People have lived in this area since 10,000 BC. Towards the second century AD the Lima culture ruled the area (I am presuming that this is why the city is called Lima – just a guess). Its inhabitants built adobe (mud brick) pyramids which one of our guides harped on and on about but more on that later. In the seventh century AD, the Wari culture came into prominence. They were followed by the Chancay. After them were the Incas who were the last Indian culture prior to the Spanish conquest. They ruled for less than 100 years.
The Spanish christened Lima the ‘City of Kings’ when Francisco Pizarro founded it on January 18, 1535. For a while it was the continent’s richest, most important town (although the people in Potosi, Bolivia, will dispute this. They were adament they were the most important Spanish colony). An earthquake in 1746 put an end to Lima’s reign. There are quite a few earthquakes in this region. Perhaps that is when Potosi took over.
So, anyway, enough of the history. We arrived in Lima on Jon’s birthday and headed over to the hotel we were to be staying at for Peru’s Challenge. Hostal Residencial El Faro Inn (what a name) is in Miraflores, a fancy area of Lima, located on the coast. When we arrived we were told that they didn’t have our reservations. They had room for us on Tuesday and Wednesday but not Thursday and Friday, the days we were supposed to be booked in for. I was not impressed and gave them Peru Challanges’ phone number and demanded they rectify the situation while we checked into our room. Room is an exaggeration – more like a shoebox. We then set off to celebrate Jon’s 31st and ended up ordering way too much food (it was delicious) at a rather expensive restaurant. No birthday drinks though – Jon was still feeling crappy and rather crabby after 24 hours on the bus. In fact, his birthday was realy a non event. We spent the evening watching CSI – talk about party animals!
Wednesday we wandered around partaking in my favourite past time – shopping. First stop – LarcoMar which is built right into the oceanfront cliffs in Miraflores. I must say, the beaches here do not look very appealing. Everything is grey and dreary. The whole city is blanketed in a coastal fog from April to December and it drizzles on and off for the entire day (it never rains as such here). It is quite depressing – worse than a Melbourne winter.
We then headed across to the bohemian, clifftop suburb of Baranco which is filled with galleries. I really liked this place. All the houses were old and colourful. This is apparently to make up for the shitty weather (doesn’t quite succeed). I had picked up a random business card for a shop that looked interesting so I got the taxi driver to take us there. I guess it must be luck, or perhaps my inbuilt sense for finding places where I could easily spend thousands, but this gallery was amazing – filled with top quailty handicrafts and artwork from all over Peru. A Welsh lady named Mary owns the place. She moved to Peru 40 years ago (another love story) and has been scouring the coutryside for amazing pieces ever since. Her lounge room is a treasure trove of antique paintings and pottery. It made my mouth water and Jon took lots of pics (I hope she didn’t think we were staking out her place). I was not very excited to hear that it is virtually impossible to pick up any antiques these days. Almost everything has found its way into private collections like hers. It is also illegal to take pre-colonial and colonial artwork out of the country, not that I would let that stop me. Naturally, we fell in love with a painting (Peruvian Folk Art, only 60 odd years old) which we have since acquired and packed into my backpack along with the other two.
Marie’s lounge room.
A colourful church in Baranco.
I thought we better see something cultural whilst we were here – although we were rather content watching hours of cable tv. So, we went on a tour to the sacred citadel of Pachacamac. This place was a ceremonial center for successive pre-Colombian civilisations. The archeaological site comprises flat top pyramid temples and enclosures, although most of it is now piles of rubble. The name Pachacamac translates into ‘he who animated the world’or ‘he who created land and time,’ and comes from the powerful Wari god. The main temple (not sure which that was as our guide was utterly hopeless) was dedicated to this deity and held a famous oracle which pilgrims flocked to. The most complete structures we saw were the Sun God Shrine and Mamacuna which has been reconstructed. The Sun God Shrine once contained skeletons of about 100 women who had been sacrificed. This was evidenced in the fact that their necks were broken. I believe they were killed off for good harvests or to evoke a change in weather. Mamacuna, otherwise known as the Palace of the Chosen Women or Virgins of the Sun, was a temple for the most beautiful women from around the place. These girls (as young as 8-10) were the ones sacrificed (it would have been better to be ugly in those days). Unfortunately we couldn’t go into this structure (earthquake damage) which might have made the excursion worthwhile. As I mentioned before, our guide knew nothing. Everytime I asked him a question he said ‘Remember I told you’ or ‘It all started with the Lima culture’ to which I kept responding ‘No you did not’ and ‘That is not what I asked, I don’t care about Limas’. All in all, the trip was a disappointing waste of time and money.
The Palace of the Chosen Women.
Thursday night we moved into our new room. The hotel had rectified the lack of a booking problem. We found ourselves in the presidencial suite with a king size bed – luxury.
On Friday we met some of our volunteer group whom we went on a city tour with. They seem like a friendly bunch. I think we will have a good time in Cuzco. The city tour on the other hand was not so good, although not as bad as the previous tour. We briefly glimpsed at Huaca Pucullana, another, more intact, ceremonial site which consists of an adobe pyramid from the Lima culture (dating around AD 400). We would have been better off going to this one rather then Pachacamac. We then drove through heaps of traffic to the city centre where we had a whirlwind tour of some Jewish family’s private Peruvian gold collection (impressive) and had a very brief look at the Plaza Mayor (main square). We then hot stepped it to the Convento de San Francisco (Convent of Saint Francis) where we saw another impressive collection, this time 25,000 skeletons in the underground catacombs.
One of the masks in the gold collection.
So, that was how we spent our time in Peru’s capital. You could easily fill up a week visiting all the museams and various sites. Some of the Spanish architecture is quite impressive and I could have done with more time here. However, it was nice to not do much after the horrific bus trip. I think Jon needed to recover. I would have like to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony. That is proabably what I am most disappointed on missing out on.
Note: My powers of deduction regarding the naming of Lima seem to be a bit off track. Apparently some researchers believe the name Lima is a transformation of the name of the river on which the city is founded – the Rimac (can’t see how). Others instead suggest the name was the old word for the lands of Taulichusco, the lord who ruled the valley when the Spanish arrived. Actually, I believe my theory makes more sense.
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