Lima

 So begins another journey.

JS and I took the the redeye to Peru Monday night, the day directly after the fair closed. I did manage to sleep for most of the flight, but I think that taking off right after the fair was the same mistake I made last year leaving for Europe. You definitely need a few days to decompress.

But once here, I perked up pretty fast. Lima is a crazy city, intensely populated and not with that many tourists, I'd say. JS and I got here pretty early, but it was around noon before we got out of the hotel to explore downtown. There were very few people walking around with cameras. Instead, it looked like the locals actually enjoyed sitting around their public squares, reading the newspaper or having their coffee. A big change from Spain, where the locals dress up as cartoon characters for the tourists. I definitely liked it.

One thing I could do without, however, was the crazy traffic. It's definitely dangerous out there, and I've been saying that I had the most dangerous taxi ride of my life now, which beat out the NY taxi going half a mile down a one way street backwards. It looked as if collisions were eminent several times before brakes were slammed or the steering wheel was swerved. Often, two lanes became three as people squeezed through. I think the drivers of Lima are a lot more alert than our American drivers. But then again, their cars are also a lot more scraped up. JS said it wasn't the most dangerous taxi ride he'd ever had (the dubious pleasure went to a drive in Egypt) and he was the one whose seatbelt was broken. But the driver spoke a little English and enjoyed talking to us about the city in between near collisions and shaking the car apart. It was definitely an education.

Governmental Palace

Another interesting thing about the driving is that whenever you hit a significant stoplight, people selling snacks and sodas swarm the cars. There are a lot of window transactions and people with portable trays of goods specifically stake out certain lights with long waits. It's a much faster way to get through customers.

The downtown area had a lot of older buildings, including the Governmental Palace, which had a changing of the guard ceremony similar to that in Prague, though their uniforms were red like the English. They weren't as well trained as either though -- scratching your nose seemed to be okay for these still sword-wielders.

Pigeons of San Francisco Cathedral

There were also a couple cathedrals, one of which we took a tour of and was named San Francisco, the same saint named for our California city. There were lots of old murals of his life and other pictures painted by local artists as well as catacombs under the church, which we were able to visit. It wasn't as cool as the catacombs in France, but the bones were stacked and there were a lot of grinning skulls staring back at us.  Aside from that, my favorite room was definitely the library, which looked like it could be straight out of Harry Potter with spiral staircases and bookshelves galore.

After returning to the hotel for a quick nap, we were disappointed to find that the restaurants we'd wanted to try had closed for the evening. We did manage to find one that was open, though I doubt it was anything legendary the foodies would talk about for Lima. Though we did try the Pisco sours! Definitely my kind of drink.  And after a long flight and day, we were satisfied.