Monks and Sea Lions

Rimac is known as a rougher neighborhood of Lima, where you'll find the city's bullfighting ring and well-meaning locals, who will tell you not to wander there without a proper guard.
In spite of all this, it is also the place where you'll find one of Lima's loveliest refuges from the noise and crowd of a busy city - the Convento de los Descalzos (Convent of the Shoeless).
We recently checked it out with visiting relatives (Valerie's mother, Britt's brother and brother's girlfriend) and were really delighted to discover it at last.

Having out of town visitors also was a good excuse to visit a place Valerie dbeen wanting to see for several months. It is a series of islands, just off the coast of Lima's port at Callao, where you can see migratory birds, sea lions, and even the ever popular Humboldt penguins. We'd try to do this before, but it's a long boat tour (4 hours) and you have to reserve seats in advance, as the boats tend to fill up.

Here are photos to tell the stories:

The convent is on a pretty, quiet square in Rimac. Though called a convent, it houses a few monks, who stay away from gawking visitors.

Britt and Alan in one of the several courtyards of the convent.

Material for making pisco (a sort of brandy made from local grapes and used to make the beloved Peruvian cocktail known as a pisco sour)

Stephanie in another lovely courtyard of the convent.

Taking in the good aura of the place..

Here we are in a small boat on the way to a slightly larger boat, headed for a 4-hour tour to the Isla Palomina and other nearby islands.

The life preservers were required and did serve to keep us warm, on what turned out to be a chilly, foggy outing.

We hoped the fog would lift, but it didn't.

It was fun to see flocks of sea birds, but with the fog, we could only see the ones that came close to our boat.

We totally missed the Humboldt penguins, as their island was completely shrouded in fog. Here we approached an island covered with sea lions, which you can just make out in the mist.

One of the features of these boat tours is that you can "swim with the sea lions". In spite of the chill, and because the Peruvian Gwinners seldom miss a chance to prove just how insane they are, we decided to dive into the cold water for a try. Here, Addison and Valerie are trying to keep moving to stay warm as they await their turns to jump into the water.

There was a jolly group of young Peruvians, who served as inspiration. On the left in this photo, you can see Addison and Valerie in the water.

At this point, Britt decided to join in the fun. You'll note the absence of sea lions in the water.
It was about here that Britt looked at Valerie and told her she already looked blue with cold. She headed back to the boat.

Britt and Addison stuck it out with the group - but never did get to swim with the "lobos del mar" who safely observed the crazy humans from their island perches. Needless to say, they dove back into the water the minute all the humans were back on their boat.

Post swim: bundled up and still shivering.