25 October 2024 pre-trip day 1

Machu Picchu and Galapagos have always been on our bucket list. So it didn’t take long to say yes when our cottage neighbours, Mark and Cindy, asked us to go on an organized tour with them. In our years of travel, we haven’t done an organized tour yet like this yet, so I look forward to see what it’s like.

It was a long flight: Victoria – Seattle – Miami – Lima. Actually, it was only 11 flying hours, but the layovers made it 28 hours of travel. We met Cindy & Mark, in Miami and then continued on to Lima. We arrived a day and a half before the tour started to give us time get our feet on the ground.

The travel company had arranged a mini bus to pick us up at the airport, and they dropped the four of us off at Jose Antonio hotel in Miraflores, an upscale area of Lima. We celebrated arrival in Peru with the mandatory Pisco Sour… although I thought Sarah’s father made a better one than we had at the hotel. It could be that we preferred the lemons he used , while the bars in Peru use limes.

The first morning, we walked around the escarpment overlooking the ocean in Miraflores. Despite being a Friday, there were lots of people out enjoying the area. The local terraced tennis courts were full, the ocean waves were good for beginner/ intermediate surfers.

In the afternoon, we took the Mirabus double decker bus tour as an easy way to see the city. Lima has 11 million people, and I think they were all driving cars because traffic was terrible. On our way home, it took 1.5 hours to go 9km. However, the bus driver was surprizingly calm, so this must be routine. We learned from our guide the next day that there were two reasons why the traffic was particularly bad: First, each district in the CIty has a road budget that must be spent by December 31, so many projects are proceeding now. And second, one of the main arteries to the waterfront highway from the City was closed for construction, which just jammed everything else up.

Spain’s Pizarro conquered the Inca’s in 1532, and the historic centre of Lima was laid out in 1535. The first version of the main buildings, convents and churches were shortly built around that time, and have been rebuilt or added onto a number of times after ‘ring of fire’ earthquakes. It was hard to remember we were in the Americas. In Canada, other some of the original forts, there are no buildings that continue to be in use in Canada older that the early to mid 1800’s…almost 300 years after Lima’ historic centre.

I find it fascinating how the different cultures developed. All people would have come over the land bridge to Asia +/-20,000 years ago. Dr Google says Incas, Aztecs and Mayans had strong central governments, huge cities and millions of people. There were precedent cultures too. The North American Indian had insular family centred groups that did not develop into larger social structures. I’m sure climate was a big factor with much more severe winters in north america. One day I’d like to do a bit more than a few minutes of google searching!

We met the rest of the tour group and Ivonne, our local guide for Lima on on Saturday morning. We did a very similar walk around the Miraflores escarpment. After a meal at a local restarant, 6 of us took a mini tour bus to Pachacamac. Pachacamac was a religeous centre built and rebuilt over 1000 years before the Inca’s. You could see the various ages of buildins from teh different materials used ove rhtr ecenturies.

While interesting, it was the shanty towns that caught my attention. I’m not sure I got the story right, but there are about 4 million people living in shanty towns that surround Lima. THey start as simple brick rooms that get expanded over a lifetime… and then the City adds water & sewer and the inhabitants start paying taxes. THe scary thing is that Perud is on teh ring of fire volacnoes/ tsunami’s and earthquakes. When Lima gets hit with the next major earthquake, all these largely home made brick builds will collapse , putting 4 million people at risk.