Trip to downtown Lima with friends.

This is the outfit the accused person has to wear. The pointed hat has a devil on it.

This is the water torture. They put a soft cloth in the mouth and drop drops of water on it. It suffoctes you. They put only 40 drops in a session. I guess before the 40 drops are on the cloth you would confess. They are trying to get people to confess to their crimes against the church.

There were two forms of death administered. One by strangulation and the other by fire. This is the strangulation chair. They tied the person into the chair with the rope around the neck. You can see the black crank at the back of the chair. The executioner would crank that wheel to tighten the rope.

The one at the back is the whipping. They would do 120 whips. The other one is a guy hanging by his hands. His feet are off the ground.

This one is the stretching one. They put 50 lb. weights on the ropes tied to the arms or legs and stretch. She said they had a few die from this method of torture.

Last week we went to the center of Lima where all the history places are and we were waiting to see the changing of the guard. We were standing in the Plaza de Armas and here came a group of policemen with their riot shields running by us. They went to a man who was standing on a wall and surrounded him. They ushered him off the Plaza and we saw the riot water tank come by a few times and there was a lot of shouting and stuff. My heart really started pounding. We were not sure what we were supposed to do. So, we just stood there and watched. I was reminded of how very fragile our safety is.

Also, January, the Brashers and I went to Gamarra which is a very popular, busy, not too safe, place to shop. As we entered the area we saw a line of policemen with their motorcycles and another line of them with their riot shields just standing there watching. January went over to them and asked what was happening. They said there was a demonstration and that we would be safe. So, we went our way and found most of the shops closed. We found one with elastic which I needed so we went in. All of a sudden they started closing the iron doors to the place. We didn't want to be caught inside there, so we went out on the street. All the shops were closing their doors and hiding behind them. There we stood, right out on the street. Te demonstration group went by and we watched them go. They were very orderly and interesting to watch. We could not read their signs but they went on around the block and over to right where we needed to go to get our fabric. The shop we go to has two entrances. One was gated and locked and the other one had a small door in the gate open. We went on into the area and found many of those shops not open yet. I guess the shop people knew about the demonstration and didn't bother coming to work that day. Again, how safe are we really? We do go to some places that are not recommended in the night and we don't stay at Gamarra past 1:00 in the afternoon. It is just too crowded. Way to many people. Bro. Brasher took some pictures. We have been told to never take our cameras there so we were shocked to see him taking pictures. Nothing happened to him. I will try to get the ones he took and put them on this blog.

Today Steve and I went to the changing of the guard - again. It is very interesting. I took some video with my camera. Hope it came out so I can share it with you. They have a very military band and the guards march around with the stiff legs, each has a flag and a sword. Very colorful and interesting. I am glad we got to see that. We also went to the Museum of the Inquisition. It was a period of time in Peru when you were punished if you did not claim allegience to the Catholic Church. It was in the 1500-1600's. They had the room where you were judged, a group jail room where people stayed as much as eight years. There was an area for torture too. They said they only killed 32 people during about 100 year period. Anyway, I will add some pictures. The way this thing works the pictures will probably be first. Hope not. The pictures are at the top. Enjoy. Not very pretty stuff. I am so glad I live now.