians, but it's definitely there. The lady at the food stall eagerly assisted us in selecting our meals. She didn't speak English and we didn't speak Spanish, so it was an entertaining exchange. After we sat down at a nearby table the lady at the food stall was keen to continue conversing, so she called up her son - who could speak Mandarin. She passed her mobile to one of the girls and a brief conversation followed. A match made in heaven, so the rest of us joked!
There wasn't just the one phone call to the son over the course of lunch, there were several. Which was helpful, yet odd at the same time. The lady at the food stall was helpful to the point of giving us free drinks, a wonderfully refreshing maize drink (that was purple) was offered! Once we had finished lunch she helped us get started with the Convento tour with a peek into the temple, she then lead us to the starting point of an English speaking tour. So very helpful, we were very lucky.
The tour through the Convento de San Francisco was informative and it actually surprised me. I wouldn't have expected there to be a vast library in Lima. Not wanting to be offensive, I just didn't expect it. The library of Convento de San Francisco contained massive prayer books and held thousands of dated texts, quite amazing. One of the more entertaining moments was when we were asked if we had any questions about the library - one member of the tour asked "Are these books original?", classic!
The highlight of the tour of the Convento de San Francisco was a visit down to the catacombs. The catacombs was one of the few places that locals were buried in a younger Lima. A severely limited view of the chapel was available though one of the roof grills on the top floor. Furthermore, the catacombs had several levels and the level in which you were buried depended on status. The members of the convent would be buried on the top level and the poorest of society at the bottom. Tens of thousands of people have been buried there! The odd thing about the whole setup is that the bones have been arranged in a decorative manner by the archaeologists that discovered the catacombs. Having said that, it probably looks much better than a mess of bones!
The visit to the Convento de San Francisco capped off a busy day, i've written too much already! Not many more things of note happened in the afternoon before returning to the hotel. Quickly zooming through the rest of the day - back at the hotel we all had our rooms re-assigned in preparation for the tour, all of the members of the tour had an opportunity meet eachother and we were briefed on the tour ahead. Two important events for the next day: early morning festivities in the palace square, and a guided tour of Lima in the afternoon.
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