When a city is described as similar to being “inside the belly of a dead whale,” I’m intrigued. This probably has something to do with my penchant for tortured white male acoustic guitar-playing musicians (think: Adam Duritz, Jeff Tweedy in the early years).
Yes, I dig gloomy weather. London makes me happy. The Pacific Northwest inspires me.
Lima’s reputation for thick, gray, cloud-draped skies (at least during its lengthy winter from April to October) failed to daunt me. But after my 4th straight day here without spying so much as a lone ray of sunlight — like, not even hazy sunlight — I grew discouraged.
In fact, I was unraveling at such an alarming anti-crescendo that I did the unthinkable (ok, the rarely thinkable) and embarked on a … Three Hour Tour… A Three Hour Tour.
Yup, Ayaz and I hopped aboard a double-decked, open-air bus (which while I mock them are arguably one of the best ways to discern a city’s general lay of the land, and I heart them).
While wrapped in fleece and shivering in the damp winds of Lima, I saw quite a few remarkably pretty sights.
Highlights include the monastery of St. Francis and the accompanying crypt of tens of thousands of bones (I wasn’t allowed to take pics of the bones, dangit!), views of La Rosa Nautica restaurant on the pier — as seen from the top of the city’s cliffs in Miraflores, and Plaza de Armas.
Take a gander, below.
