Day 2: Peru, Lima: Guided Historic Tour (background before walking)

In some ways this feels like the actual start to the adventures. This is when we met Julio, our main contact, and the other eleven people on our tour, or at least when we first saw each other as introductions were never formally made. There were five other couples roughly our age and older, plus one solo traveler in his late 20s. During our orientation session in the hotel's lobby I took notes while surreptitiously eyeing up the rest of the group. I have since given out my card with my blog information on it (I wish I had carried more, the more I carry the less I tend to share), so I know at least one of them will be reading this. 

Be honest, when in a group of strangers you will be vacationing with, you do the same. Who will be the one to hold us up? Who will complain the most? Who will brag about having been to the most places? And lately, who is still supporting the current regime, so I'll have to temper my true self around?

It turned out each group had their own itinerary. Exoticca offered add-ons for extra tours, meals, enhanced experiences. We opted out of all of them, as did the 20-year old we soon learned is a budding influencer named Greg who goes by @Go.With.Greg. Follow him on Instagram to see more amazing pictures of Peru, just recognize he created add-ons we did not even consider including a trip to Rainbow Mountain and sandboarding. Hi Greg, if you are pausing in your adventures to read this.

Orientation was fairly painless. My notes came in handy as others asked me to refresh their memories of what we were told. Exoticca did an excellent job of always having someone meet us.

At 9 we regrouped. Or half of us did. The other half was going on a similar tour in the afternoon that included a tour of the art museum. As I still wanted to see the pyramid, I'm glad we skipped the tour of the art museum.

Photo from the night before

We piled into a minibus for the first part of the tour. A woman whose name I never caught, I immediately nicknamed Cranky Lady. She was annoyed we were starting at the pyramid because she saw that already, instead she sat on a bench and smoked a cigarette. She seemed shocked to learn we were not touring the pyramid, only looking at it from outside the fence to learn about the history of Lima. My first impression was reinforced despite kinder people telling me she needs knee surgery, that's why she complained about walking. There is always one in every group. For her, maybe I was that person.

As we drove to the Historic Center, David, our guide, told us more about the local history, even bringing us up to the current day. The day we flew out of Washington, DC, Peru impeached their president. My parents were concerned for our safety (and mom was perhaps more than a little bit wishing the same would happen before we returned to the United States).

The history of Huaca Pucllano, Lima's pyramid, can be divided into three main sections:

1) From 200-700 AD, the Limas lived here. Truthfully we don't know what they called themselves because there were no written records, therefore the Peruvians refer to them as the modern day name of the city. The Limas were pacifists, farmers who worshipped mother earth and the sea. The site was used for games, similar to our Olympics, and other rituals. They built the pyramids using a library method, up close it seems to be a bookshelf of vertical bricks with horizontal shelves between the stacks. More about this on our tour later that day.

2) Around 700 AD the Wari culture took over. Evidence has it they were peaceful, taking over through alliances and not war, as a Westerner like me might assume based on their name. They used the space as a sacred burial site.

3) 1200 AD it was reused as a site for rituals by the Ychsma Culture.

The place sat abandoned for centuries before it was rediscovered in the 1980s and became an archaeological site. Today about half of it has been excavated. They estimate it will take another 40 years to do the rest. There is currently no active digging taking place. Hopefully they are continuing to process the finds.

As recently as the 1970s motocross took place on top of the mounds which had become covered in sand and dirt. Here ty can see the difference between what was uncovered (on the left) and what is left to do (on the right). As the material is clay, it is a slow process with more brushing than digging. The archaeologists are working to recover the past, not to reconstruct it.

To put history in perspective, this was built about a thousand years before Manchu Picchu, which we would visit in a couple of days.

Back in the bus. We learned guinea pigs are food not pets. People made plans to try them later in the trip. Spoiler alert: we did not. I would have taken a bite, but after learning that they are served with their faces peeking out at you, I lost interest. Yes, I can have cicada ice cream, but draw the line at guinea pig faces.

We also learned the Peruvian dogs are hairless. They are native pets.

The political system is complicated. The day before the Main Square had been closed due to concerns of protestors. When we were there, the barricades were still up, but we could walk through them like a manmade labyrinth.

There are 11 million people in Lima, 33 million in all of Peru. Peru has 24 regions (districts); Peru has 10 provinces, comprising of 43 districts. Today we would visit five of those districts, including Miraflora where we were staying, Barranco, and San Isidoro (the executive district with embassies). We drove through the 17th century Olive Park, one of the oldest parks. 

At 60%, mining is their largest industry. Fishing is another large industry. There are over a thousand species of fish. I did not try enough seafood while in Peru.

Lima does not have a metro system, which adds to the traffic congestion. Their busses seemed to be even more crowded than what we saw on the subway system in Japan where they have people whose job it is to cram you in. As tourists we were advised not to take busses. Was it because they were already crowded, because we would be pick pocketed, or some other reason we were not there long enough to figure out.

Three reasons for the lack of subway: 1) it is a seismic city (the have about 200 earthquake a year); 3) archaeological remains are everywhere; and 3) it is expensive. A decade ago they started to build a subway, and so they continue. 

Since the 1970s the population has exploded from 2 million people to 11, almost 12 million people. There are not enough buildings for everyone.

Temperatures range from 30C (86F) to 14C (58F). I can see why people want to live there. It rarely rains. Being near the ocean, humidity tends to be high. Wear sunscreen (advice I failed to take, and suffered).

Between the narrow coastline, the highlands, and the rainforest, just about everything grows in Peru. They have over a hundred different types of corn, hundreds of types of chilis, and over 3,000 varieties of potatoes. As we ate in local restaurants we gained an appreciation for the variety.

They are the top producer of asparagus, though locals don't eat it. Tops also in blueberries, pineapples, mangoes, sweet grapes, etc.

The major religions are Catholicism and football. Top sports are soccer and women's volleyball.

Lima was actually the third Spanish capital of Peru. The first was in the Andes. The second in the desert south.

Yes, I took notes as he spoke.

There wasn't a coffee culture until recently. More on that in Cusco.

We made it to the historical center. The Incas dominated this area for 200 years from the 14th-16th centuries. Their last leader succumbed to Yellow Fever. The area was divided, which made being conquered by the Spaniards in 1532 easier. They founded Lima three years later on January 18, 1535 and called it the "City of Kings," because it was discovered on Kings Day (January 6, 1535). The location was chosen because of its proximity to water (three rivers converge on this ocean location), and its distance from Cusco, which was where their enemies lived. We would spend the next hour walking in and through different historical sites.

I'll pause here at the Basilica and Convent of San Pedro. The next post will have a lot more pictures.