Chinatown and catacombs

The Hostel 1900 is an old mansion, built with concrete and stone. Typical construction materials for both the time and place. The style is typically Spanish, too, with a central courtyard. There is nothing to absorb sound. Ohboy, every sound bounces around like a rubber ball. But, it's clean, good location, and cheap.

There is a big, beautiful park filled with fountains. Huge, over-the-top water features. With colored lights, and music. We walked several blocks along the busy avenue, bought tickets before dark, and watched the changes in the fountains as the sunlight faded and the lights came on. The park was built in the early 1900's, a gift to the city. It was fun to watch the people playing in the water, teasing themselves with the really big fountains that you could run in and out of. It was a nice spring night, a little cool, but nice. My favorite fountain was the Labrinth. No fountain, but water shooting up to form the "paths" in a typical labrinth-like way. The water changed patterns, however, catching people by surprise, and trapping them in a path, until the water changed patterns again.

Chinatown in Lima? Si! We walked through the small streets, smelling the food looking in the shops. Mostly restaurants, but meat markets and other small stores. We had lunch with Chinese businessmen, the only tourists in the place. It was very tasty, and we asked for a caja para llevar, a to-go box for our leftovers. Dinner will be at the hostel, with cheap beer.

The San Francisco Catacombs was not on my list, but we went anyway. I'm glad we did. The Convent is now in a newer (late 1700's) building, the catacombs beneath the original church. We had to take the tour, given by a Very Serious Woman, who had memorized the script, in English. We were the only native English speakers in the small group, most of the others were European. When the original catabombs were discovered in 1932, the archaologists moved the bones, and made collections of them. Leg bones in this pile, arm bones in another, and so on. Big, deep brick bins of bones. The library was far more interesting, the spanish woodwork was very grand. The monks had two huge books they used during services. The books were almost as tall as me, and sat in front of their fancy chairs in the chapel...one book for many monks to read from a distance.

The food in Lima is good, so far. One meal of ceviche was delicious: a healthy serving of ceviche mixto (different fish), with a piece of lacy seaweed garnish, a piece of sweet potato, and a pile of puffed corn kernals. The ceviche was slightly picante. The puffed corn was curious. Of course I asked how it was prepared! The kernals are soaked in water, then you put them in a hot pot, with the lid on. They sort of puff up and pop open. Not at all like popcorn, more like nuts. There are many different kinds of corn, and I'll try them all!

On to the Sacred Valley, by plane, over the Andes Mountains tomorrow. We'll spend the night in Cuzco, and move on to Urubamba in order to see the Sacred Valley in order of the history, and to get used to the high altitude.