Some observations about El Centro in Lima
Lima has neighborhood subdivisions, like DC and NYC. Aaron and Violeta live in Miraflores, for example. El Centro is the downtown part of Lima and has a lot of historical significance, being the center of Lima during the Pizarro days. The structures in El Centro are grand, and the city tries to keep them up, as well as the grounds–many of them seem to be undergoing restoration work. The Plaza Mayor (most barrios, or neighborhoods, have a major plaza or open square park) has a fountain in the middle, with pretty lanscaped flower and grass sections. Surrounging this plaza you can find buildings like the Palacio de Gobierno or The Presidential Palace (Lima’s White House), the Cathedral (de Lima?), the old post office building, and fancy-looking municipal buildings. Not far from that plaza are the Iglesia de San Francisco (church, monastery, and the site of catacombs), Jiron de la Union (an avenue with 5 blocks blocked off for pedestrian walking and shopping), and other churches and colonial-period structures like the Iglesia de La Merced, San Pedro, and Torre Tagle Palace. San Martin Plaza is also close by.
There was a ton of people out and about–natives, tourists, native-tourists (from other provinces)–all walking around, window shopping, people watching. We saw a procession of soldiers, marching band and all, in front of the palace doing their ceremony to lower the flag for the night. Some Peruvians don’t care to go to El Centro, because it is dirty and more dangerous, in theory. Poverty is rife down here, and jobs aren’t always easy to come by, so people try their best to make money in some way. When we were stopped at a light in a taxi, there for 30 seconds or less, I saw three teenagers step into the crosswalk in from of us and start to juggle. They juggled for ten seconds or so and spent the remaining ten seconds or so walking past the waiting cars, trying to sell their blinking balls.
