Sunburns, Beaches, and Cathedrals - oh my!

These first few days in Lima have been amazing.  First, we went to a futbol game with our new peruvian friends, Guillermo y Michael (they play futbol at La Católica.)  We got to tour part of Miraflores, a beautiful district right on the Peruvian coast. We crossed a bridge that would've had a gorgeous view, if not for the giant plates of plastic on the sides.  Michael told us it's because there were suicides at least once a day on this bridge - it has a beautiful, poetic view. The next day we went to Punta Hermosa, a beautiful beach with huge waves and lots of surfers.  It took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there via "combi", which are the somewhat dilapidated VW looking vans that drive around and make various stops around Lima. We returned, VERY much sunburned and ready for a nap.  Later we went to a heladería, which is an ice cream place.  Such awesome flavors! They probably have a hundred kinds of fruit here we've never heard of, and they make for some fantastic gelato. I had guanabana gelato, you can see the fruit here if you so desire: 


http://www.google.com/images?hl=es&safe=off&q=guanabana&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1184&bih=621


I don't know if that link actually works or not; if it doesn't just google it, it's a pretty intense looking fruit.  While here I've also tried "mandarindos", which are like mandarins but green on the outside, mangos (which are GIANT here) and lucuma, which is a fruit that smells like raisins. 


Today we went to El Centro de Lima, where we visited the cathedral San Francisco.  I wish we could have taken pictures inside, this place was amazing.  The architecture, which is called mudéjar (wiki has a fantastic article) is an ornate mix of Spanish and Arabic influences.  And there were DEAD PEOPLE.  I kid you not, we probably saw a hundred real life skulls of real dead people.  Apparently they didn't have a cemetery in Lima for a long time and would bury people under the altar in the church so they could be lifted up to heaven.  After this cathedral we walked around a bit, at which point two of our crew members (Drew and myself) were dying from our burns we were blessed with the day before. We found a free museum of an artist named Eldiberto Mérida, which was fascinating.  He did these crazy looking sculptures of various indigenous and religious scenes.  He also attended "Depauw" University in Chicago, EEUU. 


We returned home and ate at a "Chifa" - they have these all over the place, a sort of chinese-peruvian hybrid, kind of like our mix of american-chinese food that we have.  "Chi fan" in Chinese means "to eat food" so it makes perfect sense, very interesting.


And now... to rest!


Abrazos y besos,
Keeley