Peru - Lonely Planet Publications [50]
What Lima lacks in attractiveness, it makes up with a huge array of downright literary experiences. Stately museums display sublime pottery; edgy art spaces host multimedia installations. There are solemn religious processions dating back to the 18th century and crowded nightclubs swaying to tropical beats. You’ll find encyclopedic bookstores and cavernous shopping malls, well-heeled private golf clubs and baroque churches ornamented with the skulls of saints. It’s a cultural phantasmagoria with a profusion of exceptional eateries, from humble to high-brow, all part of a gastronomic revolution more than 400 years in the making.
This is Lima. Shrouded in history, gloriously messy and full of aesthetic delights. Don’t even think of missing it.
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HIGHLIGHTS
Dipping into the continent’s most inventive cuisine at the bustling restaurants of Miraflores (Click here)
Admiring sublime Moche portrait vessels and naughty erotic pots at the Museo Larco (Click here)
Sipping a simple beer or a high-brow fusion cocktail at the vintage bars and chic lounges of always-hopping Barranco (Click here)
Walking around the sandy ruins of several civilizations’ worth of temples at Pachacamac (Click here)
Leaping off the Miraflores clifftops and paragliding (Click here) past the shoppers and diners at the trendy LarcoMar shopping mall (Click here)
Gazing upon the skulls of some of Latin America’s most celebrated saints at the Iglesia de Santo Domingo (Click here) in Central Lima
▪ TELEPHONE CODE: 01 ▪ POPULATION : 8.5 million (Greater Metropolitan Area) ▪ AVERAGE TEMPERATURE: January 17°C to 27°C, July 11°C to 21°C
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HISTORY
Lima has survived endless cycles of destruction and rebirth. Regular apocalyptic earthquakes, warfare and the rise and fall of civilizations have resulted in a city that is as ancient as it is new. In pre-Hispanic times, the area served, at one time or another, as an urban center for the Lima, Wari, Ichsma and even the Inca cultures. When Francisco Pizarro sketched out the boundaries of his ‘City of Kings’ in January of 1535, there were roughly 200,000 indigenous people living in the area.
By the 18th century, the Spaniards’ tumbledown village of adobe and wood had given way to a viceregal capital, where fleets of ships arrived to transport the conquest’s golden spoils back to Europe. In 1746, a disastrous earthquake wiped out much of the city, but the rebuilding was rapid and streets were soon lined with baroque churches and ample casonas (mansions). The city’s importance began to fade after independence in 1821, when other urban centers were crowned capitals of newly independent states.
In 1880, Lima found itself under siege when it was ransacked and occupied by the Chilean military during the War of the Pacific (1879–83). As part of the pillage, the Chileans made off with thousands of tomes from the National Library (though they would eventually return them – in 2007). The war was followed by another period of expansion, and by the 1920s Lima was crisscrossed by a network of broad boulevards inspired by Parisian urban design. Once again, however, a devastating earthquake struck, this time in 1940, and the city again had to be rebuilt.
By the mid-1900s the number of inhabitants began to grow exponentially. An influx of rural poor took the metro area population from 661,000 in 1940 to 8.5 million by 2007. The migration was particularly intense during the 1980s, when the conflict between the military and assorted guerilla groups in the Andes sent victims of the violence flocking to the capital. Shantytowns mushroomed, crime soared and the city fell into a period of steep decay. In 1992, the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) detonated deadly truck bombs in middle-class Miraflores, marking one of Lima’s darkest hours.
But the city has again dusted itself off and rebuilt – to an astonishing degree. A robust economy and a vast array of