Lima, Peru

Elsje and I have just come back from an amazing evening. We went to see the Lima fountains and afterwards to see traditional Peruvian folk dances with a buffet dinner serving traditional food. Admittedly the fountains were a bit lame, but the folk dances and the music were absolutely amazing. It was the perfect end to an awesome week of exploring this fascinating city.

Whilst doing research about Lima and the best things to do and see here I came across a lot of negative comments regarding this strange and vibrant city. Most travelers seemed to dismiss the city in favour of Cuzco, which I understand in one sense, but in another I feel that they perhaps missed something about this place. Having said that, one commentator who had very little good to say about Lima mentioned that it is the people that make Lima the special place that it is. I have to agree with him and both Elsje and I feel that this is perhaps the  best advice one could give to anyone traveling here - engage with the people! They are an immensely proud, interesting, passionate, contrasting and friendly bunch if ever one there was. We were fortunate enough to be here during a special time of year for Peruvians. It is the the anniversary of Peruvian independence and the atmosphere is thick with festivity. Also the national football team won yesterday, making for a loud and enthusiastic Saturday night.

So, we did the Lima thing properly. We had a good balance of touristy stuff; a sprinkling of the ancient, the colonial and the modern. I tried cerviche (the traditional dish of raw fish marinated in lime juice, served with corn and sweet potato) and pisco sours, a traditional alcoholic drink, and ate some alpaca (a small lama).


On Friday we went to Huaca Pucllana, the pyramid in Miraflores. It is surrounded by high-rise buildings giving the area a strange atmosphere.  This site was a religous centre for the ancient Lima culture which predated the Inkas by a considerable margin of time.

Our guide, Wilmer, with a Peruvian hairless dog.

After Huaca Pucllana (and after a mandatory stop at the Indian market) we went to the historical centre to see the Plaza de Armas. We met there some friendly but clearly lost German tourists. I had map and it seemed we were going the same way so we went together to see the San Francisco cathedral and its catacombs. It is a very interesting building, both inside and out. You can't take pictures inside, which is unfortunate because the interiors are astoundingly beautiful. It's really eerie in the catacombs, what with all the piles of femurs and skulls, some arranged in macabre patterns. 

There is some truly awesome colonial architecture in Lima though and not only in the historical centre, but in areas like Miraflores and Barranco. Unfortunately most of the photos I have of the buildings were taken from taxis and are too blurry to be worth putting up.

San Francisco Cathedral

Say what you like about the Spaniards,  they knew how to build, or rather, they certainly knew how to decorate. I always wondered about that. It always seemed to me that Catholicism lends itself to a baroque aesthetic sensibility, a kind of excess of ornament. Coupled with the Moorish influences, which you can clearly see on the interiors of the San Francisco cathedral, it makes for some very interesting architecture, a kind of visual bombardment which stands in stark contrast to the Calvinist austerity of much of the Dutch architecture in South Africa.

Anyhoo, to finish off our day of unintentional contrasts we went for lunch at the famous open-air mall, Larcomar which is built on a cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean.

The next day, Elsje's birthday, we went on a tour to an archeological site called Caral about two and a half hours north of Lima. This was a very special place. Apparently contemporaneous with the Egyptian pyramids, our tour guide reckoned that when the complex is fully uncovered (only 20% has been excavated so far) it will rival Machu Picchu in historical and archeological importance. It is located in  a desert (which looks remarkably like parts of Namibia) in amongst mountains, just above a fertile river valley.

Our guide for this trip was very cool. He veritably bombarded us with facts about his beloved Peru. He had extensive knowledge about all of the cultures, ancient and modern, of each of the main areas of Peru and was very interested in South Africa and Namibia. He even ventured to try some gemsbok biltong. After the tour of the site we went for lunch in a town - I think it was called Huaca - famous for its sausage(?). We got back to a Lima scored by a symphony of car hooters and chanting football fans ecstatic that Peru had won their match against Venezuela. We took a walk around Kennedy park to soak up the atmosphere and returned to our hotel, exhausted, but utterly satisfied. All in all it was a highly enjoyable and informative experience. We got to see parts of Lima and rural Peru that I think many tourists simply miss out on.

This morning (Sunday the 24th) Elsje woke up with a bit of a jippy tummy and so she decided to stay in bed. We had booked a tour to Pachacamac, another archaeological site, but she obviously wasn't up for it, so I went alone. It wasn't quite as impressive as Caral and it was a bit more touristy, judging by the proportion of Americans in the tour group, but it was interesting all the same though. I got to see some of the south coast and southern parts of Lima, as well as the Barranco district on the way back.

The restaurant on a cliff

Temple of the Moon

See, contrast

Pachacamac - the creator of the universe

Elsje at the fountains

Limaeans in the water labyrinth:

Some of the dancers we saw tonight:

So ja, that's Lima. I think we spent just enough time here to experience what there was to be seen. We touched lightly, didn't exhaust the place by any means and never were we without something to see or do. I'm glad we gave Lima a chance; it's a very cool, very weird place with very cool and weird people, and insane drivers! We recommend it.

On to Cuzco!!!