Wednesday, June 3

We are back at the Hotel Senorial in the Miraflores district of Lima. Allen has one or two museums on the docket which will show many more artifacts from the Mochi and other periods and geographic areas. Our first stop was the Museo Larco Herrera, named after the person who established the museum. Unlike the best museum in Chiclayo where no photos could be taken, this museum allows photos but no flash. It also showed stunning artifacts, the most realistic being the ones from the Mochi culture in the north that existed from about AD 100 to about AD 800. I am sure you could find photos of the museum contents on the web.

Also the garden of this museum was exquisite. One first goes through a wrought iron gate and up a path that has many colored bouganvillas along both sides, red, yellow, white, and purple. At several places there are cacti in pots, the most interesting being one called Cactus Monstruo. This entire cactus looks like the tops of some suhuaro cacti with rounded grotesque bulbous limbs.

We took a cab an spent from about 11 am to close to 4 pm in the museum eating lunch in the high quality, high cost museum cafe. My meal consisted of a delicious seafood soup. As always, Allen and Beth shared a meal.

After this museum, we walked about 20 minutes to the Museo de Antropologia ... by following a blue line on the sidewalk. We got there about 50 minutes before closing, so Beth and ALlen gave me a whirlwind tour which by that time of day was fine with me.

Then it was a cab ride back to the hotel. After resting we walked to the ocean which is about a mile from our hotel. Walking there we saw perhaps a dozen hang gliders enjoying the ocean winds. At the ocean there is a fancy shopping center with many high priced shops shops and many fast food joints and higher quality restaurants. There was the ubiquitous Mickey D, and the Colonel, but also a Hooters and a Tony Roma. We chose a Peruvian restaurant overlooking the ocean. I can´t remember what I ate, but it was enjoyable, as usual.

Afterwards it was back to the hotel to wait for Pam and Kayla.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

This was again a day of travel on a long distance bus. We ate our breakast early and got to the bus station at 7:30 a.m. for an 8 am departure.

Originally this was suppoed to be a 10 houe ride to Lima, but it took almost 13 hours because the govenment had lowered the speed limits as a measure to cut down on auto accidents.

Although the seats were comfortable and they served us a small breakfast and lunch, the ride for me was unenjoyable. They showed two movies, one of which I had seen and I really could not watch them without turning my neck to an uncomfortable position because of the position of the monitor.

In addition, the socked in sky never lifted, so I was quite glad to get off the bus and head to the hotel. We checked in and caught a quick supper at the hotel, then it was off to bed for a better day ahead.