Downtown and a Very Old Monastery

Last Saturday we went to visit downtown Lima. I was hoping it wouldn't be a repeat of getting lost in Barranco.

I love driving in downtown Lima. All the buildings are old, and there are beautiful churches all over the place. Little restaurants occupy corners, and everything just looks so ancient and stately! Our taxista dropped us off near the main square. We saw a really old church, the department of justice (where their supreme court meets--also a very big, old building), and the presisent's palace. Yes, it is a palace. Complete with red carpet runway going inside. My family and I got there just as a band was playing. I think it was some sort of military band. They were all dressed up in uniforms and were probably playing national songs. I was amazed at the visible police and security forces. Guarding the palace are a bunch of police officers and army guys. Many were holding pretty hard-core guns. I think I saw a few machine gun-type weapons. And then scattered over the whole downtown area are tanks with soldiers watching everything. Even when the band was playing, they were covered by officers. I could see the head security guy inside with a walkie talkie, keeping track of every person. (I enjoyed all this; I'm into the secret security, Jason Bourne kind of stuff. :)

Our main thing that we wanted to see was the old churches and the catacombs. So we headed over to El Museo Del Convento de San Francisco. Surrounded by old iron gates, the church stands in front of a big plaza with a fountain. We went inside and got tickets for the English-speaking tour. I was pretty bummed about not being able to take pictures. It was beautiful! The guide told us about the church, which was really a monastery. Historians could tell the dates of the church by some of the tiles on the walls. It is about 400 years old! I had never seen anything so old; it really is hard to comprehend. I would love to be able to see the church when it was actually being used.

Our tour guide took us in and out of rooms. It was huge!! Everyone was taken in by the wood carvings, old statues, and beautiful art. A lot of it was done in the European Spanish style. The materials for the building were brought in from all over the world! One room had a painting of the Last Supper. Judas was painted with the devil behind him. It was in the same time period of the famous Last Supper painting. The guide pointed out that there were children around the table; and get this, the foods on the table were Peruvian! There were potatoes, rice (I think), and GUINEA PIG! hmmmmmm. I thought it was a great painting. :) My absolute favorite part was the library. It was gorgeous; I could stand and look at it for hours! There were thousands and thousands of books! All of them were exttremely old. We could not touch anything, yet there was natural light sttreaming into the big room. I was not impressed with their conservation efforts in that area. One book wa a huge choir hymnal. We went into the room where the choir sang. There were many seats on a balcony, which overlooked the church below. We did not go into that part. Also, there was a VERY old organ.

The last part of the tour was in the catacombs below the church. It was used as a cmetary for the common people because there was not an official cemetary for Lima yet. There are around 25,000 bodies in the catacombs, although some historians say it is around 70,000. Either way, that's a huge portion of history! The bones were organized into sections according to bone length and what type of bone. Our guide said that it was done that way for the tourism. The catacombs were extremely eerie and sad. The lit pathway for tours had little caves off of them, which were blocked by little iron gates. That part was creepy. The whole area had a very dusty/musty smell. I thought it was kind of cool but got slightly freaked out when I thought of how it was back when Peruvians actually used it. The bodies were treated with lime to prevent a stench and spread of disease. There were vents leading up into the church, proving that we were actually standing beneath it. There were lots of holes in which unidentified bodies were thrown. The bones are arranged in patterns, again for the tourists. Lots and lots and lots of bones. The skulls were the coolest to see. Call me weird, but they were.

We were all bummed about not being able to take pictures, but here is a website with official photos of the church. http://www.go2peru.com/Lim_foto02.htm Copy and paste into your search bar. You can click on the pictures for a zoom-in if you want to. This was one of my favorite places so far!! More pictures coming soon!
Mags:)