The Mercado Central is a collection of streets in central Lima where you can buy just about anything. You’ll find little in the way of photos of these streets – as any cameras that take them will soon be stolen.
I managed to take these photos of the market without loosing my camera.
From there we walked further to the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, and brilliant blue and yellow convent. After a quick trip through China Town to buy oil for some homemade chifa and we were ready to go home.

Hailing a taxi, we ended up with a taxi driver whom I’ll call Comrade Taxista. Comrade Taxista asked me where I was from. It seems everyone here is keenly interested in what currency we use in the UK, and that indeed was his second question. Libras (pounds sterling to be precise) didn’t register with him and he wanted to confirm it was not Dollars or Euros.
It was then Comrade Taxista laid out his views in argument with Annett and her mother about South American politics. It seems “the best President in South America and the world”, Hugo Chavez, has put forward the idea of a continent-wide currency to equal the Euro and rival (and hopefully destroy) the US Dollar.
Comrade Taxista went on to argue that Hugo Chavez is doing so much for the world and is a real hero. Comrade Taxista said he’d welcome him as President of Peru – or in fact the President of a united South America. But how would this be achieved?
Well, according to Comrade Taxista, Ollanta Humala ought to initiate a Coup D’Etat and create a better kind of country and a better democracy similar to the one they have in Venezuela (where there is effectively a one-party system at present).
After political insults were hurled from both sides of the argument, we left the taxi a couple of blocks early so he wouldn’t know where we lived.

Well we wouldn’t want the Storm Troopers and Secret Police knowing where we live, would we?

Tags: hugo chavez, lima, mercado central, Santa Catalina