TUESDAY, JANUARY 25 - Callao for Lima

This is our second day in Lima. Dick has no desire to take a taxi into the Plaza, so we are doing the "Highlights of Lima" today. Today begins a new segment of the cruise. About 300 passengers will leave and 300 more board as the day progresses. That means they are serving breakfast at 7AM in the Compass Rose and we have time to go to the dinning room to eat. Our tour leaves at 8:50AM.

The main reason we are doing this tour is because Carolyn wants to see Casa Aliaga, the oldest house in Old Lima and home to 16 generations of the Aliaga family dating back to 1535. When we were here last time it was closed. Hence, we are doing a four plus hour tour!

We drive back into downtown Lima, but the traffic is worse today. When we get to the Plaza, we find out why. The President of Ecuador is visiting today and they are having a state welcoming ceremony in front of the President’s Palace.

The bus finally gets close enough to the Plaza to let us out and we walk to the Cathedral for our first stop

 

 but only after viewing all the colorful military lined up around the Plaza. 

 

When we come out they are doing a 21 gun (canon) salute for the visiting president. We walk around the Plaza to Casa Aliaga, the oldest home in Lima. Sixteen generations of the same family have lived in this home. The current resident and family member is in her 80's.

 

 

It is just as nice as Carolyn hoped. We are served either Coke or Inca Cola ( a sickeningly sweet yellow liquid) and have a tour of this beautiful old home.

 

From there we walk another two blocks to the San Francisco Church and Convent.

This Complex is similar to the San Domingo with the Spanish tiles. These tiles date from the 1640's and the property as a whole has more of a Moorish look than any we have seen before.

It is in bad repair, but work is going on all over. The cute two year old is the daughter of one of the workers

Now we leave downtown (a seemingly endless drive) for Miraflores, the new part of Lima along the cliff-lined coast south of the original city. We make a stop at Parque del Amor on the cliff overlooking the Pacific.

It is a fairly short drive back to the ship using the coast road; thank goodness.

Lima is a UNESCO World Heritage City since the mid-1990's and  has so much history just crumbling away. There are blocks and blocks lined with beautiful building dating from the 1500's to the 1800's and they are just falling apart!. It is a shame the city and the people are not working harder and faster to save these treasures. Everywhere we looked there are ornate molding and fabulous balconies. It could be a world class tourist stop if the people/government ever get their act together.  Fortunately, with only two inches of rain a year, there is no rot and time would seem to be on their side.

It was hot walking around in the mid-day sun and very close in some of the buildings today. We get cleaned up and work on the pictures and the blog until 6PM. There is a talk on the tours for tomorrow so we go to that then to the lounge for a drink.

There is the beginning of a nice sunset and it is 6:30PM, so we head on to dinner to get a table by the window for sail away. It turns out to be a fabulous sunset...too bad we didn’t get a picture.

We have another good dinner in an almost empty dinning room. Dick has a chicken concoction that he says is good and Carolyn has the ship’s good spaghetti.

This is the beginning of the second segment. Segment two is 25 days around the Horn down to Antarctica, over to the Falklands and on to Buenos Aires. We have visited five countries and four world heritage cities so far. The tours have been well done, the food is very good and the service is mostly great. Definitely no complaints so far.