So, after our surprise of arriving and just loving Miraflores, our Belmond Miraflores hotel, and eating world class cuisine, now was our chance to see the highlights of Lima.
At 9am sharp, Gustavo from Incas Expert Travel and his driver, were waiting for us when we finished our Belmond breakfast, ready to conquer the world.
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| Kicking it with our guide Gustavo |
One of the things we'd already groked in Lima is that a GPS may get you from point to point, but in a city growing as fast and large as Lima (11 million citizens and growing), you only get from point to point efficiently if someone who knows where the traffic tie-ups are and how to avoid them, is driving you.
Our first stop after traveling through Miraflores and San Isidro districts was
Huaca Pucilana.
Huaca Pucilana is re-work in progress. Built back in the 4th century A.D. it is now being restored, one brick at a time as our picture shows. The guy at the bottom of the picture has a pile of bricks, which he is tossing to the guy in the middle, who in turn is tossing them to the guy in the top of the picture. Once they have enough to complete another course, they start to work re-laying the ancient bricks. In the picture directly below, you can see the completed courses and the unrestored courses above. There is a lot of work to go but it is obvious that they are taking care to get things put properly back together to preserve their heritage.
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| Throwing 1500 Year old bricks |
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| Finished Product |
Lima is truly a city of old and new. It was a city in the time of the Pre-Incan and Inca eras, reutilized by the Spanish when they arrived and found Cusco to too difficult to run an empire from. Today it is a mix of ancient, modern, and new with a clear mandate to restore and preserve their heritage. At the same time though, Lima is experiencing the growth pains many countries are facing today as one third of the country's populace is now living in the greater Lima area. Government services, infrastructure, and city planning are being challenged as more and more folks move from the countryside to find jobs in the city. In addition to Peruvians, refugees from Venezuela and Bolivia are being welcomed and add to the influx.
Perhaps we didn't see the really "bad" areas in Lima on our travels around the city and surrounding districts but I can honestly say that while we saw some areas that were clearly less affluent than Miraflores or San Isidro, I didn't see any of the truly heart wrenching areas I've seen in other global urban aggregates where large numbers of people moving from rural areas to the metropolis are living in cardboard boxes and shipping containers under highway overpasses.
Another impression that will remain with us is that the Peruvian people living in Lima are into fitness and being outdoors. Whether it was the number of folks taking surfing lessons right off the beach, work out classes in the parks or on the beach, and the soccer (football) players working out around pylons on sandy fields, it seemed like everyone is trying to stay fit amidst the hustle and bustle of city life.
As we drove into the city center, we were impressed by the well groomed parks, clean streets, and good looking architecture. Turns out that the Historic Center of the city is UNESCO recognized proving once again that funding provided by UNESCO is put to good use by countries across the globe to preserve and protect their heritage for future generations and to the benefit of visitors like us.
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| Central Government Bulding |
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| Empty Building |
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| Paseo in the Shopping District |
The beautiful empty building above has an interesting story related to us by our guide Gustavo. As many may remember, Peru in the 1980's faced many challenges. Inflation was running 7000 (yes, three zeros)%, the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerillas were terrorizing the countryside, and lack of economic opportunity was creating an atmosphere of desperation - things were really bad. As things in the city center deteriorated, the well-to-do folks living in this building and a number of others just like it, moved away to create new suburbs in San Isidro and Miraflores, leaving these buildings that were originally a mix of professional offices and apartments, completely empty. While we couldn't see what the insides of these beautiful buildings looked like, the exteriors as evidenced in this picture show no external evidence of "urban blight".
In fact, I mentioned to Gustavo that as Lima continues to prosper and traffic into and out of the city's center continues to grow, I expect these buildings, bought up by far seeing and canny investors, will form the basis for the kind of gentrification we have seen in so many cities in the US and across the world. Young urban professionals in Lima are already building smaller families than a generation ago so the large, single family homes sprinkled throughout the affluent suburbs won't be needed and the commute times to the City's center from the suburbs will continue to get longer. There aren't any subways in Lima and making space for them amidst the growing pains of a city that was 300,000 25 or 30 years ago to one that exceeds 10 million today will be problematic. It will be very interesting to see what happens in central Lima over the next 5 or 10 years.
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| Lima Cathedral |
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| Everything in the Plaza de Armas is looking spiffy |
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| Presidential Palace in the background |
Historically, Lima's connections to its time as a colony of Spain are treasured as part of their rich and blended cultural heritage. As Gustavo walked us through the
Cathedral of Lima, he pointed out the grave of Francisco Pizarro and walked us through the Peruvian equivalent of "Who's buried in Grant's tomb". Apparently, a body on display for more than 100 years and believed to be Pizarro's was found to be someone else when the real remains of Pizarro were found in a long forgotten crypt. Now both gentlemen are interred in adjoining crypts within the Cathedral. As we walked throughout the church, Gustavo continued to point out interesting facts about what we were seeing and things we were seeing, but wouldn't have understood without his help.
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| Pizarro's Crypt |
First off, the original construction of the church was in the traditional stone you'd see throughout Europe. In fact, the church was built using an existing Inca temple as part of its foundation. But unlike much of Europe, Peru is prone to earthquakes, so the vaulted stone ceilings came crashing down and were replaced by wood construction that was able to flex during earthquakes. If we hadn't known they were built of wood, we wouldn't have noticed any difference to the hundreds of churches we've seen throughout Europe.
Next, there were slight variations in church symbology contained within the altars and magnificent paintings we could see on the walls. These variations were deliberately added by Mestizo (mixed Spanish and Andean blood) craftsmen who did the actual crafting of the church's decorations and dedications. Two particular examples stick in my mind...
First, the main altar was a combination of silver and gold. While gold is the traditional color you'd expect to see in a Catholic altar, the silver worked into the design is a symbol of one of the Andean deities. So the parishioners were getting a double blessing if you will.
The second example was a very large painting of the Last Supper hanging on the cathedral's wall. Contained within the traditional scene of Jesus and the Twelve disciples were two local modifications. First, one of the disciples was brown and rather than looking at Jesus, is looking directly at you, and second, the meal in the centerpiece of the scene was actually a guinea pig, adding more local "flavor" if you will. I wish we had pictures but unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures in this part of the church.
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While more than 80% of Peruvian people today are Catholic by religion, the heritage of Incan and Pre-Incan spiritual beliefs managed to survive 400+ years of missionary influence. In fact, one of the reasons why everything looked especially spiffy and clean during our visit is that Pope Frances was visiting Peru the following week. Ironically, as Gustavo pointed out, despite the fact that the Spanish sought to destroy all remnants of existing worship and beliefs (and did a pretty good job throughout Peru of doing so), they were also the best chroniclers of what they found when they arrived and encountered the empire of the Inca. So much of what is known today of what existed when the Spanish arrived, was preserved in their journals.
What I took away from our visit to Huaca Pucilana, the Cathedral of Lima and later on, to the
Convent of San Francisco is the seamless blending of beliefs and history between two very different peoples and cultures. As evidenced in the people of Peru today, it is all part of their shared story not one that stopped 500+ years ago, nor one that reviles those that tore down existing temples and destroyed 1000 years of pre-existing civilization. As related to us by Gustavo, school kids in Peru are taught their entire history, Pre-Inca, Incan, Colonial, and modern in one continuous thread since it is this history that flows in their blood today.
After a great hour or so touring old town Cusco, we went back further in time to the hills surrounding Cusco; back to the Inca empire and the Saqsaywaman archeological area (or as a wag would comment later, "Sexy Woman"). While we were on the way there, Mary talked to us about the importance of potatoes, their cultivation, and the tremendous number of varieties grown in and around this part of Peru. Mary was so knowledgeable about Peruvian history and able to explain the relevance and context of everything. After having Gustavo guiding us through Lima and now Mary taking us through Cusco, we realized how important it is to have a quality local guide to understand how history has brought us to where things are today. Moreover, this was the first time in all our travels we'd made the conscious effort to engage a local travel agent -- Incas Expert Travel - to arrange for private guides in each venue. As we'd find throughout our trip, our experience in Peru was immeasurably enhanced by having a personal and knowledgeable local guide.
