Lima - Big City Small Maps

As promised, here's a blog about the HUGE city of Lima. I hate to say it, but it's not going to be as brief as I originally hoped...you did notice the word "huge", right? There are around 10 million people that call Lima home and it feels like it. The city is actually so large, that it's hard to get your hands on a map (well, a tourist map) of the whole thing. They tend to produce them for each area which makes it remarkably hard to find your way around the city. The other challenge is the lack of taxi meters. You must negotiate with each and every "taxista" to take you where you want to go. We walked away from a lot of cabs to try and find better prices; the good news is that it can be done. On one trip we saved 15 soles by walking further down the street and away from the tourist hotspot.

Anyhow, Lima is a trip. There's so much traffic and so many districts that you could stay for a month and not see the majority of it. We focused on some specific areas, so that we wouldn't feel too overwhelmed and like we had to try and see everything.

Miraflores:

This is the "shi-shi" district, meaning well-to-do, where many tourists stay if they aren't just overnighting. It's mainly residential, but with lots of amenities like restaurants, shopping, parks and the walkway along the cliffs overlooking the beach. There a many signs warning against honking or any other undue noise which makes for a pleasant stay.  You can rent bikes in several locations and enjoy the long stretch of pathway above or along the beach.

El Barranco:

Commonly defined as the "boho" district of Lima, the place usually comes alive at night and is a restaurant and club hotspot. We went during the day and it was decidedly low key. Being crazy gringos, we walked from Miraflores, along the beach and up to the Puente de Suspiros (Bridge of Sighs), so named after a girl longing for her lover. (Said lover was not of the appropriate social status and Papi was having none of it.) There is a very nice town square and some interesting architecture. I was particularly fascinated by the run down  buildings that seemed spooky and kind of romantic. There was a decided lack of boho clothing stores and I came away empty handed.

There's some sort of unwritten law in Peru that
all the churches have to be yellow.
This one is perfect from the front...

Not so good beyond the facade

Kind of New Orleans-esque, no?

La Gamarra (in La Victoria area):

We heard about this place on a "places you shouldn't miss, but tourists never go to" list. We walked (again), but this was a decidedly longer hike than to El Barranco and wended through both nice and rougher areas of the city. We only had the most general sense of where we were headed (due to map issues) and had to stop a couple of times to ask people if we were headed the right way. Looking back on it, it strikes me as funny, but we actually talked about how we would know when we'd arrived in la Gamarra. We shouldn't have worried. What is this place, you may be asking? The garment district. It's loaded with factories that make all sorts of clothes; from underwear to ball gowns, exercise gear to custom suits. It's HUGE; probably 5 blocks square with four and five story buildings selling nothing but clothing. It was also packed with Peruvians and not a gringo in sight.

If you've ever been to Las Vegas, you'll be familiar with the guys on the street with their little business cards for "entertainment", well the Gamarra isn't much different except the cards are for little shops buried in the back of a huge rabbit warren of stores. I can't even begin to describe how the multi-story buildings are laid out. There are half floors and landings crammed with stores, narrow aisles and crazy layouts that get you lost in a heart beat and everyone (almost) wants to sell you something. I only found one place that really had no interest in selling anything and that was the place where I was trying to get some tank tops. I gave up. If you get a chance, go visit the district (cabbies do know it) and pick up a few deals (or lots of deals) your only limit is the cash you bring with you. Ron picked up two pairs of jeans and four shirts for $90. (Yes, all black.)

El Centro (Plaza de Armas):

It's a 20-30 sole ride from Miraflores to the historic centre of Lima. On the square are some of the best examples of Spanish Colonial architecture in the city; the cathedral and the palace; which has a changing of the guard at 11:40 (ish) am. Down many of the streets are amazing buildings not only in the colonial style, but also art deco creations that are really incredible.

Spanish Balconies

The Palace

Art Deco? Spanish Revival? You decide

There are a number of museums, many offering free entry, plus a range of shopping malls in pedestrian only areas. There is also a large market and Chinatown, not far from the main square. We spent several hours just wandering around and then found a nice restaurant overlooking the square to enjoy lunch.

Note the lady sleeping on the goat carcass.

Gigantic cinnamon sticks
(use eggs for size reference)

Goose!

Plaza de Armas

The Zoo:
Again, we were the only gringos to be had. I guess not many people stay for any length, so the zoo isn't on their priority list. I have mixed feelings about zoos, but can't resist the lure of so many animals in one place. There were only a couple of animals that I felt had cracked due to their captivity (which, of course, is a couple too many); the rest seemed either content (or resigned), sometimes it was hard to tell.

Jaguar

The Condor (National bird of Ecuador)

Andean Puma

Museo Larco:
This is a fine example of a well executed museum. The display are well laid out, offer several languages and the content is actually interesting. The museum boasts the largest collection of "erotic" pottery and ceramic ware in the world, as well as a good collection of pottery, metal work (precious and not) and fabric samples from the mighty Incan Empire and their conquered tribes.

The museums unofficial greeter, taking a well deserved nap.

Curcuito de Agua:
If you like dancing fountains, you'll like this place. We came as night was falling to catch some of the music and light show. There are over a dozen fountains (I believe) with varying levels of complexity and interactivity. The water tunnel was particularly popular, as well as the adults' and children's play fountains.

As an added bonus there was a Kennel Club dog show on the grounds, which I enjoyed, but alas, my battery was running low and I didn't get any good photos. :0(

The final thing about Lima is the people...they're a lot taller than in Cusco or even in most of Ecuador. They are also city folk...in a rush and don't have much time for loiterers or tourists. That's not to say that they're rude, just distracted. It was an amazing adventure and we'd recommend it to anyone with even the smallest sense of adventure.

Part Three - MACHU PICCHU

So the big day finally arrived and we were on the bus and heading to Machu Picchu in order to watch the sun come over the mountains. It's a pretty well oiled machine, with dozens of buses constantly driving the circuit to get the flocks of tourists to the legendary location. Before we knew it, we were through the gates and standing on the rock that has the defining view of MP. It was kind of surreal to finally reach our goal. Photos ensued.
 

Elvis gave us a comprehensive tour of the site, taking three hours to talk about the history, the supposition of why it was there, the architecture, the Incan belief system and the rampant looting that took place before and after the site's discovery. While Hiram Bingham introduced Machu Picchu to the world, many others had been there before, taking what they wished and keeping it all on the down low. Yale University currently is hording 90% of what Bingham handed over. They graciously (and I use the phrase loosely) returned 10% for the 100th anniversary of Bingham's discovery. (Fie and shame!)

Sun creeps across the site.

Outside of Sun Temple

Sun alter & temple from other side.

We'd seen pictures of what state Bingham had found the place; covered in vegetation, with barely a building or stone wall visible. Some of the locals had been using the terraces for growing crops of their own, and the farmers lived where the ticket gate currently stands. Just another site for them to make a living! Incredible.

There were actually a couple of llamas grazing on the terraces and the place filled up pretty quickly with tourists, like ourselves. I like to try and imagine that I'm stepping back in time, but the illusion is pretty well killed by Tilley Endurable  hats, selfie-sticks and mini skirts...I've learned to cope, I wasn't exactly draped in Incan textiles, either.

After our tour, we made our way to the gate of Huayna Picchu. You have to sign in and out, so they don't loose anyone, I suppose. When I saw it the day before, from the other side of the valley, I thought Ron was nuts...it looked huge and looming over the site, but once we hit the stairs and found our groove, it was actually pretty easy. (If we hadn't been hiking for the prior four days, I don't think that would have been the case.)

There is a main landing (as pictured above) and if you want to go to the very peak you have a bit more work to do.

This was actually the much larger of the openings

 

Derek waiting in the traffic jam to summit.

The weirdest part was having to wiggle through a couple of little caves near the top. There were a lot of bugs at the peak, including pretty butterflies, but also creepy flying things that were a little intimidating. A suggestion: if you visit, there isn't tons of space at the peak, so it's probably not the best place to sit, have a snack and catch up on some sun tanning. This actually happened - true story.

Top o' the world, Ma!

After the prerequisite photos, we headed down the back side of the peak to find the way to the Grand Cavern and the Moon Temple. Our new friends were all in, until they found out it would take two hours to complete the trip. They only had an hour before they needed to head back to Aguas Calientes. So we said good-bye and wished each other good journeys.

Yup, actually that steep

The attendant at the start of the path didn't seem too keen on us going down to the cave, but once he got what country we were from, he waved us towards the path and radioed his co-worked down at the bottom. The going was steep and we'd been at it for about 25 minutes with no cave in sight. That's when we came across the ladder, we had a quick debate and decided to plow on. In for a penny in for a pound, right?

When it seemed like we'd actually reach the river valley, before we found the cave, we came across an Incan ruin that indicated that we were near our goal. 

One corner more and there was the Moon Temple. We would have likely missed the cave, except for an Argentinian couple that pointed out the path to us. As we were getting ready to go check it out, the co-worker showed up to hurry us along. They closed the access to Huayna Picchu earlier than the main gates.

We checked out the Grand Cave and then headed down the path towards the checkout point. Thankfully we didn't have to go back the way we came or we would have been a couple more hours.

We didn't stay on the site much longer, we'd already been there for 8 hours or so and we headed back to our hotel. It had been an amazing day and we wanted to finish it off with a nice meal, so we headed to Chullpi, highly recommended on Trip Advisor. This is when we ran in to Pepe again. 

Oh, remember the test from the previous post??? Here's our vantage point from the previous day, taken from the back side of Machu Picchu...we walked the majority of that distance!

If I'd been smarter I would have taken a long shot, to show how far away we actually were, but you can probably get the idea from the photos on the previous blog. Next installment will be a special "food" edition...samples of what we ate on the trek and some of the food we gorged on in Lima.

For a distance reference!