Osambela mansion

On Saturday the 25th of April we decided to spend our P-day with George and Rochi Anderson. Our snowbirds from Cananda as they are going back to Cananda for 6 months on the 4th of May. After having lunch at a Peruvian restaurant not far from our apartment we walked to the calle Salaverry and caught a bus for down town Lima. It was our intention to go to a nice park by the Rimac river and close to down town. As we were walking over towards the park we went

thru the printing district. We saw hundred and hundred of little shops with their printing presses going to full capacity.

We walked down this one street quite by accident and came to this old blue building that was the Osambela mansion. A man was standing in the doorway and ask George and I if we would like to tour the mansion. It was free and we said yes. The four of us were the only people there plus this mans teenage son. We found out that the mansion was constructed in 1790 and took 10 years to build. We have a picture of the guide that incidently lives with his wife and child in the building. He is standing next to a model of the mansion.

The original owner was quite wealthy and had a tower built on the

top so that he could watch ships come and leave Callao. He could also watch smaller ships come up the Rimac river from the ocean.

There are three large court yards and
the rooms all open off of a courtyard. In the main courtyard there are two large staircases, one on each side.
The one on the left was used only by royalty. The one on the right was for effluent people, but not of royal descent. We went up the royal staircase.

In one of the rooms he showed us a bookcase that had many old books. Books that were much larger than normal. The book that he let us thumb through was printed in 1540. It was a medical book. We were quite surprised that he let us touch it and turn the pages.

We took pictures of some of the paintings that hung on the walls.

There were several large rooms that could have been used for conferences or councils.

There was one room where I counted over 100 chairs.

He even took us up on the roof of the building. To get up there we had to go up this very narrow stairway. I barely fit.

We had a view of the city from the top. We could see how dirty it gets because of the lack of rain that kind of keeps everything clean


We were also told by the guide that there are underground tunnels to various location throughout the city. One goes to Cathedral, the presidential palace and another to the convent plus others.