Cathedral Mischief

What a wonderful day I had today! Grace, Margot, and I decided to be a little touristy, so I strapped on my fanny pack, armed it with my camera, sunglasses, and enough soles for a trip to the center of Lima. We saw the Plaza de Armas, which has a beautiful fountain in the middle and is surrounded by the Cathedral of Lima, the Governmental Palace, and other administrative buildings.
We had to pay to get into the Cathedral, and they gave us a pamphlet explaining a little bit of the history of each Chapel. The English translations were a little bit off sometimes, and at the same time that I was chuckling at it, I was wondering how inaccurate my Spanish is. We got to go into the crypt where there was a case full of skulls as well as the coffins of children. It was a little bit spooky.
Next we wandered into the courtyard. A side room brought us to a mysterious staircase. There were no signs telling us not to enter, and hey, you only live once. The stairway brought us to what seemed like the living quarters of the groundskeeper or maintenance person of the cathedral. There were jeans hanging on a line, and shoes sitting in a corner. We probably should have turned around, but there was yet another staircase, and we were so curious! A series of increasingly steep, precarious steps brought us to the roof of the cathedral. How amazing the view was! Feathers littered the ground (not to mention a fair amount of bird excrement) and we could see the shells of the domes that we had been looking up at within the cathedral not 5 minutes prior.
As we continued exploring, we found another staircase that led up to the bell tower. I felt like the hunch back of Notre Dame, looking down at the bustling city from the peace and silence that comes from such great heights. The ravens that seemed so small and distant from the ground now looked sinister perched on the statues of old men that eternally guard the cathedral. The bells within the tower were tarnished and ancient, tempting me to make them ring anew. When we got our fill of the beautiful view of the sprawl of Lima, we began our descent back through the living quarters, down all the stairs, and back to the courtyard. Cathedral Mischief at it's finest.

Next we went to the Church of Saint Francis. A tour guide showed us around the old monastery, whose walls were covered in beautiful old tiles and frescoes. Much of the woodwork has disintegrated over time due to humidity and earthquakes, and the frescoes were only discovered after an earthquake in the 1970s revealed them. For some reason many of the faces were missing in the frescoes. Nobody is sure why. The tour guide led us down into the catacombs, where the bones of thousands of Catholics rest. It was an eerie experience. Many of the catacombs have yet to be excavated. Some of the grave sites were clearly marked as the graves of important people, but for the most part, anyone who was Catholic could be buried there. It was amazing to see so many skulls and femurs, and I wondered what their lives were like, so long ago. Lima has a rich history, and it has been fascinating to learn and to see the relics of what seems like a completely different world.