16 « July « 2007 « Lanikai Underway

Museums of Lima

Posted by Doreen in Inland Travel, Peru
Monday, July 16th, 2007 @ 4:12 pm

The reason to spend time in Lima is to visit the many great museums. Bill and I visited two large Archaeological Museums while here and a smaller stamp museum in the old post office.

Friday we visited the Museum del Nación. We spent four hours checking out the history of Peru beginning with the early cave paintings and progressing thru the many civilizations leading up to the Incas – who only ruled for 100 years before the Spaniards arrived. We had seen parts of this before while in Chiclayo, but this helped put various parts together better.

Sunday we spent 5 hours in the Museum of Anthropology, Archaeology and History. This museum covers a slightly longer period of time as it begins with the hunter-gatherers crossing into the Americas and ends with the election of the previous president (not the current one). Much of the museum is devoted to pre-Columbian civilizations, covering much the same information as the Museum del Nación, but it contains much more original pottery and cloth pieces. One wing was devoted to the Spaniard’s arrival and rule and another area dealt with the revolution and the struggles of the Republic. One particularly interesting room contains a time-line around three walls, from about 1800 to 2004. Above this line were listed important events in Peru’s history and below the line were important world events from a Peruvian’s point of view.

We left the museum quite tired and caught a taxi back to Plaza San Martin. The next two hours were spent relaxing with a few beers while we watched the Soccer America’s Cup finals at a sports bar.

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Pachacámac, Pre-Columbian ruins

Posted by Doreen in Inland Travel, Peru
Monday, July 16th, 2007 @ 4:11 pm

See the Map!

Saturday, 14 July, we scheduled a taxi to take us to visit the nearby ruin site of Pachacámac. The site contains ruins from at least three successive groups of people before the Spaniards arrived to take it over from the Incas. Most of the site is just covered in mounds of sand with a few obvious adobe blocks sticking out. We first passed by the partially excavated ruins of the oldest residence discovered at the site. Now with a guide and our taxi driver still driving, we continued up the small hill to the Temple of the Sun. This structure is from the Inca era and is a large pyramid with a stone base and higher up adobe block construction. Originally it was capped by cane and adobe walls and roofs. We climbed to the highest existing level and enjoyed a 360-degree view around the valley, the Pacific Ocean to the west, green fields and rivers to the south and dry hills to the north and east (along with some modern settlements). Back down off the high point we visited the Palace of the Chosen Women. This structure has been about 70% reconstructed. This area is also Inca and had been used as a sort of convent for girls. The girls were raised here and trained to work in the temples and palaces of the rulers and priests. It contains several pools, gardens, work areas and living areas. The last area that we checked out at Pachacámac was a palace not far from the girls school. Only one of the courtyards has been excavated and could be looked into from the road. The plaza haa a ramp connecting it to an upper level indicating pre-Inca origin, as the Incas always built stairs.

Pachacámac had been in continuous use as a religious center since the first century AD up to when the Spanyards arrived. They did much destruction to the site in their search for gold. More destruction was later caused by grave robbers up until in recent years when the area was brought under some government protection.

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Lima, the capital of Peru

Posted by Doreen in Inland Travel, Peru
Monday, July 16th, 2007 @ 3:58 pm

See the Map!

Wednesday, July 11, we took an early bus from Trujillo – it is 8 hours to Lima, the capital of Peru. The PanAmerican Highway south of Trujillo follows close to the coast as the Andes mountains crowd close to the Pacific Ocean. We were still traveling thru the desert with areas of sand forming dunes right up to the base of the hills but we also crossed small rivers where the desert blooms. The taxi driver from the bus station into the city center helped us to find a great hotel near Plaza San Martin, the room even has a heater and at $20 per night was a great bargan. It is winter here now and quite cold and cloudy.

Thursday was spent exploring the old city center. A walking street connects Plaza San Martin to the central plaza, Plaza de Armas. Along the way we passed the first of the three churches that we visited over the day, Iglesia La Merced. The church was open and Doreen took a photo of the main altar, also some of the many side altars were just as beautiful but difficult to get far enough away to get good photos. Some were elaborately carved wood and others were gilded gold as was the main altar.

The main plaza (Plaza de Armas) was another block further down the street. The Cathedral fronts the plaza along one side and that was the next church that we visited. It is a very large structure and the nave is lined with not only altars but many small alcoves or small chapels. Photos were allowed so I took pictures of all that I could. Below the main altar were the catacombs, the burial site of many of the important religious officials. The most recent tomb was in 2000, the latest Archbishop to die. The carvings on the altar, pulpit, choir, lectern and main altar were intricate and very beautiful. The many, side alcoves also had beautiful large altars, all different. The first one that we stopped in had murals all over its walls done in a mosaic of tiny tiles.

The third church that we visited was Iglesia San Francisco (an active monastery) where we had a guided tour and no os were allowed. The guide led us thru the choir loft from which we could look down into the nave of the main church, the monk’s library with its large collection of very old books, some from before printing, the monk’s dining room where the current monks still take meals, one of the many gardens or plazas of the monastery and down into the catacombs. The catacombs contain the bones of over 25,000 people who had been buried there before the outside cemetery was developed. An archaeologist, while counting the bones, had re-arranged them into decorative groupings placing together all the bones of the same type. It was really weird!!

From San Francisco we continued around the block to the “Park of the Wall”. This park contains uncovered remnants of the original wall that once enclosed the city and parts of some of the homes that had once been built over it. We lunched at a small cafe in the park before returning of the main plaza. The main plaza has the governor’s mansion along one side and the City Hall along another, all highly beautiful.