Lima is not a Lemon

Our guidebook said we probably wouldn´t like Lima much we do! It is a very modern cosmopolitan city...at least the touristy parts that we saw are, and it had some lovely parks and great colonial architecture. For a city of 9 million people which is 150 kms in diameter it doesn´t even seem that busy when you are off the main thoroughfares. Perhaps part of the reason we enjoyed it was that we were ready for the comforts of a big city.

Our three and a half hour flight from San Jose and we were picked up at the airport by Raphael in his private taxi sent by the hotel. Raphael was a friendly and helpful Limeño and gave us tips about staying safe in Lima. Between his broken English and our rudimentary Spanish we managed to communicate quite well.

It was balmy when we arrived at the hotel about 8:30. Our hotel, the Antigua Miraflores, is in the main tourist area of Lima called Miraflores where it is quite safe to walk around, even at night, unlike some parts of Lima. Robb has come a long way in the last few years regarding choice of accomodation. He used to always want to stay at the most modern, most North American sort of hotel but lately he has been happy to stay at quaint old hotels with character. The Antigua is one of those. We had a large room with a tiny bathroom n the newer section of the hotel which is built around a courtyard with a fountain.

Tuesday, our first morning, we took a half day bus tour of the city with a very informative guide and it proved to be an excellent overview. We drove the most elite area of Lima, San Isidro, past a number of mansions and embassies indicating that some people in Lima have lots of money! Our first stop was to see an exhibit of pre-Columbian gold housed in the basement of a bank. It was a magnificent collection with even more pieces than we had seen at a similar museum the day before in San Jose, and it was no wonder it was kept in a large vault in the basement of a bank! As Susan knew from the exhibition she saw in Calgary, the Incas and some of their predecessors were fabulous gold smiths and this display demonstrated their skills. The items ranged from intricately detailed tiny animals to large collars and headpieces. The earrings were remarkable. Some of them were 2-3 inches in diameter with posts a good inch in diameter. The aristocrats who wore these from their youth, gradually increased the size of the posts until their ear lobes were huge and they could wear these enormous earings. The nose plates worn by rulers and priests were also interesting. These nose plates fit in the nostrils and covered the mouth of the ruler so that when he spoke, no one could see his lips moving. He would contend that the voice the people were hearing was not his but rather that of the gods.

After the museum we walked to the Plaza Mayor in time to see part of the changing of the guard ceremony in front of the Palacio de Gobierno. Several policemen in riot gear guarded the military band which stood behind the iron railing fence of the palace, playing pseudo-military marching music. There didn´t seem to be much else to the ceremony, even though our guide had said it was an important cultural and political event in Lima each day.

We carried on a few blocks to the Iglesia de San Francisco and toured the part of the convent here that is open to the public. There was a lovely cloister and rooms full of religious paintings and statues, but the main attraction here are the catacombs under the church. It is estimated that 75,000 people were buried here over the centuries, mainly the rich who supported the monks. We entered the catacombs through a narrow opening down some steeps stairs. The dim interior had earthen walls and floor and the atmosphere was pretty much what one would expect in a subterranian burial place...kind of spooky. The dead were brought down for burial and initially interred in normal graves near the entrance. After a few years their bones were exhumed to make way for newly arrived stiffs. The bones were then moved to large square holes dug in the ground. At this point their individual identities were lost as all the bones were mingled. The exception was individuals of very high standing or exceptional benefactors whose bones were entombed together in a separate area. But as the demand for bone storage space grew, the monks opened a third part to the catacombs. They dug several huge well-like holes 10 metres deep and 5 or 6 metres in diameter where the bones were permanently placed having been moved from the second staging area. Both the second and third storage areas are still full of human remains and it was quite a sight, especially at the final stage wells, to see the tons of bones and skulls neatly stacked for all eternity. We felt a sense of relief as we finally left the close air of the catacombs.

At the end of the tour we were dropped at the Malecon running along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. This part of Miraflores is a very attractive area with paths, parks and statues with magnificent views of the Pacific 250 ft below, where the waves rolled up onto the black sand shore. The ocean is awe inspiring, and even from the cliff tops we could hear the beach stones being rolled by the huge waves. There were some surfers there, but the beach would not have been our choice for a day by the sea. One of the parks is called Parque de Amor, and had a very large statue of a couple embracing and kissing, and a curved wall of benches covered in small, multi-colored mosaic tiles, where, especially in the evening, young couples sat talking and in some cases emulating the statue.

We stopped for lunch at a posh shopping centre called Larcomar which is built into the cliffs. We walked by the expensive restaurants overlooking the sea, and found the food fair area where we decided to take the plunge and try the ceviche. For those of you not familiar with this, it is basically raw fish and seafood, marinated in lime or lemon juice which more or less "cooks" it. Peru is famous for its ceviche and people say you have to try it here. Our guide book in one section strongly recommended trying it, and in another section warned about eating anything uncooked..very ambivalent advice! We ordered the ceviche mixta, which was a combination of fish, squid, shrimp, octopus and clams served with lots of red onions, huge kernels of white corn and sweet potato (very sweet) on the side. It was delicious. We also shared a bowl of sopa de Criolla, a local specialty, which was also very tasty, all washed down with an Inka Kola, a acid-lemon colored drink that tasted like cream soda.

Once again we were lucky with the weather. Usually the city is blanketed in smog and cloud but we had two days of mainly sunny and clear weather, but very warm and muggy.

After lunch we walked up one of the main thoroughfares of Miraflores lined with shops, restaurants and offices, to the Parque Central which was a very pleasant green space. Later back at the hotel, we had an internet break and cleaned up before heading out to dinner at a restaurant about four blocks from the hotel that we had spotted earlier. It is a parilla or grill house where the set menu for 2 people for 70 soles (about 25 dollars), including a bottle of Chilean wine, had caught our eye. It is called the Campoverde and is a very nice restaurant done in ranching decor. (We think it was Argentinian). The meats were brought to our table on a metal plate placed over a brazier of glowing charcoal. They included skewered beef heart (anticucho), a large pork chop, two beef steaks and two ostriche loin steaks, chorizo sausage and blood pudding. This was accompanied by a huge plate of tasty french fries (Peru being famous for potatoes) and a large excellent mixed salad, plus a selection of four sauces for dipping. It was all delicious, even the beef heart, and there was enough for at least 3 people. It was a great experience especially as our waiters were very friendly and we were able to converse in Spanish with them.

The next day Raphael was outside the hotel when we went out in the morning so we had him drive us to the Museo Arqueologico Raphael Larco Herrera to see the pre-Columbian art, mainly ceramics but with some textiles. (It was very interesting to us that many things in Lima are very cheap including the taxis. Our 20 minute ride cost about $2.) The various indigenous groups were very artistic. How the conquistadores could have seen their work and still concluded that the people were primitive barbarians is beyond us. And why they felt they had to destroy so much of the native peoples´work is also a mystery not to mention a tragedy.

A lot of the pieces look almost contemporary although they are 500-1000 years old. The ones we thought were most interesting were the ceramic heads done by the Moche people who predated the Incas. The heads were commissioned as portraits and were amazingly detailed and lifelike. As well the main exhibit areas, there were several storerooms open to the public which were just mind boggling. Rows and rows of shelves reaching to the 15 ft ceilings were full of thousands of artifacts - a treasure trove of history. These included many many more heads, figurines, animal and human figures, bowls, pots and jugs of every description....an amazing and surely priceless collection from Peru´s past cultures. (By the way, Peru is mainly known for the Inca culture, but there were many civilizations which predated the Incas which have left relics of their civilization going back 5000 years and more. The Incas were actually the last before the Spanish arrived, and a relatively short-lived civilization.)

At this museum was also a special exhibit called the Sala Erotica, a room displaying objects such as jugs and bowls formed to depict pretty much the whole range of human sexual activity....kind of a Kama Sutra in ceramic! It was very interesting. Archeologists are not sure of the significance of these works though they speculate they may have some sort of religious meaning.

Outside the museum we found the blue line painted on the sidewalk that we had read about in our guide book. This line takes a circuitous route for a couple of kilometres through the back streets of this neighborhood, to the Plaza Bolivar where we had intended to visit the national museum. We thought this blue line was a great idea for tourists wanting to walk and that more cities should do something similar. However, when we reached the end of the line (ha, ha) we felt we´d had enough museums for the day and decided to head back to Miraflores to visit an amazing archeological sight called Huaca Pucllana.

This pre-Incan city has only been protected and studied since the 1980´s. Consequently some of it has been destroyed and in fact a road has been built right through it. What remains is a huge mound which was constructed layer by layer of small sun-dried bricks. Each layer served as the platform for the city until it was worn down or destroyed, and then another layer was built on top. Over the centuries a pyramid shape was formed with a base stretching over about 40 acres. Today all that remains is a large mound which still covers an area of about 6 acres and is very impressive. The bricks were laid in trapezoidal groupings of about 4 ft wide by 6 ft high, one group wide at the bottom, followed by one wide at the top. This clever architecture was designed to withstand earthquakes, and it proved to be very successful as the structure is still standing today. At the end of the tour our guide took us to the gardens where they are growing native plants. There were also some small enclosures containing alpacas, llamas and guinea pigs, the first we had seen in Peru. And we were also lucky to see a couple of pets who live in the grounds. The famous Peruvian hairless dogs are almost extinct, though the government is encouraging people to keep them as pets and they are starting to make a comeback. The problem with having them as a pet is they are generally considered repugnant, twice having been voted the ugliest dog in the world in some contest or other. They are about the size of a small lab and are dark grey in color. The true breed is hairless except for tufts of hair at the end of the long tail and on the head. We actually thought they were kind of cute in a funny sort of way, and we wish them luck in their recovery as a breed!

That evening we went down to the sea cliffs to watch the sunset and were treated to a fine display. We also saw a number of para gliders getting set to launch off the cliffs though as it turned out only one tandem pair did so. It looked like great fun though somewhat scary as the tandem gliders swooped, dove and rose on the currents coming up the cliff face.

We were then off to dinner which proved to be something of a challenge. Although there are lots of restaurants in the area we couldn´t seem to decide on which would suit our tastes and budget, so after wandering around for over an hour, we finally returned to the Campoverde where we´d been the night before. We again had a large, satisfying meal, although this time we tried their delicious chicken and fixin´s. We also tried the national drink, the Pisco Sour. It is made of a grape brandy with lime juice and a little egg white all blended together to form a frothy topping...really delicious.

The next morning was our last in Lima. We walked to a nearby suburb called Barranca which used to be a seaside retreat for Limenos, but is today somewhat run down. We visited a house/museum that was a huge former mansion reminiscent of manor homes in England. It was full...every wall covered...with religious paintings. I guess it was interesting but not one of the highlights of our tour!

We grabbed a cab back to the hotel and at 1:00 Raphael picked us up and whisked us off for our flight to Iquitos and the start of our Amazon adventure.