As I mentioned in my previous post, we stayed our first two nights in Lima and our first day was really immersing ourselves in the heart of modern-day Lima, a huge city, and the capital city of Peru. Well, when we awoke on Sunday morning, it was time to discover what Lima was like not only before the arrival of the Spanish, but even before the rise of the Incas. And clearly before Christianity ever reached this continent.
We had to check out of our apartment by 11am. We were able to check our bags and go enjoy the day. Before everyone else was up I took a nice hour walk along the ocean and took in some of the great public art as well as discovering another amazing tennis facility and perhaps the best location of any tennis court I’ve seen, on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Perhaps you might call it the Pebble Beach version of tennis. I also discovered a little park here named after the great Israeli general and prime minister, Itzhak Rabin. That was especially neat to see less than a year after visiting Israel.
After my morning walk, I regrouped with the other three back at the apartment. We checked out, checked our bags for a few hours, and then stopped into a local café for a light breakfast sandwich and coffee before our last day of sightseeing in Lima. Our first stop was at a pre-Inca temple called Huaca Pullcana. This is situated in the middle of Lima and was just a 10-minute Uber ride from where we were staying in Miraflores.
This is a pyramid that was built not by the Incas, but by a pre-Inca people called the Lima people. It was built around 600 AD. We were told this was not only a place people came to pray, but also to play. The excavation of this site was initiated in 1967, but the project itself was not started until 1981. It’s a truly amazing site. My mouth dropped many times visiting here. When you arrive and pay the entrance fee, you are set up with a tour guide and the tour is a little over an hour long and every moment is worth it. The tour really completed itself when we came across some very friendly llama. One even took a selfie with me (talk about a bucket list item – a selfie with a llama!)
Some other cool tidbits I learned here: the Lima people were not conquered by the Inca. They were conquered by another group (I think the Huan – but having a hard time confirming). But the point is, this is how far some major civilizations in this country go back; even well before the Inca, there were people here building impressive structures – including pyramids.
Our guide showed us some pottery and other artifacts that continue to be discovered here. One ritual these people had was that they would break massive pieces of pottery as a celebration for building a new pyramid in the same way people today might break champagne bottles when a new ship is commissioned.
They have also found evidence and remains here of people who were sacrificed at this temple. During those times, for these people, they felt that during difficult times they had to sacrifice people to the gods, including young women who were stoned to death and had their bodies mutilated and dismembered. It’s hard to hear this. But it’s also important to remember that people in different times had different ideas and beliefs and rituals. They were trying to get their communities through moments of crisis.
The structure here though was fascinating. And it was just even more mind blowing to see that we were really in the heart of Lima. This wasn’t a structure out in the suburbs or in a rural area of the countryside. It was part of one of the early civilizations that made Lima an important part of this country, as it remains today as the biggest city, the capital city, of Peru.
Once that tour was completed, we then took an Uber back about 10 minutes to the coastal Miraflores area we had been staying in. We decided to check out the Larcomar shopping complex. This is sort of like a mall built into the side of the cliffs. In fact, from “above” (at street level) you can’t really see it. You have to go down escalators or elevators to get to it. Once in it, there are many of the top brands you’d find at any mall. We even saw restaurants like Chili’s and TGI Friday’s, but we opted for a more local restaurant with Peruvian cuisine called Popular, which also overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Lunch was quick and great and had an amazing view of the ocean.
We then walked down the street to retrieve our luggage before our last stop in Lima: the Museo Larco. I had emailed the museum a week or so ahead of our trip to ask if they had luggage storage. While planning the trip, I had noticed the museum was sort of “on the way” to the airport. It’s about 20 minutes from Miraflores and another 15-20 minutes from the Lima airport. The museum kindly returned my email promptly and let me know that indeed there was luggage storage. In fact, once we arrived there, we were forced to check in any luggage or bags we had with us. They have a whole organized storage system there for it. This was perfect because it allowed us to spend about two hours at the museum and really take it all in.
The museum had thousands of pre-Columbian artifacts. Simply an amazing place. There were lots of pottery. In fact, they had an entire storage room that wasn’t even part of the main museum displays that was just filled with thousands of pieces. The actual museum exhibits were amazing. Hard to describe, but we so many types of artifacts: pottery, jewelry, weapons, and even mummies. In fact, one mummy contained the body of an infant that was around the ages of four to five years old. We even saw skulls that had holes drilled through it. The explanation? That was how they used to treat people with mental health illnesses.
Once we concluded our tour, it was time to head out of Lima. Our friend Marshall wasn’t able to get a flight that night (he flies standby through his mother’s work in the airline industry – a nice park!) so he found a hotel for about $50 and took the first flight out in the morning on Monday. For James, Jessica, and I, we took a flight from the Lima airport at 6:15pm, which arrived in Cusco around 7:35pm. Just an hour in the air. It’s too bad it was dark when we flew, otherwise we might have had a good view of the Andes mountains, which we flew over and into Cusco. Of note: the traffic into the Lima airport was pretty nuts. Luckily, we had left ourselves plenty of time. This also gave us some time to get a quick snack at a café in the Lima airport. I had an empanada, a piece of chocolate cake, and a Cusquena beer. Hey, I’m on vacation.
Upon arrival in Cusco, James and I immediately felt the effects of the altitude. Lima is situated at nearly 12,000 feet above sea level. I was wondering if the plane even had to descend from Cusco. There was complimentary transportation provided for us by our hotel, the Hotel Rojas Inn, which was located just two blocks off of the Plaza de Armas in Cusco. It was about a 25-minute ride from the airport. Once we checked into our room (which had four beds and a nice bathroom), we asked the hotel for a restaurant recommendation and they said without a doubt to try the Morena Peruvian Kitchen. We had a delicious meal. But we may have ordered too much and could not finish it all.
We walked around the Plaza de Armas and it was considerably chillier here than in Lima. The low was in the 30s and the high around the upper 60s during our stay. On this night, as we walked around about 10pm, it was probably in the 40s. We decided to go shopping for some local attire – and snagged ourselves some alpaca / wool sweatshirts from a shop in the Plaza de Armas. The prices were reasonable and it turned out I’d be wearing that sweatshirt almost every day the rest of the trip. I also snagged myself a ski cap type thing with long cords stretching from above my ears over my shoulders. Between the love for the food here and the new attire, I felt like I’d gone full Peruvian now. I mean I was even wearing alpaca!
We headed back to our hotel just a few minutes walk away and settled in for the night. We had a full day ahead in Cusco on Monday and it would begin as soon as Marshall arrived on that early morning flight.