Lima Centro

After breakfast we packed our bags ready to leave later on in the day then decided we really should go out sight seeing before leaving the Centre of Lima. We first walked to a plaza where there was a huge statue of a man on a horse in the centre and surrounded by very German looking buildings. These seemed mostly to be posh hotels or banks and were very large and imposing so after taking a few pictures we moved on. Walking down the pretty streets we saw a surprising number of riot police as they seem to be stationed at important buildings full time eg. outside the Presidential Palace, the National Congress and even outside the Convent of Santo Domingo!! The square where the Presidential Palace is situated is also home to a rather unfinished looking cathedral, Andy compared it to lego that is waiting for the fancy bits to be added on and if you look at the pictures you'll see what he means! This big square is certainly the prettiest we've seen in Lima, the colour scheme seems to be yellow as lots of the surrounding buildings are this colour as well as the flower borders which are constantly maintained around the central fountain. We carried on from here to our first destination which was the Convent de Santo Domingo which we'd read has some awesome crypts you can look around, however the entrance fee proved to be more than we were expecting and we had to content ourselves with the outside of the building and the multitudes of pigeons flocked in the courtyard out front. A bit disappointed we made our way to the other convent in Lima but it wasnt very impressive having nothing to distinguish it from any other church, so we took our photos and moved on. Feeling a bit peckish we stopped at a small cafe where for under $1 each we got a mixed plate of food which was really tasty if a little odd. It seemed to be 4 meals on the same plate, beef stew, spaghetti bolognaise, potato salad and the huge sweetcorn they are so fond of here, but it tasted good so we were happy and went on our way heading via a circuitous route back to the hostel. We detoured to have a look at the river but found it to be brown and ugly as the one in Santiago, Chile was and left it behind quickly, passing a long concrete park with modernist black sculptures along the centre of it. Eventually arriving back at the hostel we collected our bags and walked across the park by the Sheraton to the Metro Station where after a few false starts (Peruvians pushing in front of us or no space on the bus) we got ourselves and our backpacks on to the bus and travelled to 20mins or so to the Miraflores district. We walked the kilometre or so to our new hostel and got settled in before remembering it was pancake day and going out to buy ingredients at the 24hr supermarket across the street. Of course you cant buy small bags of flour so we ended up having pancakes as our main meal, alternating sugar and lime with maple syrup until we were quite stuffed! From here we showered and changed before heading out back to Pizza street and into Son De Cuba once more for a bit of dancing. There was a live band playing this time who were pretty good but meant that lots of people had come to see them and were clogging up the dancefloor just standing around. We had a couple of dances but the floor was incredibly sticky and with so many people it was super hot in there so that we were drenched after our 3rd dance and went to sit outside for some air. The band finished as we were out there and clubbing music took over so we guessed that was it for the night. We did have a chat with a couple from San Francisco we'd seen at the congress however and got some ideas about other places to dance for the rest of the time we were here in Lima. Making our way home at about 2.30 we crept into the dorm so as not to wake anyone and went to bed.