Lima & Huaca Pucllana

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After I wrote my previous entry, wandered around Miraflores, it was around 6pm and starting to get dark, but there were heaps of people and cars still on the streets, shops and restaurants were still open. In Parque Kennedy there was music, and people were dancing with a big group of spectators.

Was getting dark, but it did not feel unsafe.

Walking back to the B&B, noticed a few things:

1 - People were still in their little kiosks, or carts, or bicycle carts selling things, - water, softdrinks, lollies, different types of food. It was a bit depressing to see a lady with here cart full of what looked like home made food parked up in front of Dunkin Donuts. How can she make a living competing with a chain like that? I wonder if local street vendors will die out. Stuff like this makes me a bit unhappy and depressed.

2 - On some to the more residential streets in Miraflores, a lot of the houses have security features, thinks like high metal fences, gates at the footpath with intercoms, bars and grills on windows, some houses even had what looked like electric fences.

3 - Also there seem to be a lot of police and security guards around. Do not know if this is meant to make you feel safe or worry that there is a need for so much security. It jogs my memory that it is similar in the other bigger places we visited, eg. Arequipa, and Cuzco. Not so much in the smaller places, but the hotels in Nazca and Aguas Calientes had security guards as the doors.

Well, today did not go into the city, but stayed in Miraflores, but Peru is such an amazing place that even in a residential suburb you can visit some sort of archeological site, so I went to Huaca Pucllana, which was some sort of pre Inca (Lima culture/civilisation) ceremonial centre. I had an English speaking guide to myself. (Cost of entry 5 soles, cost of what was effectively a private tour donation of 5 soles.) The main feature of the site is a 26 metre tall pyramid, made of mud bricks. (Lima is basically in a desert and it apparently has not rained here for a very long time. I asked the guide what would happen if it did rain, she just laughed.) I know that some people might find walking around a pile of mud bricks pretty boring, but having a guide made it worthwhile, and it was nice to get away from the usual tourist stuff of churches, museums and plazas.

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Comments

[veronica]

about Pucllana
Hi, I`m from Lima and I work in Huaca Pucllana as an archaeologist, my english is not too good so i hope you can understan my message. I`m glad because of your comment about the archeological site in Miraflores... when i`m working in the top of the pyramid i feel really good and i try to imagine the same place without buildings, cars and planes... it`s really nice to be here, near the pacific ocean. I hope you can tell your frienda about Lima and also other places in Peru, of course Lima is not a safe place in the night but I think all cities in the world are not totally safe... here in Lima the police think that if our visitors could feel secure if they can see lots of guard. In my opinio they only make us more insecure hehe. Really nice to see your opinion about Lima... but don`t get depress... we dont like dunkin donuts too much. Veronica Chirinos

[Dreamer]

about Pucllana
Hola Veronica, garcias por tu mensaje, y lo siento no escribo mucho en español. Sorry that I have to write the rest of this in English. Thanks for the comment. I'm amazed that anyone still looks at this travel blog as it is a bit out of date. The pyramid at Huaca Pucllana was really interesting, and I am fortunate that I had a good guide to show me around. I know I shouldn't get too down on Dunkin Donuts and other chains etc. as the do provide jobs, but I wonder how street vendors can compete ... I get the feeling that the world would be a much less interesting place if all the shops were just franchises of some Western mega corporation.