Downtown Lima: Palace and Church
posted at 7:24 pm
on May. 15, 2004
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Tuesday of our trip, we took a taxi to downtown Lima. We were dropped off in the central square, by the cathedral. To its right, the presidential palace squats behind a metal fence and a large courtyard. Just as we arrived, the daily changing of the guard started. First, a large marching band tromped out slowly from the corner and set up on the opposite side of the fence facing the gathered crowd. I had to suppress an urge to throw food to them; not only would it have been rude, but local police semi-armed with riot gear (a shield here, a baton there) kept tourists from rushing the fence.
Once the band had dug in, pounding drums and tooting horns, several squads of brightly dressed soldiers high-stepped into view, came about facing each other, shared well-timed salutes, swapped places, then marched out again by various doors and archways.
The whole process took about 30 minutes, during which time I suppose anyone could have sneaked in at the back of the castle while all the guards were busy strutting and bowing in the front yard.
The “Lonely Planet: Peru” book I bought and brought said that guided personal tours of the palace were available free by appointment. But it was a little blurry about what door to go ask at. Robin took the lead and asked about seven people, none of whom spoke English, about where to go. They pointed her along the edge of the palace in a large square. As we were intrepidly adventuring, we wandered into the lobby of the main post office, one side of which has a philately exhibit. The current show was of fish stamps arranged not just by country, but also by phylum of fish; truly some employee with very few friends had an outlet for his organizational disorder. Also, it became clear just how boring U.S. stamps are—all I seem to ever get from the postal employees here are flags, sunsets and people’s big heads slightly off center with some object like a plane or an ear of corn in the background. These other countries had 6 x 6 grids of ocean coral reef scenes, or large manta rays swooping into the stamp, or battling squid and sharks, or scary fish with extra spines staring directly at the stamp-purchaser. No way I’m licking that.
But post office visits be damned, we had a palace tour to find. Finally we discovered the proper office building housing the Palace’s Office of Public Affairs. We were ushered into the large office of the head of the department, who sat us down, offered us water, then carefully wrote down our names and passport numbers in a large ledger. Other that some confusion about Amy’s age and gender (women do not, apparently, shave their heads much in Lima), it went smoothly, and we were told to return the next day at 9:45 for a personal tour. Excellent.
We wandered out and over to the Convent of the San Franciscan monks—I was confused why monks would have a convent, but perhaps I’m not translating correctly. They had a catacomb underneath their large church, and there are stacks and stacks of bones piled throughout the underground tunnels. We were given a tour of the building and the catacombs below. The tour guide told us that most of the tunnels are still in fine shape, despite many significant earthquakes, the largest of which was in 1746. Mostly, though, I learned from the tour guide that:
* to some people, English is really an attitude rather than a language
* people are hard to hear when they are walking away from you while talking softly quickly and with no inflection and also they’re bored
* even the most interesting building can be made dreary if you view it at too fast a saunter.
The next day, we returned for two much better tours: the presidential palace and the cathedral. The palace tour included several treats, including the opportunity to take our picture with one of those stoic guards who pretends he can’t hear you—How is that a threatening quality in a guard? I want a guard that watches me suspiciously. Also, we got to sit in the same seats used by the press corps when they grill the president. How cool. We got to see the back garden and the main entrance hall, and a lovely room that was modeled on but actually was more pleasant than the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
Peru’s a fascinating mixture of ethnicities, in a way that you wouldn’t expect. I think it’s safe to say that most Americans perceive Peru, when they do think about it, to be a fairly homogenous Spanish amalgam. In fact, the palace was built with Incan highlights for a Spanish leader by a French planner, who was later replaced by a Polish architect, who liked to include Moorish stylings (which the Spanish took from the Turks). Meanwhile, the current president is of Japanese heritage, and the current archbishop has British ancestry; he replaced an Italian potentate.
When the palace tour finished, Robin checked out the royal bathrooms. Plain old toilet paper, she said, no gold leaf.
We then headed over to the cathedral.
The cathedral has been standing since it was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1746, and it’s mostly made of wood, including the enormous pillars It’s quite odd to knock on them; they’re hollow.
Our guide, Maria, was an employee of the church but was sort of an anti-tour guide. Instead of saying things like “This cathedral was the most ambitious example of post-Spanish imperialist architecture since the blah blah blah blah, she was completely subversive. For example, though there is a shrine with the body of Pizarro immediately to the right of the entrance, she made it clear that “Pizarro was NOT a hero to the Peruvian people. I mean, he killed the leader of Peru and took everything over. He was very important man, but NOT hero.” She also got great glee out of pointing out that, in the glass-enclosed alcove with Pizarro’s remains, “that small box has his head, and that big box has his body. He was beheaded. Not by the Peruvians, but by his own people, the Spanish. They didn’t like him either.”
Ninety percent of Peruvians are Catholic, but according to Maria, they aren’t very happy about it. Peruvians practice variations of Catholicism, that are the result of a fusion between Incan beliefs and modern Catholicism. The cathedral also houses an excellent museum of religious art, and as she was showing us lovely dioramas and Nativity scenes, she pointed out how the Spanish-looking Mary and Joseph would often in images have given birth to a golden-haired baby with an angular crown-looking halo—this was a nod to the Incan sun god and sun king beliefs.
Religious representations of the Virgin Mary, who is much more popular in Peru than Jesus, Maria said, also often exhibited a mixture of Catholic and native beliefs. The European Virgin is traditionally shown in blue and white, holding baby Jesus, looking svelte and modest. The equivalent Peruvian woman goddess is Pachacmama, Mother Earth, who was also painted as the Virgin Mary, but often in reds and golds, with long dark loops of hair that contribute to a mountainous overall shape to the painting. She is often holding a flower or fruit, and is shown standing on a leaf or out of a flower. In this way, Peruvians were able to keep worshiping their own iconography while simultaniously convincing the inquisition and authorities that they were embracing Catholicism.
Overall, it was the most unexpected tour I’ve been given at a traditional tourist destination. She said she’d been working in the services of the cathedral for a year, so I guess they hadn’t caught on that she was demystifying the building, the leadership, and the beliefs of the church all at once. Also, she asked for a tip. (We gladly gave it.)
