The next morning, I woke up in Cusco and flew back to Lima with Bob and Eric, who were also not doing the Amazon part of the trip. We spent the better part of the day walking around Miraflores, down to the beach (not just on the cliff), and we found Larcomar, a tourist shopping centre built into the face of a cliff, and almost undetectable to street level. Bob & Eric were going back to the States the next day, so we went out to find a really bad "Irish" bar with English football paraphernalia, Union Jacks, and nothing but local and German beer. Go figure.
The next day I also spent in Miraflores, buying a new memory card for my camera with broken Spanish and hand gestures, and then exploring the streets and the markets, before going back to the ocean to get some photos of the sunset (as well as surfers and paragliders). I've decided that the next vacation I get, I think I want to learn how to surf.Anyway, the next day I decided to get a cab to go to Lima Centro, which as the name suggests, is the main downtown area of Lima.
I got dropped off at the Plaza Mayor and went from there. My first stop was the Cathedral just off the Plaza, which had a huge art museum and the remains of Francicso Pizarro, the Spanish conquerer of the Incan Empire. When I got outside, the Peruvian version of the Changing of the Guard was going on at the presidential palace across the way, so I checked that out for a while, and met a group of schoolchildren (in full school uniform) who were awed by my Canadian-ness. (I wish I had gotten a picture, they were really cute.) 
After finding lunch, I went to the San Francisco monastery, which I think ended up being the highlight of my trip to Lima Centro. I followed a Spanish tour around, since the English tour wasn't leaving for quite some time, and figured that at least that way I could pick up on some important details (I hoped..) and at least wouldn't miss anything as I was wandering around. The catacombs downstairs were the most fascinating part. Approximately 25,000 people were buried there, and there are literally bones everywhere. 
It's really creepy and made for some awesome photos by using only the redeye light on the camera. I was going to check out the Inquisition museum after that, but I felt like anything else I did just couldn't compete with what I had just seen. (That's my favorite photo of the catacombs, but there's lots of other good ones in the photoset at Flickr.)I decided instead to walk up La Union, which is a pedestrian mall running between the Plaza Mayor and the Plaza St. Martin. I thought the coolest thing about La Union were the traffic mimes. These guys are there to prevent tourists from getting run down by crazy Peru drivers. If you try to cross the street on a red, they will whistle strongly at you and frantically point to the 'do not walk' signs. Very cool idea when you've got a lot of tourists around.
And that's the end of my day in Lima Centro. One more day to go before I go back home.
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