Last Day in Peru

After a late start, we headed to the downtown area of Lima and were dropped off at the last Plaza de Armas of our trip! We walked over to the San Francisco church and convent which had a Moorish style. You could see the catacombs through vents that were underneath the church. Afterwards, we walked over to a park where we saw the oldest wall in Lima.

By noon, we headed back to the Plaza de Armas so we could watch the changing of the guard at the Presidential Palace. The band was impressive and the ceremony was interesting. Here's a picture of the palace with some of the guards:

 
We then headed to the Santo Domingo church where there were beautiful chandeliers and many devout Catholics praying. Throughout the church and the city, there are "safe zones" in case of seismic activity - I'm definitely not built for earthquake living as this totally spooked me.

Then we walked through a shopping arcade and Caitlin and Jamie enjoyed some McDonald's french fries. No more Andean food for us!

We finally ended our walking tour of downtown Lima at Plaza de San Martin which is in honor of the liberator, Jose de San Martin. Here's a picture:

We hailed a cab and headed back to Miraflores where we attempted to do some shopping. We ended up at the Chocolate museum where we learned a little about Peruvian chocolate and headed back to our hotel to check out. Thanks to Jamie's platinum status, we could check out at 4 pm!

We moved our reservation at Pescado Capitales up so we could have a late lunch / early dinner. Here's a picture of the ceviche we shared and I had a fish soup due to my upset stomach: 

After dinner, we headed to our hotel to pick up our luggage and went to the Parque de la Reserva to watch about 10 fountains. According to the Guiness Book of World Records, it is the largest fountain light show.

Then Luis, our taxi driver for the night took us to the airport. We had no issues and are now waiting for the announcement of our gate. We will be in NY in the morning!