Historical Lima

     We went today a tour of the old city of Lima. After our departure, we left for the center of the city; the concentration of the historical buildings in the area is truly astonishing. Lima's cathedral, the Presidential Palace, and the Church of San Francisco are all within walking distance of each other for the well guided visitor. This combination of sites allowed us to have a truly unique tour today that illuminated much of Peru's post-conquest culture.
     The tour Began With Peru's Presidential Palace. Although it is the workplace of President Ollanta Humala rather than his residence (as the American White House is), it is still a sight to behold. Completed in 1938 to replace the previous palace (which had been devastated by fire and earthquakes), it clearly reflects the Peruvian cultural leanings of the time. It's architect purposefully built it in the Spanish colonial style with certain modern twists and changes, including several beautiful art deco statues and busts of Peruvian historical figures. The tour showed the different areas of the Presidential palace, such as the main meeting room, the press conference room, and several of its displays of art.
     Next, we visited Lima's Cathedral, the heart of the Catholic Church in Peru. Built over the site of a demolished Incan temple, it has been the ceremonial and administrative center of Catholicism in Peru since Pizarro founded Lima. In fact, his remains and the remains of several saints and religious figures are interred in the Cathedral, and are arguably the its most important historical artifacts. In addition, the Cathedral serves as the administrative center of the Catholic Church in Peru, and no longer conducts weddings and other common ceremonies to devote more time to its leadership. The Cathedral has been rebuilt and modified several times over to recover from Lima's notorious earthquakes and to accommodate the infrastructure upgrades of the 1940s and 1950s. Afterwards, we witnessed a changing of the guard at the presidential palace. It was a true spectacle of military ceremony, with the guards and exchanging salutes and choreographed marches for 20 minutes. It was interesting to note the calm, cool disposition of the better armed police outside the gates amidst the small parade. 
     Finally, after lunch, we headed for the Church of San Francisco, home of Peru's notorious catacombs. We began with a tour of the Church's surface, which is home to its main library and several galleries of Spanish colonial art. The library is amazing; it holds 20,000 volumes of historical books, the oldest of which was written in 1576, on subjects from theology to botany. Its painting collection is focused heavily on realist portraits of events from the New Testament and from the Spanish conquest of Peru by Italian and Spanish artists of the colonial era. Finally, we toured the Catacombs, an elaborate network of tunnels beneath the church that were used during colonial times as graces. Only the femurs and skulls of the dead had endured the centuries due to the calcium density naturally in them. The caretakers had simply sorted them into piles of skulls and leg bones with little regard for keeping the parts of their owners together. This gave the whole floor of the Church an admittedly disturbing sort of order.
     Seeing so much of Lima's and Peru's background at once was an astonishing experience on multiple levels. Although it is a relatively young country, Peru has a rich history that has been woven for centuries from countless different cultures. However, as the construction of the Cathedral on top of the old Incan temple demonstrates, these influences have been adopted to Peru, and woven into its distinct identity. Thus, Peru persists without stagnating, and evolves without being absorbed into a larger power.