The Peruvian dream - Lima

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Hello hello hello.

Long time no write. I have been in Peru, for longer than I thought I would be. Seven weeks if my maths serve me right. I was only supposed to be there for a month and then make my way to Ecuador. But it was not meant to be. Peru is a fabulous country and in seven weeks you barely scratch the surface. Nevertheless, we managed to fit quite a lot in the time we were there. We hiked to Machu Picchu, went to the Amazon Basin in Manu, hiked down the second deepest canyon in the world, went to the highest navigable lake in the world, chilled out by the beach and saw many pre-Inca and Inca ruins.

This leg of the trip started when my friend Rupal met me in Lima, which was the end of my travelling alone. This was a relief for my parents, I believe, who probably slept less badly when they knew that I was travelling with someone else. Rupal and I explored Lima (we stayed there for a couple of days in the lovely San Isidro district.) Central Lima is not pretty but the catacombs in the church of San Francisco are probably worth the detour. The districts of Miraflores and San Isidro are more my cup of tea - lovely neighbourhoods, good restaurants, and above all, it feels safer than being in Central Lima. Despite not being very partial to that city, I did manage to pass through the airport a few times during my travel and ended up staying in Lima on three separate occasions, once with Rupal, once with my friend, Annu and the final time to make my connection to Buenos Aires to fly back to London.

It was really good to meet up with Rupal again, although she only stayed for two weeks. It was also quite funny seeing Rupal with a proper backpack and flat hiking shoes. ;-) She did manage to look quite elegant in them I must say! Lima was also the place where I had my first proper blister - my whole little toe was a blister in fact. The irony was that it happened not when hiking up a volcano but when walking in a city.

Coming back to the catacombs, they are a tad freaky. Originally constructed in 1546, it is one of the oldest churches in South America. I believe that it was also the first official cemetery in Lima. The interesting part is that, at some point in the 1940s, when the catacombs were being excavated, someone decided to rearrange the bones so that instead of seeing whole skeletons, one can see different types of bones stacked together e.g pile of cranuims, femurs, tibias, etc... The church itself is beautiful with many paintings from the Cusco school.

There is an old pre-inca adobe pyramid in the middle of Miraflores called Huana Pucllana, which dates from about 400 AD. It has been preserved as the weather in Lima is so dry (also as dull as London's skies in the winter) and is currently being excavated/restored. The excavation process discovered that some parts of site contained the remains of human sacrifices, mostly believed to be human. In addition, in front of the Marriot, there is a great shopping centre, LarcoMar, which is set on top of the cliffs and which offers amazing views of the Pacific.

What Rupal and I found quite interesting is that the Peruvians seem to be obsessed with Indians and Bollywood. Telling them we weren't Indians didn't help as they don't seem to differentiate between nationality and race... The weirdest was when one of the shop keepers asked me if I had heard of the movie called Mother India! (For those who don't know, this is a very old black and white Bollywood classic - my dad loves it, which is why I know about it). But more later on that.

So Rupal and I saw the sights of Lima (I would recommend a couple of days there no more) and then went off to Cuszo. I went there again with Annu (to keep a long story short, Annu left her toilet bag in the hotel in Lima when she got there and it worked out that we could go collect it when we were on our way to Mancora a few weeks later. It's funny how you get attached to your possesions when travelling - we tried to pack compactly and the loss of any one item is a minor tragedy!).

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Photos

Peruvian hairless dog
This dog doesn't have any hair and is indigenous to Peru. I believe that the Peruvian government offered to gift one of them to President Obama's kids. The dogs are cute in an ugly way. The one in the photo did manage to slobber over my trousers.

Cuys
Peruvians love guinea pigs, not as pets but as a great delicacy. These ones were being bred for food. The most common way is cuy a la parilla, or bbq. It is gross as they grill them whole and you can still see the head and the claws.