Peru: Day Eight - Part One

This was our last day in Peru, and also Thanksgiving. We had some time before our flight back to Lima, so after a lovely breakfast at the hotel, we checked out and wandered around Cusco with our backpacks on, which was quite the adventure. We went to the center of town and walked around, looking for touristy things to do. The first place we wandered into was the monastery of La Merced, which had a gorgeous collection of painting of the life of St Peter (not the St Peter; this was one from the 15th century, I believe). They also had some really interesting Catholic artifacts. I tried to find a website so you could see pictures of the non-photographables, but apparently they're really serious about that. The pictures are gorgeous, the artifacts are gorgeous. The most amazing part was the hand painted cloister. It was really a sight to see. We were able to take pictures of the courtyard in the middle, though.

A tiny door in Cusco. This is fairly common in Peru.

After that lovely bit of history, we wandered into what was quite possibly the most horrifying museum I had ever been to. There were many terribly taxidermied animals displayed in a small room. I took a lot of pictures, but I no longer feel comfortable sharing all of them (let me know if you're interested in the scary ones, and I'll share them with you). There was also a wide variety of native potatoes, etc.

After the museum of terror, walked by the beautiful church, and found a lovely bench to sit and enjoy the warmth of the day. It had been fairly cool that week, so I was really enjoying one last taste of sunshine before heading back to winter. My team lead had told me before leaving that I needed to take a moment and just drink everything in, so we did and I'm really glad we took time for that. We watched people walking by, and I took an opportunity to do an Emperor's New Groove move, because Cusco.