Farewell dinner last night in the hotel for the 4 people who are not doing the Peru extension..so we said goodbye to the two West Virginian Ladies Mary-Sue & Gayle, Roberta from Ventura California and David from Brisbane..The bus will be so much quieter without the ladies Southern Twang ! After dinner we went up the Sheraton Towers at the side of the hotel to the restaurant on the 21st floor, what a wonderful view of the city of Santiago, also found a Rio style Jesus up on the hill behind us all lit up..very nice..Then it was off to bed to pack, I am at the stage now where anything I buy has to go in my back pack as my case is travelling on the exact 23kg weight .. my backpack is about 11 kgs..I will be glad to make it home without paying any excess..Early start today, 0500 wakeup then off to the airport at 0630..it was a long process today as Fernando couldnt get the boarding passes early..We said goodbye to Ricardo our local guide who was very good and we went through customs and a lovely shopping area..I have sourced out what I want to buy when we come back through Santiago to fly home..But I couldnt find the perfume I wanted so I will have to check out Lima airport when we depart...if theres time that is.
The flight to Lima was 4 hours and they have a 2 hour time difference so we gained an extra 2 hours !! We actually got to watch a movie this flight so I watched Green Zone with Matt Damon as I hadnt seen it ..and I also managed to knock my full cup of black tea all over my jeans, thankfully they are dark as I wont have a chance to wash them from here on.
We were picked up at the airport by Mariska or something like that..and we went to a Museum (my favorite thing) Anyway It wasnt too bad We had a fantastic lunch there and they had some beautiful Inca jewellery, they also had an Erotica section !! Boy was it erotic !!!! They keep it seperate from the rest as I guess they have kids going through the place. So it seems the Incas were quite open with their fantasies..Enough said you will have to look at my pictures.
After the Museum we drove around the city which I thought was suprisingly clean. They have some nice gardens around the Town squares and some big avenues. We stopped and went into a Cathedral as we tend to do everywhere and then we walked passed the Palace and historic area and into the Saint Francesco Monastry..we were not allowed to take photos here but the place was amazing.. I did buy some postcards so I will photograph them ...The outside area was covered in Pidgins and when we went inside the walls were all tiled with hand painted tiles from Spain circa 1620 they were all Yellow, blue & white..The ceilings were all pieces of carved wood which all just fitted together with no nails of glue, pretty awesome. We went into the library and OMG it was just like the library on Harry Potter..Unbelievable..all the books still remain and are covered in dust some of the big books open on display had pages made from sheep skin, it also had sky lights as there was no electricity back then..Underneath the monastry there is Catacombs so down we went and it was full of bones and skulls I think they said there were over 2300 people buried down there so there are bones everywhere.. It was certainly an amazing place.
The bus picked us up and we were off to the Hotel, which is quite lovely, We were supposed to go out for dinner with Bo & Lulu to chinese but there wasnt one close and we were all knackered anyway so it was room service and for the first time since America we have a kettle in the room !! Freakin awesome I say. So time to hit the sack.