Lima

My last report from my South American trip will be about Lima, Peru’s capital.

Lima is on sea level, in front of the Pacific Ocean. (The beaches look fairly nice, but the water is quite cold and the city’s sewage is dumped, as such, into the ocean; for nice beaches, go south or north of Lima).

Contrary to the higher Peruvian areas, where the sky is blue most of the year, Lima is covered by a low layer of clouds some eight months, but it hardly ever rains. The temperature is moderate with small variations between the seasons.

The urban population approaches the ten millions – about a third of the country’s total - with a very rapid evolution the last decades. In some of the outskirts, including close to the airport, there are a lot of shantytowns (pueblos jovenes), mostly inhabited by Amerindians. As many of the world’s urban concentrations, Lima has been and is growing too rapidly to allow the infrastructures to follow.

Francisco Pizarro and his conquistadors defeated the Inca population and Lima was officially founded in 1535, became capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1543 and later – in 1821 – of the independent Peru.

The city has suffered from different earthquakes, the most violent in the 18th century, but the old city centre is full of beautiful buildings in colonial style, especially around the central place, Plaza Mayor, including the Presidential Palace, the Cathedral and The Palazio del Arzibispo with some fantastic balconies and, close to this place, some other churches and official buildings.

Close to Plaza Mayor you find the wonderful Church and Monastery of San Francisco, with some impressive catacombs where all Lima citizens were buried until the beginning of the 19th century.

One interesting “detail” in the Monastery is an early 17th century painting of the Cena (The Last Supper), where you can clearly find Maria Magdalena leaning her head on Jesus’ shoulder.

When you go to the areas of Miraflores (and its neighbour San Isidro), closer to the Ocean, the city looks almost European; wide streets and avenues, parks, modern office buildings, residential housing, hotels, restaurants, casinos…and on the Ocean cliffs a fantastic shopping and amusement centre, Larcomar.

Lima has also some remarkable museums, including the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum).

All nice things come unfortunately to an end; time to go back to Paris – of course also quite nice!

As usual, I would suggest that you go to my photo blog, if you wish to see the photos in large!