What's in Lima? Not a bean...

I have been assigned the task of writing about Nasca and Lima because my significant other found Nasca boring and Lima is fairly boring without the food pictures. I will do my best to entertain, however. Let's go straight to the photos.

Nasca, sometimes spelled Nazca, is a city where about 800 years ago the Nascas, a pre-Incan people, carved these huge pictures in the soil. From the pictures and documentaries I have seen, I always thought they were carved in stone. Afterall, how else could they last so long? It turns out that the lines are basically just dug into the rocky soil with a hoe. Less impressive in terms of labor, but still impressive. For those who aren't familiar, there are about a dozen pictures and a bunch more random shapes that are thousands of feet long. The photo below is of the one called the tree. They still don't know what these were used for. Some theories include a calendar, to praise the gods, for decoration, or that aliens made them.
We only stayed a few hours at the lines and then on to Lima, the capital of Peru and a city of almost 8 million people. Lima is mostly a gray and dirty town. However, parts of it are really nice. We stayed at Hostal Espana, which we recommend. Here is a picture of the atrium.

As soon as we were settled in, we went in search of street food. The street food in Lima is excellent and will be covered in the food post. So, you get the dregs. Boring things like buildings. Here is the main cathedral at night. Pizarro is "buried" here in a glass case, we hear. We were unwilling to pay the $7 to see it in person.

We went to visit the free Inquisition museum. They went on a lot about how terrible it was, but based on my knowledge of the European Inquisition, Peru had it easy. Really only a couple of standard torture techniques. Here they show you the rack. The Peruvian inquisitors couldn't even spring for a real rack. They had to make one on the cheap.

Tara was never seen again after she entered the torture cellar. Okay, so I rescued her. Mostly they just threw people in dark holes for a few days until they confessed something. Again, no imagination.

We traveled to the posh Lima neighborhood or Miraflores partly because Tara wanted to see Lover's Park, where we thought there would be statues of lovers everywhere. Only one lame statue existed. Despite Tara trying, I refused to recreate this same pose for a picture in front of the statue. Call me lame, I know.

We took a tour of San Francisco Monastary, which was really great. Unfortunately, they didn't let us take pictures. This is the ceiling of the church. Most of the place is in Moorish style. The 25,000 skeletons buried in the basement are arranged in a more modern style, though. Apparently, in the 1940s, they thought it was a really great idea to arrange all the skeletons into fun geometrical patterns. I just wish we had the pictures to show it...

It took me about 5 seconds to snap this picture of the house where the president lives. For four of those seconds, guards were blowing whistles at me and about to raise their guns. Apparently, you can't stop in front of it. How was I to know? Surprisingly, they let me keep the picture. Please don't use this photo to plot any attacks or I will probably get into trouble.

This is another picture of the church with the archbishop's residence. Note the very fancy wooden porches. Don't archbishops take some kind of vow of poverty?

At the mall, between the gym and a shoe store, was the plastic surgery store. Walk in, get your plastic surgery, walk out. Terrific!

That's it for Lima. It was a mixed city. Would never want to live there, but interesting to visit. And great street food.