The hotel sent a birthday cake with a card to our room.
In the afternoon, we joined our group for a tour of old town. We explored the area around the Plaza Mayor, Plaza Bolivar and Plaza de Armas, viewed numerous wooden balconies, and visited the Church of Santo Domingo. Two of the churches we passed were preparing for wedding celebrations later in the day.
One of two highlights of the day was a tour of Casa de Aliaga. The plot of land was a gift from Francisco Pizarro to Jerónimo de Aliaga after Lima was founded in 1835. Eighteen generations of the family have resided in the house.
The second highlight of the day was a visit to the LARCO museum. The museum is housed in a former mansion and is built on the site of a pre-Columbian temple. The collection brought together much of what we had seen and heard about in the previous weeks in one collection. The physical beauty of the museum is matched by its equisetic and extensive collection of artifacts that highlight more than 3,000 years of ceramic, textiles and precious metal artifacts.
We ended the evening celebrating Ian’s birthday with dinner in the midst of the 1,500-year-old Huaca Pucllana archaeological complex.
