Lima and Cusco, Peru
Saturday– Monday November 1–3, 2003
This is the Cathedral of Lima, dating back to the 1550s. The cathedral has been reconstructed several times; the first time was in 1609 after an earthquake. There was another earthquake in 1687, another in 1746.... The center of Lima, home of the Cathedral, is a Unesco World Heritage site.
Lima has a sky climate not unlike the Sunset District in San Francisco. It is on the Pacific coast and the icy water helps to create overcast about nine months of the year. It is not cold, exactly. But it is gray. And dry. We were told it rains about two inches a year here.
We were going to Cusco, up in the Andes. Lima is where the international airport is, and so we were in Lima for two days to see museums and feel the pace of the capital city.
Some of the older buildings in central Lima have ornate balconies, such as the one in the photograph below.
We went to the Larco Herrera Museum, which everyone who goes to Lima should visit. It has a large collection of pre–Inca pottery, and much of it is astonishingly good. Some of the collection is only 500 years old, but other works are 1,500 years old. We did not take any photographs in the museum.
The museum’s web site is at http://www.museolarco.org
Next we flew to Cusco, 11,000 feet up in an Andean valley. Cusco Airport does not have approach radar, so planes can only land when the visibility is good. That generally means the airport is only open dependably in the morning. And there is only one direction to land and take off, because going the other direction would run a plane into high mountains.
When we landed, we got out of the airplane and had to walk up a flight of steps. Wow, we knew right away we were at 11,000 feet. In fact, we had a bit of oxygen deprivation the two days we were in Cusco.
The cathedral in Cusco is a statement about what the Spanish thought about the Incas, as the stones used to build it came from an Inca monument not far out of town. The cathedral has a lot of gold and silver ornamentation in the interior.
Very close to the Monastery (1595) is a new art museum, where artifacts are displayed as art and not a dusty anthropological exhibit—well worth the time of any tourist.
Near a nearby church is Qoricancha, which was the center of the Inca society. There is a lot of gold and silver, still, despite the Spanish melt down project to impress the King. There is an example of an Inca wall there (blocks of stone placed perfectly together) and a Spanish improvement—the blocks do not fit together very well at all, despite being made of the same stone, cut by the Incas. We also visited the impressive ruins of Sacasayhuamán which was also built by the Incas.
Cusco was the capital of the Inca Empire. Apparently it was a close contest whether it would be the Spanish or the Inca which would be beaten, but the Spanish won the day, barely, and therefore the decade, the century.... Cusco is a Unesco World Heritage site.
We had dinner at the Inka Grill on the main square, and with the fine food we were able to enjoy the music of an Andean musical group.
Cusco remains an important city, both for tourism and for the people who live in the Highlands. The photograph below shows a part of the dense city. The trees are Eucalyptus.
We flew from Los Angeles to Lima and landed at midnight. The next day we took a guided tour of the city and visited the central district and several museums containing pre–Hispanic and pre–Inca art. The food was good, too.
Then we flew up to Cusco, high in the Andes. We did not see much of the city on the first visit, but saw more later on after returning from Machu Picchu by train.
Next—a trip by van down to oxygen, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu.
