Since it was too early for check-in at the hotel, we went straight to downtown Lima, our colonial district, with many old houses, baroque churches, and traditional balconies. We walked around beautiful San Martin Square, surrounded but all colonial buildings and well-manicured gardens. We walked towards the Main Square, passing by impressive carved church facades and old buildings. It was still early, and it was a pleasure to have downtown all to ourselves before rush hour started.
San Francisco Convent & Catacombs
We kept walking until we reached San Francisco Convent. A beautiful place, with a big church and peaceful cloisters but also the place where you can visit the catacombs of Lima. In colonial times, there were no cemeteries and ppl were buried under churches. This is the only one left open to the public and what a creepy place it was. We walked under the church, knowing we had several levels of tombs right under our feet. Femurs were positioned in decorative ways, sort of like showing us the way, and skulls stared at us from the beyond. It was scary but fun. The kids loved it.
After this culturally scary moment, we were back on the streets of Lima and I took them to try our own version of churros. These aren´t like the Spanish churros, these are thicker and filled with dulce de leche, delicious! We finished up that morning having sandwiches at El Cordano, one of the oldest restaurants in Lima, with its very traditional décor and the best pork sandwiches of the whole area. We didn´t eat heavy because that same day we had a special activity I was so looking forward to.
I had welcomed many Travelers to Perú before and taken them on great Adventures through my beautiful country, but this was my first time with a large group of young students. These were 13 y/o kids from a school in Texas. Their teacher had contacted me several months ago to start designing their summer trip and I was so excited to be part of it. Here I´ll tell you all about our first stop, Lima.
Lima´s Main Square is one of the most beautiful in all of South America. It’s big and spacious with a cast iron fountain in the middle. Around it, you find the Cathedral, the Presidential Palace, the City Hall, and amazing examples of colonial balconies. We took some pictures and showed the kids that in Lima, the World’s 2nd largest capital in a desert, we not only have pigeons in the squares but also vultures on the roof tops. They thought that was very cool and a bit scary
