Today I'll be a Tourist

For the first time since arriving, I found myself without any fixed plans for the day. There were a couple of options open to me: sit in the hostel and read and grade, waiting for Alfredo to call, or get out and do something. The obvious choice is the second one, so I fought off the desire to be a lazy couch potato and get out and do what I came to do.
After a before-school Skype call to CJ and the kids, I got up and went for a run. I ran 2-3 miles intermittently, ended up down at the Larcomar mall, and worked my way back up to the hostel to get cleaned up and get moving.
I decided to go to the Peru Museum of Gold, located on the first floor of Larcomar. For S./25 (about $9) you get an audio tour of the Museum of Gold. I took pictures of all the gold artifacts there, but this one is my favorite.

In an effort to see just how many people actually read this blog, I am offering a contest giveaway. I will give away a keychain replica of this artifact to five people who leave comments on this post. The first person who can give me the correct name for this artifact will automatically win a keychain, and I will draw four additional winners randomly from those who post comments. This contest will end on March 27, at which point I will draw the winners and notify them by email. Good luck.

Here are a few other artifacts on display at the Museo de Oro. Really cool. This crown is over 700 years old and still has most of its brilliance. All the color is natural and has not been retouched or restored.

This burial mask is enormous, about 20 inches across. If you look closely, you can see holes where additional adornments were attached, and in some places you can see remnants of the paint that the Incas put on the mask to decorate it. For the Incas, the gold didn't matter as much as the colors, and it was the later people who dug up the mask that removed all the paint to reveal the gold underneath. Even so, it's incredibly impressive.

Priceless artifacts. Absolutely amazing.

After the Museo de Oro, I headed back up to the Parque Kennedy, where I caught the Mirabus for an hour-long tour of the Miraflores District on the open top of a double-decker bus.

When I wasn't getting whipped in the face by assorted tree branches, I got an excellent view of some pretty cool stuff. Like Huaca Pucllana, a 1500 year old adobe pyramid on the edge of Miraflores.
It's hard to believe, but the coastal city doesn't get a lot of rain, so much of the original architecture was adobe. This site is only open Wednesday through Monday, so I am going to try and get there tomorrow or Thursday during the conference lunch break.

When the tour ended, I stopped by the indoor artisan fair. I wandered for about an hour and saw a ton of great stuff. I will have to go back later this week and buy some souvenirs for the kids. It's going to take some serious self control not to go overboard and spend spend spend.