An unusual (for me) holiday in Lima

I have astonished myself by having a holiday in a big city!  I'd never have believed it 3 years ago - my holidays usually involve lots of countryside and few people... but now that I live in a small town in the mountains, there are lots of things I miss in the city, and I've discovered it can even be relaxing.

I enjoyed a trip to the Larco museum, which has lots of ceramics from different Peruvian eras and I could see lots of what I've learned about the Quechua worldview coming out in much earlier periods.

The feline / the puma: the power of this world and the
Inca empire... so the invading Spanish decide that Peruvian pottery
will now incude a cat being carried off by a human

Various cities in Peru have a "chocomuseo" where you can learn about the history of chocolate and try samples.  They also do workshops, which I've been wanting to try ever since I arrived.  So fellow-missionaries Lindsay and Mae (who is chocolate-mad) and I learned how to make truffles.

My handiwork... messy in process but looked (and tasted) pretty good finished

And whenever I'm in Lima I try to catch up with Raquel and Percy.  This time the circus was in town, so I took them along - it was very impressive!

I first knew Percy as an undersized baby so now one of my
favourite things is watching him eat huge quantities of food

I did have a few jobs to do... A friend of mine regularly visits a British lady in the high security prison, but is currently away for a few months.  So I said I would visit in her absence.  It took a lot of advance arranging (linked to the passport renewal saga as I had to supply my new ID) but on the day was very easy - I walked straight through security and didn't even get any stamps on my arms.  She was touchingly pleased to see me despite us never havng met and I will probably go again next time I'm in Lima.

And then I went to the National Engineering University to follow up a contact and visit the national hydraulics laboratory.  Unthinkingly I had expected something similar to the basement lab at Southampton, but here's what I saw.  It was good to remember that engineering is often about huge projects as well as tiny ones.

This machine is for simulating rainfall on different soil surfaces
 - it's given me an idea for a training session, on a much smaller scale!

In the in-between times there was plenty of time for sitting around, watching TV, eating Indian / Chinese / Mexican / Arabic food, catching up with great friends and speaking lots of English.  And while I'm learning to appreciate the city as a place for holidays, the timing was just right - I'm an introvert after all and by the end of 10 days I was ready to go back to my mountains!