After leaving Blondy with the BMW dealer, I found quarters at the Flying Dog Hostal, near John Kennedy Parque, in downtown Lima. I decided to take a bus tour of the city, as well as visiting a very famous musuem.
The parque is a tribute to JFK, and is populated by a bunch of cats, who are cared for by the municipality. They coexist with the people and dogs of the neighbourhood.
Just like home, eh Mo?
While Lima is a very modern city in all respects, there are sections of the city which date back to the 1500's. I find the colonial architecture to be the most interesting, and certainly these parts of the city evoke the sense that Peru has a long and very interesting past.
Before I set out on the bus tour, I ran into a ceremony celebrating the world class paddleboard champsionhips. This fellow is the team leader of the Canadian team, and hails from Comox....
Examples of reed boats, still in use in parts of Peru...
The tour leader let me hold the flag...in the background is a fountain from the 1540's. Apparently the Inquisition reached the New World too, and they used this Fountain as a torture point for heretics....
Pizzaro, the head conquistador, is buried in the building behind me....
The highlight of the city tour, for me, was the museum. This collection was put together by a private collector, and there are over 40,000 pieces of pre-Columbian history. While I only spent an hour and a half inside, I was very impressed with the scope of the collection.
The collection is housed in a private home, which is built over an existing pre-Columbian site which has not been excavated... The walls of the home are covered in beautiful flowers. I think someone described them as bougenvillias....
As mentioned, there are over 40,000 specimens of pre- Columbian artifacts on display. Each of the ceramic pieces was unique, and showed a different aspect of the people.
Because these ceramics were buried with the dead, they are in very good shape, and are very informative pieces of the day to day life of people who lived in Peru 3000 years ago..
Eagle and a snake....
As the tour moved into the different areas of the museum, the artifacts became more sophisticated, and more impressive....
The Gold pieces were truly unique and beautiful at the same time...
There were lots of silver too...
Actual quipas, which was the Incan method of communication....
The gold pieces were amazing, and gave one a bit of an idea of what drove the Spaniards..
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.