We got up and ate at the hotel, then Daddy went out to take pictures of people in
We then wandered back to the market (on the way I bought a delicious piece of bread at a panadería, a bakery) and we bought some things like woven belts for my sisters (and Crystal) and a woven alpaca-fiber wall hanging for our home. After shopping, we walked back to the hotel and met Daddy and Sally and went to the airport.
The flight to
When we got to
Barranca is a colonial-style place with lots of buildings built after the 1890s war between
We got back on the bus (another Merced Sprinter) and drove through the
We then drove downtown and saw the central plaza and cathedral. Downtown
After the plaze, we toured a Franciscan monastery, which was one of the few buildings to survive the earthquake. It was gorgeous inside, but my favorite part was the catacombs underneath the building. The catacombs are in a section of the monastery that uses the underground structures to protect the building from earthquakes, with arched ceilings and special columns built to spread the out the shock of the quake. In the catacombs were lots of bones and skulls.
I was impressed with what happened when I walked into the catacombs … I felt the Holy Ghost. This makes me think about why I love cemeteries, because I have a testimony of the resurrection, which makes death not as much of a sad thing. I know that one day all those people will be able to live again, thanks to Christ’s atonement, and I am reminded of that fact every time I go into a cemetery.
After the catacombs, we saw more of the monastery, including a huge library full of books from the 1500s on. The library reminded me of something on the Harry Potter movies, with circular staircases, huge book stands and that great musty book smell.
When we left the monastery, we went to a museum with a huge private collection of Incan and pre-Incan artifacts, most of them collected by a rich family that paid people for the spoils of grave robbery. I was amazed at the sheer number (about 40,000) of pieces of pottery, which were sculpted into all sorts of people and animal shapes. The majority of the pieces were found in burial sites throughout
After the museum, our family got dropped off at the Indian Market (where we were a week earlier) and the guide and driver took Sally back to the airport. We found the rest of our souvenirs (I bought an alpaca tie!) and ate dinner at Pepe’s, a fast-food place that was pretty good. Then, we walked to a grocery store and bought some candy to take home to people at work, and we also got some aji pepper sauce for Daddy, because he became quite enamored with it during the trip. Then, at
No comments:
Post a Comment