Throughout our entire trip, no one has had a good word to say about Lima. From people who are from here, have lived here or travelled through here, the comments are similar and usually revolve around Lima being dangerous, chaotic, noisy, dirty and uninteresting. As time went on we were beginning to wonder if a week in Lima would be a week too long!
As we arrived in Lima we were greeted by gridlocked traffic, hooting horns and indeed traffic chaos. However there was something exciting about this, and we enjoyed watching the cars all jostling for space as we trundled through from the relative safety of the enormous Dragoman truck that we have recently been travelling in.
As we arrived in the street of our hotel we were surprised to see that the street only contained shop after shop of opticians and nothing else. We queried whether that many opticians were really needed given that so few people appeared to be wearing glasses. Very strange!
The historic centre was like many others in terms of being slightly run down but during our walking tour the following day we were shown some beautiful colonial style architecture. We stopped in the main square for some time to listen to a military band play at the palace and then were surprised to see them all pile out into a row of waiting coaches. We were just beginning to think how pleasant Lima was and seemingly safe until a whole troop of riot police in full riot gear with shields etc emerged right in front of us and lined the streets. I asked our walking guide if we should still be standing here and if it was safe. He seemed totally non plussed and continued his speil about the history of the city. John asked a question as to what the riot police were there for but failed to get much of a response. We were relieved to move on from this spot though.
The next day we moved from the historical centre to the more touristy district of Miraflores for the rest of our stay in Lima. Miraflores is bright, shiny and touristy and has some high end shops and restaurants at the waterfront. Our first stop and priority was to find the Paddington Bear statue which was located near the waterfront but seemed of little interest to anybody other than the few English tourists gathered there.
We also visited the pre inca civilisation site at Huaca Pucllana which was within Miraflores and the more extensive inca and pre inca site of Pachacamac. Both were interesting and certainly worthy of a visit.
We were staying near Kennedy Park which seems to be the centre for hundreds of stray cats. For the first time in our journey throughout South America we were suddenly aware that there were no stray dogs around but instead loads of stray cats. Even our hostel had adopted a cat called Pablo. To support the stray cats, Lima has set up a number of cat charities. Kennedy Park is peaceful in the day but particularly comes alive at night with a range of activities for all ages from salsa dancing couples in the amphitheatre, card swapping youngsters and techno music for the younger generation surrounded by an array of food carts selling everything from churros, popcorn, filled rolls and rice pudding!
A highlight for us was the Circuito Magico del Agua in Parque Reserva: a spectacular park full of stunning water fountains which particularly come to life at night when there is a wonderful show of water, images, lights, lasers and music. It is described as the largest electronic water fountain compound in the world and is definitely worth more than the 87 pence entrance fee we paid.
So to sum up our view on the parts of Lima we saw: yes it is chaotic, noisy and undoubtedly dangerous in some places but it is also a varied, interesting and a beautiful city and we really enjoyed our time here.
No comments:
Post a Comment