We have a lazy start to the morning and head down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. After a filling buffet, we get ready and then head out. It is Easter Friday and the streets around the hotel are pretty quiet. There are hardly any cars or people. We decide to take the subway down town to Bolivar Plaza. Once downtown, the city is abuzz. The streets are packed with locals out for the holiday. We wander around the plaza taking in the crowd and the building lining it. We decide to brave the crowd and head to the cathedral.
It is packed and as we try to enter, we are just picked up by the mass of people and carried along in through the large doorway. Inside, everyone is circling the cathedral in an orderly manner. If at any time you tried to leave the snaking line, stop, or even worse, change directions, you caused a huge upheaval in the crowd. We just had to go where they were taking us at their pace. As we went around the church we had a chance to take a quick glance at each of the small alters in each of the alcoves.
At last we were able to make it out and re-group. We checked out the parliament building and then headed over to the Sao Francisco church. Here we once again decided to try to brave the crowds and made our way into the church. This one was a bit better organised - they let the people in in waves, so it was not as crowded inside.
Then it is lunch time, but nothing is open. All we can find are a Wendy's and a McDonalds. As we just had McDonalds a couple of days ago, we opted for the Wendy's. Nothing special, but it filled our tummies. The rest of the day was spent relaxing back at the hotel. Everything was closed in town, so we decided it was best to just hang out and enjoy the hotel.
For dinner we went to one of the trendy parts of town and had Japanese. Jacqui had a craving for it, so we satisfied it. It was actually quite good.