I’m exhausted. Simply exhausted. After last night’s feast, we groggily woke up for a marathon tour day. Luisa lined up a mini-bus for us and at 9:30 we set off to see Lima. We had a tour guide for the first part of the day. The guide pointed out things like the pre-Hispanic pyramids and dates that various buildings were built, while Luisa pointed out things like where they got married and or where she spent her childhood days. Both commentaries interesting in their unique ways. We saw some cathedrals and the old city walls in the morning, but the most interesting pre-lunch activity was visiting the catacombs below the Monastery de San Francisco. Back in its heyday, the catacombs served as a burial place for any Lima resident, not just the upper class. Unfortunately no photos were allowed, but imagine thousands and thousands of bones stacked throughout an underground labyrinth. All the bones and skulls organized so neatly was pretty interesting to me.

After lunch, we headed to the Japanese Immigration Museum, which was on Joylani’s to-see list for Lima. It was an interesting history of Japanese immigrants and their contributions to Peru. I agree with Juan though, who mentioned that the museum should really at least mention Fujimori, despite his fall from grace. Otherwise, it was an okay museum. Afterwards, we checked out Larcomar, a commercial area on a cliff overlooking the sea. The place had a park, movie theaters, a gazillian stores and restaurants. Juan treated us to some tasty ice-cream, which was just what we all needed at the moment.

I licked my ice-cream, admired the view, admired the whole development, and thought about how Lima’s not as bad as everyone says it is. Actually, I believe it was bad. But so many neighborhoods and places we’ve seen have supposedly been cleaned up and developed in the past decade or two. Luisa has pointed out tons of places that used to be bad, but are now really nice places. Perhaps bad reputations are tough to change. We finished off our tour by seeing Lima at night. All the colonial buildings and architecture are even more impressive when illuminated at night.

It was a very interesting day and it disproved the bad things I’d heard about Lima. There’s nice places, cool things to see/do, the squares are nice and green, and we’ve had a lot of good food. Real quick on the food, I’m way too tired to write about the food, but the Proanos eat well. We ate lunch at Tanta, a delicious approach to Peruvian food, using foreign influences. And dinner at a great Swiss restaurant that’s been dishing it up since Juan was a kid. Thinking about it, the food that the Proanos are introducing us to is the best part of our Peruvian tour. Anyways, its been a long fun and food-filled day.