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Last day in Peru
Hard to believe our trip had come to an end. Nonetheless we were determined to get every last ounce of enjoyment out of the trip and were up bright and early to go sightseeing. The Clifford Hotel (www.thecliffordhotel.com.pe) provided us with a large breakfast and a late checkout so we did not need to empty our rooms before leaving.
We opted to walk to the main centre through a nearby park. Lima Centre consists of handsome colonial buildings with large parks mixed in with more recent concrete era constructions as well as the inevitable crop of part finished dwellings. Lima is strikingly more Hispanic and less indiginous indian in its ethnic mix than Puno and Cusco. Its also much more affluent. Highlight of the day was the trip to the Monasterio de San Francisco off the main square. This stunning collection of 16th century buildings sits atop a set of catacombs with 25000 bodies. Bizarrely, bones are arranged in patterns within the open areas, or else sorted into areas with all femurs or all skulls of mixtures of the two. Quite when or why this sorting occured our guide was unable to say.
On leaving the monastery we found ourselves witnessing some sort of large scale ceremony in the adjacent President's Palace with much military pomp and a largish crowd.
Finally, after another bout of shopping and a quick lunch, we walked back to the hotel to begin the long journey home.
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