Wednesday 18th February, Callao, Peru, Sea Mist 21 degrees

The repeated requirement to put our clocks back is really messing with our heads and our wake up times. Today we woke up very early. It was still dark and we had time to do a few rounds of the deck before we had breakfast and we were still out before 8:00am for our tour.

The ship was just mooring up to the quay when we emerged on the promenade deck.

We thought it was going to be a marathon of a day, and so it proved!

We set out at just after 8:00a.m. Callao is the principal seaport of Peru and lies only just to the west of Lima. The city was founded by the Spanish in 1537 and was their main port for shipping gold and silver from local mines.. It has evolved from a small colonial landing point to a large commercial hub.

Our journey into Lima (scheduled for 40 minutes) took over an hour as the traffic was really bad – but we were told we were lucky as it is usually worse when the children are at school and the universities are open. They are on their summer holidays now.

Peru is mainly known for its Incas but in fact there were 43 cultures before the Incas. The Incas were only around for about 200 years but they represented the height of Andean civilisation. They started as a small tribe in the Cuzco Valley and at their peak they governed 10 – 12 million people incorporating Peru, parts of Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile,and Colombia. The Spanish Conquistador, Pizarrro, heard of the riches of the Incas and brought the Inca regime to an end and imposed Spanish sovereignty in about 1532. A very potted history of a very turbulent time, but just something I found out about Pizarro that I did not know is that he had a very poor beginning, and could not read or write so the Spanish had to ship the dreaded Franciscan monks out to do the official bits for him …

Back to our day! We were headed for the Gold Museum in Lima.

Lima is home to 11 million people and although there is an affluent and attractive centre the outskirts and the areas up into the hills showed lots of poor housing and poverty, with many people obviously living well below the poverty line. The political situation is precarious and there have been 13 presidents is as many years – some only being in office for days – which I guess does not allow too much time for getting things done. Hence people try to better their lives by moving into the City from the countryside …

The 300 earthquakes a year can’t help. (But everyone takes little problems like earthquakes all in their stride.)

The Gold Museum houses a private collection of gold and silver artefacts and rather bizarrely the largest collection of weapons in the world. However, it was the gold and silver exhibits that we had gone to see and it was certainly impressive. The Peruvian tribes did not see these metals as intrinsically valuable, as we do, but more a means of representation of the gods, with gold signifying the sun and silver the moon.

Mummification was practised and the dead were preserved and often dressed so they could remain part of everyday life. On other occasions the mummification came after a sacrifice ritual. (And what bizarre rituals! Often there was a fight and the winner was sacrificed! It was an honour to be sacrificed. Apparently. And often it was the elite who were sacrificed; members of government etc. A lesson for our times perhaps 🤪 Ed) We were able to see examples of the preserved heads although they made rather macabre viewing. (The techniques used are more like taxidermy than mummification to be honest. Ed)

Slightly more acceptable was the pottery made from the local clay.

I have to admit here that I have visited this museum before, in 1990 when I came to Peru to walk the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Interested parties can see replicas of the pottery in the bathroom at Gregory Towers! I never expected to pass this way again and it has been great to visit with Keith all these years later.

From the gold museum we crossed to the opposite side of Lima to what is effectively the colonial heart of the city. We started our tour of this part of town at the monastery complex that housed the first university in the whole of the Americas, a significant library and an amazingly tiled cloister around a central garden.We could not help but compare it to the madrassas still in evidence in current cultures. (And I saw a hummingbird drinking out of the fountain! Ed)

This was a different sort of place altogether. Suddenly Spain overpowers the local culture somehow and there could not have been a greater contrast.

We then walked on to the Cathedral across the Cathedral Square.

And then came my photograph of the day!

The Cathedral is thought to have been built over an Inca temple and has been rebuilt either totally or in part many times to put right earthquake damage. It is now mainly built in wood – which moves a little more readily!

Other parts of town and the dreaded Pizarro!

By this time it was heading for 2.00 and time – or perhaps beyond time – for lunch. (We had a rather splendid Pisco Sour to begin with. Ed) The food was really interesting and included a number of local dishes. It was interesting to see that the chips that we were served (there are over three thousand varieties of potato here in Peru but all we got was chips!) were all consumed very quickly but the local foods we got such as the ceviche were hardly touched! (I did eat lots of ceviche, it must be said. But I don’t think anyone else bothered with it. Yay! More for me!! Ed.)

Eventually leaving lunch we were taken to the inevitable market before going to what was referred to as the ‘Love Park’. This turned out to be a coastal viewing point but we couldn’t do much actual viewing because of the sea fog that had descended.

Although the weather did not detract from its main sculpture – The Kiss Peruvian style!!

And so we started the long journey home. I say the long journey – Callao is only a few miles away but we started out at 5 and arrived back at the ship at 7.00 absolutely worn out.

I will close with the llamas

Tomorrow we are in Lima again! (On the Peruvian Foodie Adventure tour, which may mean I have to eat more ceviche and drink more Pisco Sours. Life is tough. 🤣 Ed)