This morning we are up early... I call 5 a.m. early... to catch our flight back to Lima. It seems a year ago that we saw Lima last.. not just a few days.

In Lima we were met by our local city guide. I don't know what to say about this woman. She was happy and chipper and friendly... but to be honest with you, I couldn't understand a word she said. It seems she took great delight in telling about place names in Spanish and dates and then giving us an oral quiz after to be sure we got it right. Well... Gyspy just tuned her right out.. I think several people did. I sorta did my own tour. It was better that way. The thoughts coming out of my brain were better than anything coming out of her mouth, I am sure.



After checking into our hotel, we all went on a city tour of Lima... More dates and names... and a quiz about things that she told us before we went to Cuzco a year or so ago.... who can remember all that... who wants to?

We saw Colonial Lima and Modern Lima. I couldn't tell much difference except that modern Lima had big bank buildings. It is a dismal, depressing city no matter how you look at it. As far as all the names and dates she threw at us.. you will have to find that information from someone else... I don't have a clue.




We saw a big... really big... Inca sun temple made out of adobe instead of stone. There isn't any stone around Lima. I can't tell you any more than it looks like a gigantic heap of mudbricks... although our guide had lots to say about it.. it's still a mystery to me.

Then we were to do something that I had been looking forward to since I first came on this trip. A visit to the Inca Gold Museum. Holy Wow... I am excited now.

Firstly, there were notices plastered all over the museum by the government stating that many of the artifacts were not authentic.. and they were in the process of determining which were which. That really didn't bother me, though.. I was too thrilled.

We enter the museum and go down stairs to a huge vault.. like a bank vault that contains several immense display rooms. As soon as we get there, Gyspy and Cuz and some others go flying past the display of tools to see the gold. The cheerful guide calls us back and says... "No.. No.. we are going to start the tour here"... (she meant "here" at the boring tools exhibit). We gave her a few minutes to get into her speil.. and then wandered successfully away. She was so busy quizzing people on dates and names that she didn't even notice were gone. I think she had decided we had already flunked her history class by then, anyway.

We slither out of the room of tools and such... and we Go For The Gold! Yikes.. here it is... a mass of Inca gold.. the stuff that the Spaniards went absolutely crazy for! My mouth dropped open and I stared in amazement.. and quickly came to the conclusion that the Spaniards were already crazy by the time they reached the New World.

The gold was the crappiest, dullest, most discolored and corroded, unimpressive, rough, and ugly stuff I have ever seen!!!!! I am horror-struck. All of us who slipped away are speachless! This gold looks like yellowish tinfoil.. about that thick. It is a shade of yellow, and that is about the only thing I can say for it. Can you even imagine our disappointment? There were several rooms of this tawdry stuff. This has been a really bad day for Gypsy and Cuz.. they don't take major disappointment too well.



We were told by our guide, when we visited the Inca sites, that the insides of the temples were covered in gold.. and there were also many golden objects that the Spaniards took and melted down. I can't help, now, but wonder if it was worth all that trouble.

We had expected to see something like the Egyptian work in gold. When you look at the golden mask of Tutankhamen, you feel like you are looking at a living person. A horrible thought...You don't suppose the Inca really looked like this, do you?



This has been a whole day of things that we don't need to remember. Even lunch was ickie fish that we couldn't eat... and Gypsy's afternoon shopping trip was also a non-event. Well.. after a good nights sleep we will surely be eager to face Peru again.. tomorrow we leave for our extension trip to the Amazon!