On a Lima City tour with my Gate 1 tour group. Our first stop was at Plaza San Martin, where I was yesterday. See Slide Shows, South America, Peru, Lima, "Cultural Tour" for more photos of Plaza San Martin.

Walking through Lima's Historical Center.

Past an old interesting building with a statue in front of it.

Our next stop was at the Church la Merced built in the Spanish Baroque Churrigueresque style in 1535. The church venerates the Peruvian Armed Forces.

Close-up of the front of the church.

Close-up.

Close-up.

Inside the church.

Close-up.

Outside the church. At least one of the vendors is a nun. My guide told me yesterday that nuns in Lima often serve as vendors to make money for their churches.

Offered are tamales, corn cakes with cheese or chicken or sweet, and green tamalitos.

It must be Zumba Sunday as a large stage with dancing and very loud music was set up in Playa Mayor. See movie in Albums, South America, Peru, "Day 7, Lima/Pachacamac/Larco Museum."

The Cathedral of Lima in Plaza Mayor. Part of the square was roped off by the police for the zumba dancers.

Walking to the Basilica & Convent of San Francisco.

The Basilica & Convent of San Francisco.

A vendor sitting on the steps of the church.

A man in a costume. It looked like something would be going on here soon.

Another man in a costume.

What would be going on is a Virgen del Carmen procession. The procession is usually held on July 16, but this was near the end of August. The Virgen del Carmen refers to the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Carmelites.

The Virgen del Carmen processions are held in many Latin American countries and also in Spain. Here, the costumes are represent different periods of history and professions in Peru, though I couldn't find explantion of many of them. The character with the long nose either represents the Spanish or an unjust judge of the ruling class during the Republic.

The Virgen del Carmen being carried at the end of the procession. See Albums, South America, Peru, "Day 7, Lima/Pachacamac/Larco Museum" for a movie of the procession.

Inside the beautiful Basilica of San Francisco.

Close-up.

Arches inside the church.

Close-up of the arches.

A chapel.

The figure is probably of the black Peruvian saint, Saint Martin de Porres.

A chapel.

Close-up.

Closer-up.

Another chapel. This was the end of our city tour.

Next was an optional tour to the pre-Inca and Inca Pachacamac ruins outside Lima. The ruins were in this dusty, sandy area. Pachacamac was the seat of the Oracle Pachacamac and a place of pilgrimage from other cultures such as the Wari and Nazca.

Pachacamac was first settled around 200 AD and was named after Pacha Kamaq, the "Earth Maker" creator god. The site lasted for about 1,300 years. The Incas took it over in the late 1400s and the Spanish invaders destroyed much of it as well as looters and weather. This photo shows a pyramid with a ramp.

Close-up of the pyramid. One section of the complex was a sacred religious site and another was a secular section with ramps and plazas.

A bird on the pyramid.

Calle Norte Sur, a street.

Ruins.

Ruins.

Ruins.

Ruins.

Ruins.

Ruins.

Ruins.

Ruins.

Ruins.

Ruins.

My tour group gathering to climb up the hill to the Temple of the Sun.

Going up the hill.

Farther along.

Our tour manager, Julio, walking with me up the hill as I was walking very slowly because of a sore foot.

On top of the hill, at the Temple of the Sun. It is believed that the Incas built the Temple of the Sun and housed a wooden statue of Pachacamac in it.

Main entrance to the Temple of the Sun (tour mate Lisa Lagorio's photo).

The early cultures had a great view of the ocean from the top of the hill, sans all the modern additions.

Down the hill. These squares were wells.

The town on the outskirts of the ruins.

Ruins.

Ruins.

Ruins.

A bust of most likely Peter Eekout, an archaelogist from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles who studied and exacavated the Pachacama ruins. In May 2018, he and his team discovered a 1,000-year-old mummy here.

The Mamacones Enclosure, which was the nunnery. It has been reconstructed.

Close-up.

Close-up.

Close-up. There is a museum here though we didn't visit it.

This evening I went on another Gate 1 optional tour. This time to the Larco Herrera Museum in Lima, which is both privately owned and has the world's largest collection of pre-Columbian artifacts, giving an overview of 4,000 years of Peruvian pre-Columbian history. It is housed in an 18th-century building.

The museum has a separate room devoted just to erotic sculptures.

Other rooms are full of other scultptures and pottery.

Sculptures and pottery.

In another room are many racks, more than shown in the photo, full of sculptures, pottery, and masks.

Pottery.

Masks.

A happy mask.

Masks and sculptures.

Sculptures.

Pottery.

In another room was more pottery.

Pottery.

Sculpture.

There were also headdresses at the museum.

Headdresses.

Headdresses.

Headdresses.

Headdress and jewelry.

Jewelry.

Jewelry.

A sculpture.

These look to be from Peru's Spanish era.

A cloth.

Close-up of the cloth's design.

Another scultpture.