MONDAY, JANUARY 24 - Callao for Lima, Peru

We dock in the industrial port of Callao about 8:30AM. This is a very big, busy port. It is a nice day with lots of sun and a pleasant temperature. Our tour doesn’t leave until almost 10AM, so we have time for a nice breakfast in the Compass Rose.

We go get our bus tickets as soon as we finish breakfast and go ashore. We will find our bus when it is time for the tour. Right now Carolyn want to hit the stalls set up beside the ship. After looking everything over we find our bus. It is still about 10 minutes before it will be called for those waiting in the lounge, so we get our pick of seats....right behind the driver.

Last time we were in Lima we visited the main plaza and the Cathedral, plus a surprise visit to a grand old home in the Miraflores District and did some shopping in the up scale shops of that area. Today we are going to two of the old monasteries, not really Dick’s cup of tea...Oh Well!

The first stop is the Los Descalzos Chruch and Convent in the Rimac District across the river from the main part of Lima...a very poor area.

The church was built in the 1500's and is filled with the painted walkways and halls associated with this period of Spanish colonial architecture.

It always amazes us how well the Catholic orders lived compared to the people they were serving. The nun's area is set up as a museum now and it is interesting to see the sleeping areas,

 the kitchen and the pharmacy.

The next stop is at the San Domingo Church and Monastery. The alter and various chapels are lovely.

This is a huge complex near the Plaza de Armas. Its cloisters are decorated with beautiful tiles from Spain with 1606 painted on some of them.

It is obvious that by the early 1600's the architecture was already losing some of the colonial charm and looking more Moorish and European.

Again, the living area is set up as a museum. The library is beautiful, but the monk's quarters are again quite sparten.

Our driver indulges a couple of the passengers with a drive around the Plaza de Armas

on the way to the last stop at El Carmen Convent; an active convent.

This is in an extremely poor part of Lima. There is a mix up and the church is closed, but the drive through the area was definitely eye opening!!

Actually Lima has come a long way in the four years since we were here last. It is much cleaner and there is  improvement in the traffic flow (believe it or not!!).

Back at the ship we hit the little market for a pin for Jack and some cute little lamas for our Christmas tree. Carolyn sees a pair of earrings that she can’t live without. They will take almost $100 off for cash! That is all the cash we have so Dick makes arrangements to get some of our shipboard credit in cash and Carolyn gets her earrings just in time as some one else is eying them. This is the same local jeweler from whom she bought a silver and gold ring the last time we were here.

The afternoon is spent reading, working on the blog, getting Dick’s computer back on the internet and the all important Trivia, where Dick’s team wins. Five first place finishes out of 11 matches. Not too shabby!!

We have our first reservation at Prime 7 tonight. It is the ship’s high-end steak house and reservations have proven hard to get. Carolyn was able to book eight nights at the two speciality dinning venues. She could only get two of those nights at Prime 7. We ate at Signatures the first night and liked it very much.

The dinner is very good, but a lot of food! The meal is excellent, though we may like Signatures a little better. It was kind of noisy tonight and the service was slow. Carolyn asks about getting more nights in Signatures especially and the hostess signs us up for three more during the next segment for a total of two in Prime 7 and three in Signatures.