24 hours in Lima!

We'd decided to cover the entire length of Peru on two overnight buses, and as it had taken us about 36 hours to get from La Paz to Peru in the first place (via Chile due to riots and blockades at the Bolivia/Peru border), a break in the capital half way was definitely in order.  With such a short time scale we didn't want to muck around.  Straight in a cab to Miraflores, the tourist district, to drop our bags at a rough and ready backpackers and off out to see what Peru's capital had to offer.  The Miraflores district is clean, pretty and full of cafés, pubs, restaurants and shops, not what I was expecting at all.  It's a great area to stroll around but we'd pretty much done it in an hour or two.  So where next?  Off to the centre of town on the "Urban Train", Lima's new metropolitan bus system. It covers vast distances, is fast, efficent, on time and is planned to be extended.  It was probably completed on time and budget too.  Anything like the new Edinburgh Tram system then?  That's a big no!

After a fair few days of long bus journeys it was great to be in a cosmopolitan city, just moseying along, stretching our legs and doing a bit of people watching.  Our day turned into one that we might possibly have in Edinburgh: a wander through the Parque de la Exposicion (Water of Leith), catch an exhibition at the MALI Gallery (Dean Gallery) and into town for some food.  It was refreshing to be in an activity so normal but with a South American twist.  The MALI Gallery, a beautiful white stone colonial building held a couple of spectacular exhibitions.  A collection by Peruvian artist and sculptor Jorge Piqueras, 'From structure to blast' is a stunning set of geometric abstract paintings.  I thought it was a pleasing display of colour and shape, it really made me smile.  Rather a simplistic view of one of the most important Peruvian artists of the twentieth century but maybe he'd like that.  We also watched a great piece of digital art from Melanie Smith and Rafael Ortega: a massive mysterious bright-pink parcel left in numerous different places in and around Lima, where helpful souls or unfortunate victims would be expected to look after or transport it.  My backpack possibly isn't quite as big as 'mysterious pink' but I definitely connected with the constantly travelling parcel and the bizarre situations it was seen in.

Our day finished in the central plaza, where we came upon what we thought was a state funeral procession or something similar.  At first we saw what looked like a huge coffin bedecked with flowers and insignia, carried by around 20 men in cloaks, with a procession of nuns walking backwards infront, incense burners smoking away.  As we got closer we decided it probably wasn't a coffin but before we could work out what it was (and no, we've still no idea what the whole thing was in aid of, so don't bother asking!), our attention was taken by a vibrant display of dancers in bright costumes and masks, carrying whips, with drummers beating out their rhythm.  It became apparent that they were leading the whole procession - it seemed so incongruent and to be honest, more than a little bizarre, but the whole thing was fantastic to witness and totally made our flying visit into the centre of Lima.  We could get back onto the bus for another mammoth journey feeling at least human again.