Day 990
Lima
After spending time in the remote areas of Peru I was feeling somewhat ambiguous about heading to Lima. Yes, I longed for a proper shower, a washing machine, choices when it came to what and where to eat, but I was seriously not looking forward to cycling into the city, listening to the ever present noise that a city creates, car engines, horns, building construction, nightlife, people.
The city covers 300 sq. miles, is home to about 10 million people, making it the biggest in Peru, and 2nd largest in South America. It’s vast. What this actually means to us cyclists is that when we left the empty desert behind and rode into the outskirts we still had over 25 miles to ride to our apartment. We were on the main road into the city, and gradually this got busier and busier. There was a hard shoulder of sorts, but this came and went, as did the surface. Sometimes smooth tarmac, at others a pot-holed nightmare. We had to contend with buses and coaches constantly pulling onto the hard shoulder to pick up and drop off passengers, moto-taxis, small motorbikes and cyclists coming towards us, vehicles using the hard shoulder as an under-taking lane, random food sellers setting up their stalls etc. Then there was the noise all of this created, which after the silence of the mountains, took some adapting too. I needed eyes in the back of my head, fortunately I had Tom, who constantly shouted advice of where I needed to be, did I mention I had broken my mirror, oh how I longed for it now.
It was hard to maintain a decent speed so it was taking forever to work our way through, finally we turned off the main highway, just 15 miles to go now! The roads though were in an appalling state, our speed dropped to barely walking pace as we wound our way through rubbish, potholes, broken speed bumps etc. We almost longed to be back on the highway. After an agonisingly slow 5 miles we finally joined a cycle way. Lima is famous for its cycleway network and for our final 10 miles we were able to escape the road and feel slightly safer. I say slightly safer as to start with the small posts separating us from the traffic had all been destroyed, flattened by buses probably. The other problem was Lima's road system. About every few hundred yards we would reach a set of traffic lights, where we would have to stop for about a minute. We never arrived when it was green for go, so this added so much time to our journey. Tom kept texting our Airbnb hosts, updating our ETA 3.30pm, 4pm, 5pm, err maybe 5.30pm.
Finally at nearly 6pm we arrived, it had taken over 4 hours to ride 25 miles and we were shattered. I just wanted to fall into bed, but our host recommended a steak restaurant just 2 minutes away and after a quick shower we headed out, for probably the best steak I have ever eaten. Did I mention Lima is world famous for its restaurants?
We had chosen to stay in an area of Lima called Miraflores. It’s modern and bustling, with skyscrapers all around, but being Peru we can also see a pyramid from our apartment. Huaca Pullana, is a vast pyramid built of adobe and clay right bang in the centre of this busy district. It was an important ceremonial and administrative centre from around 200AD. It also contained many tombs, the first to be found intact was from the Wari period of around 500 to 1000AD. Called the Tomb of the Lord of Unkas, it contained the bodies of 3 adults and a small child which had been sacrificed. On our visit to the textile museum we had seen cloth from these tombs which the bodies were wrapped in.
Apart from this and the museums we spent our time just wandering about, we had a day riding along the awesome cycle path that runs beside the sea and on the cliff path above. We rode for over 20 miles, and could have easily ridden more this network just goes on and on. We rode through beautiful parks, past Paddington Bear, donated by us Brits, which made us think of our much missed Queen Elizabeth II. We spotted a small park dedicated to John Lennon, a lovers park, a shopping centre actually built into the rock of the cliff face, the only one in the world apparently. It was a fabulous way to explore, and we had it all virtually to ourselves. Despite being in the centre of such a vast and busy city nowhere felt crowded. We both loved relaxing here.
Another day we headed to the historical district. With Lima’s long and somewhat troubled history, from the Incas, occupied by Spain, then Chile, the buildings reflected their architectural styles. What was sad was the fact that clearly so many stunning buildings have disappeared to be replaced by modern concrete. I guess a combination of the cost of upkeep, building quality, frequent earthquakes and the drive to modernise have resulted in so much being lost. As we wandered we would sometimes come across whole streets of stunning buildings, but mainly it was just one or two sat between the modern soulless concrete. Clearly Lima has woken up to how important it is to preserve what is left, Unesco has given it World Heritage Status, which is clearly helping drive the desire to preserve its heritage.
It is a fantastic city to visit, relax in the ever present sunshine (it last rained here in 1971 apparently), and we have loved it. The people are so friendly, for such a populated city it never feels crowded as say London can, and for a place to rest and recover we couldn’t have chosen better. We found a terrific bike shop to service the bikes, check the headsets, hubs etc. are all still in good condition ready for the road ahead, we set off tomorrow so we have decided to end the week as we began, back to that steak house, well why not?!
