On Sunday morning, we woke up and made our way to the Cusco airport. It was less scary flying out of Cusco than flying in – so that was a relief!

We made it back to Lima around lunchtime. Gate 1 had organized a bus to pick us up to immediately bring us on a tour of Lima. The tour included a tour of the colonial section, the main plaza, and the San Francisco convent and catacombs.

It was primarily a walking tour – it was fun to see the hustle and bustle on a Sunday. Lots of families come in to go shopping and spend time together – and enjoy their Black Friday weekend sales!

The most interesting part of the tour was the convent and catacombs, which we couldn’t take ANY pictures of. But holy smokes – it was incredible to see the catacombs.

The catacombs were started in the 1500’s and still is used for important peoples in the brotherhood’s burials. It was created to withstand seismic movement (Peru is in the ring of fire), which is amazing they had that understanding 800 years ago! There are estimated to be 25,000 bodies buried down there.

The brotherhood opened the catacombs to the public in 1950. In order to open them, they had to move some of the skeletons to create more of a path. They were displayed in interesting ways – usually the skulls or the femurs (the strongest bones in the body).

Here are a few pictures from Google – we all wanted to respect the fact that this was a burial ground.

After the convent we made our way to the hotel. We got checked in and then headed to our farewell dinner. Some people had the whole next day to enjoy Lima, but unfortunately for myself and Andy we had a 1:00 AM flight. So we were on our way to the airport around 9:00 PM!

The flight home was smooth – and we absolutely loved Peru. We have a pretty lengthy bucket list, but we can already tell that we need another Peru trip to check more items off of it!

Accommodations:

Jose Antonio – Miraflores Lima

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Australia/New Zealand cruise December 2023