Downtown Lima, Peru - San Fransisco Cathedral, Catacombs & President's House

Yesterday Carla and I went with the family to go and explore the tour at the San Francisco Cathedral in Downtown Lima, located right next to the President's House.

The Cathedral was a very nice experience. Outside of the entrance were 1000's of pigeons flocking around the courtyard, much like you see an any movie placed in Rome, showcasing their cathedrals. I was caught in a moment of time as the pigeon's all flocked in a circle over head and one by one found a place to sit on top of the cathedral. Then we entered..

The Price is normally 5-7 soles, but today was Lima Day, so it was 1 sol apparently. Lucky us... The tour was amazing, the art in the cathedral was mostly from 1600-1700 era, they had many original church pews, grand piano's from 1600's, The first peruvian dictionary, huge books dated from 1600's and before. The works.. I was amazed at how close they let us get to some of these things.

My favorite part of this tour was the stop at the catacombs, located inside of the cathedral. This underground burial ground wasn't discovered until the 1950's and is the home to nearly 70,000 deceased. Most of these bodies were church members. It was simply cheaper to dowse the deceased in limestone and reduce them to bones quickly, then stack their skeletons on top of each other. Just to let you know, there was an opportunity for me to touch a 400 yr. old leg bone, and yes, I touched it! haha...(this wasn't allowed, I was simply in the back of the tour, so no one could see me do it)

The President's Estate is heavily guarded with heavy machine gun equipped tanks and convoys, and men all around the perimeter armed to the gil with AK47's and flak jackets.

We were lucky enough to get to the cross walk seconds before the President's arrival into his estate. The gaurd's forced us to stay on the sidewalk as 2 cars sped into the gated estate at speeds of 80 miles an hour(obviously to prevent an assassination). As the gates were quickly closed behind them, you could catch a glimpse of Peru's heavy-set President getting out of his car. What an awesome property..
 
Anyhow, Carla and I got some arroz con leche w/ some dulche de leche to snack on. It was just so so. After that all 8 of us hopped in a 4 seater taxi and took a 20 minute ride back to the house for a couple bucks...Peruvian Style... haha