Lima, Peru
It seems somewhat strange to be leaving the sunny streets of London, and the longest, hottest summer that Europe has had in my lifetime, for the tail end of winter on the other side of the planet, but we are almost giddy with excitement at the adventure that lies ahead. Almost a year in the planning, we are returning to South America to tick off one of the greatest sights on any traveller’s bucket list - Machu Picchu and the wonders of Peru.
Champagne Charlies!
Even with the luxury of a flat-bed and a direct flight, the 12+ hours take their toll, boredom slowly setting in at 36,000 feet, but as we start our descent and catch the first dramatic glimpse of the Andes poking through the thick clouds below us, the adrenaline kicks in and the jetlag subsides.
It’s almost dark by the time we exit Lima’s Jorge Chavez airport, led by our travel rep Ulysses to our waiting car, and despite being pretty near to the equator there’s a noticeable nip in the air. It’s hardly what we’d call winter back home but it’s definitely not a tropical evening that greets us. We may well end up buying some of the Peruvian jumpers that dreadlocked backpackers mooching around the airport are sporting. Heaven forbid!
Thankfully the rush hour traffic doesn’t delay our journey into the city too much and we reach the upmarket district of Miraflores and the El Pardo Doubletree hotel in 45 minutes, to be greeted by a delicious pisco sour cocktail and a very welcome bed. It’s been a long day!
Piano outside the breakfast restaurant
Next morning, after a fine breakfast, we’re pretty bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, meeting our driver Carlos and guide Andrea for a morning tour of the city, despite the grey and overcast skies. Joining us are two Chinese girls, now living in Toronto, who are laden down with rucksacks and selfie-sticks. They arrived into Lima at 10pm last night and are grabbing a whistle-stop tour of the city before heading off to tackle the Inca Trail this afternoon.
Once they, and their luggage, clamber on board, we start our Lima sightseeing at Huaca Pucllana. Slap bang in the middle of new build apartments and colonial houses lies an 1800 year-old pyramid, built by the ancient ‘Lima’ tribe, and only rediscovered in the early 1980s by children playing on a hill in the middle of Miraflores. The unsuspecting school kids unearthed ceramics and textiles, leading archaeologists to move in and reveal an enormous brick city buried under the huge mound of earth and forgotten for hundreds of years.
Police in the main square
Built by the ancient tribe to withstand the frequent earthquakes that Lima, and the rest of the region suffers from, Huaca Pucllana is a vast structure that is still being excavated today, evidence of the hugely sophisticated pre-Incan cultures that existed in Peru, which had all but been lost to time. Through the fencing that now surrounds the site a team of people carefully sift soil for fragments of history from a long-lost civilisation - an archaeological dig that will last for decades.
We continue on through Miraflores and the business district of San Isidro, with their lovely houses and olive tree parks. Lima is home to ten million people, a third of Peru’s population and this is the area where governments have embassies, celebrities live and tourists usually stay; its buildings and streets reminiscent of West Hollywood.
Leaving Miraflores we drive along Arequipa Avenue to the Central district where Carlos drops us at an impressive looking square which was once the site of the city’s main railway station. Now named Josef San Martin Square, after the pivotal hero of the Peruvian Independence movement, it boasts a massive statue of JSF astride a horse in his military garb, celebrating liberation from the Spanish in 1821. One hundred years later they bulldozed the railway station and created this memorial in his honour.
The square marks the start of our walking tour and Andrea leads us up Jiron de la Union, the pedestrianised main street to Plaza de Armas, the heart of old Lima. Along the way Coman and I stop at a stall for a drink of Peruvian favourite ‘chicha morada’. A soft drink made of purple corn, clove, cinnamon, lemon and sugar it’s refreshing and sweet. While it’s being dispensed from the slush puppy style machine I have a little chat with the daughter of the owner who is learning English. Like many Peruvians she’s a little shy but her mother is delighted that her child is getting the chance to practise her language skills, with lots of smiles being exchanged.
Driving through the city
We stop again at a pharmacy for refreshment of another kind - altitude sickness pills called Sorojchi. Bizarrely the packaging is reminiscent of a cigarette packet but it’s an essential piece of kit for the days ahead and Andrea recommends we pop a pill before boarding our flight to Cusco first thing tomorrow morning.
Plaza de Armas is an even more impressive square bordered by grand colonial buildings including the Presidential Palace, Archbishop’s Palace and Cathedral, with a beautiful fountain at its centre. We make a couple of quick pitstops - at the Cacao Museum for a disappointing coffee, and a yawnsome museum visit, based around the ruins of a Spanish colonial butcher’s shop. According to our tour itinerary, we had actually been meant to visit the far more interesting and contemporary Museum of Gastronomy, but it’s just been closed for a three month refurb. Sadly, the ruins of an abattoir aren’t quite what we had in mind…
Fortunately as we walk around the nearby streets the clouds part and sunshine bathes everything in clear light and blue skies, instantly transforming the overcast day with warm summer sunshine and leading us to throw caution to the wind and purchase a cheap selfie stick, something we once swore we’d never do.
Plaza des Armes
Some narcissistic test shots later and we enter the Convent of Santo Domingo, a glorious church with adjoining cloisters, gardens and chapels, including the relics of the much-revered Santa Rosa of Lima. Still home to ten monks - a steep reduction from the hundreds at its peak - it also houses a bell tower which we ascend for views of the city that stretch to the Andes on one side and the Pacific on the other.
It’s the last stop on our city tour and outside we bid farewell to our Chinese companions who need to hail a cab to the airport, wishing them luck on their four-day hike to Machu Picchu… delighted that we’ll be taking the train instead!
By now it’s lunch time and Carlos and Andreas are due to drive us back to our hotel but instead of returning us there we ask them to drop us off at the seafront in Miraflores so that we can check out some of the cool restaurants overlooking the ocean and explore some more sights. There’s still so much to see!
