The National Archeology Museum (whose full name is the El Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología, e Historia) contains pre-Columbian artifacts, including 8,000-year-old stone tools, textiles, and ceramics of the Moche, Chimú, and Inca civilizations. It cost 11 soles (approx. US$3.50) to tour the museum. Inside we found:
Carved shells
Fertility Statues
Ceramic pots of various shapes (like a crab!)
And my favorite little guy that seems to be saying "Heeeeeeey!! Look at me!"
After the museum, we had a lovely lunch at a little restaurant whose name I can't remember. I had the fish with rice and fried yuca, with a dash of lime. It was fantastic. Whether it tasted so good because I was starving or because it was actually delicious does not really matter...
After lunch, we taxied over the Plaza de San Francisco and toured the monastery. No photographs were allowed, but here is the outside:
Pigeons were everywhere in the square and the monastery was filled with courtyards, ornate statues, antique books, ancient murals, beautiful architecture, and catacombs filled with bones. Lots and lots of bones. A disturbing amount of bones. Nearly 70,000 people were buried there and the femurs and skulls were arranged in concentric circles by the conservationists that discovered the catacombs. Yay!
The taxi ride home to Miraflores House through Lima's rush hour traffic took about an hour, when it should have taken about half of that. By the time we arrived back the hostel, we were cold and tired. So tired that we ordered a Papa John's pizza. It was delivered within minutes and it tasted just like home. We felt a little like we copped out by ordering some American food, but it helped us bond with the other guests at the hostel. Mike, from Colorado, rode his BMW motorcycle all the way to Peru and was planning on continuing down through Argentina. As a website designer, he has an income and mobility, allowing him to continue traveling without end. He has already been on the road for 2 years. There was Chris, from the Isle of Wight, and two young women from Newcastle, England. We ate pizza and played cards with them until past our bedtime, as we all had an early morning wake-up call for our morning flight to Cusco.
Another happy ending for our day (other than pizza and new friends): due to the efforts of Francis, the owner of Miraflores House, and his two trips to the Lima airport, Ryan's bag was found. He would retrieve it at the airport in the morning when we checked in for our flight to Cusco. Luck had smiled once again on our motley crew...
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