Categoria / Category Peru 2001

Cusco – Corpus Christi

I planed to arrive in Cuzco a day before the Corpus Christi holiday. The city already was a party and there were commemorations at Plaza de Armas. I met some English friends for lunch and in the evening stayed reading in the hotel. I was tired.

Next day I woke up early to see the festivities. I sat down on the stairs by the cathedral. There was a great number of Peruvians and almost no foreigner tourists. I was looking at the people passing by: jelly, soda and chocolate sellers. They were also spreading out folders explaining each saint story.

Saints from neighbor churches come the day before to “sleep” in the cathedral from where they leave to the parade. After the commemorations they are returned to their original church...

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Lima – Museums

In Lima I visited the “Museo Nacional de Antropologia y Arqueologia”, located in Plaza Bolívar, a typical square of small city surrounded by colored colonial building. The museum shows the different phases of the indigenous cultures in Peru. Each culture is represented with the map of its region, time they had lived, its ceramics, clothing, mummies, skeletons… One of the attractions of the museum is the maquette of Machu Pichu where it shows how civilization worked. It has bulbs that light up showing what was each place in the construction.

The same day I visited the “Museo del Oro del Peru y Armas del Mundo”. The first floor you get in is a room full of rifles, knives, swords, digging, uniforms, armors, all possible warlike material, all in great amounts. I think I had never seen so many weapons together in my life. I did not like it at all, I felt suffocated and I left. I went to a handcraft store.

After some time, I came back and went to the basement to see the golden obje...

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Ica and Pisco

I arrived in Ica by the end of the afternoon. I got off the bus and got a cab straight to Huacachina, the local oasis. The place reminded me the oasis from movies in the Sahara desert. There are enormous sand dunes around a small lake with palms tree, restaurants and hotels. There are just a few houses and a small number of inhabitants. Huacachina is known by the tourists for the practice of sandboard (a sport similar to snowboard). The difference is that here there is no cable car to take you to the top of  the dune. The tourists go up and practice in a higher part, without going all the way down, only in the end they go down the big dune. Some have the breath to go up and go down again. Here the climate in hot. After feeling cold in so many places, it was great to be in the hot weather, reading a book by the pool.

From Ica I went to Pisco, I wanted to visit the Ballestas Island. The boat tour usually leaves in the mornings...

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Nazca Lines


Flying over Nazca Lines is a good excuse to come to Peru. These famous drawings, believed to be made by Nazca and Paracas cultures centuries ago, can only be see from the of air. The figures were only discovered in the beginning of the 20th century when airplanes flew over the area and pilots saw something on the ground. Up to today we don’t known who did the drawings, neither why they were done. There are some theories, one of the most accepted one is that they have been drawn to be as a calendar showing when to plant and the season of the year… Another theory is that the drawings were done by astronauts, or that the indigenous could make air balloons and would fly over to see the figures.

I arrived in town late in the evening; I came by bus from Lima and I had already reserved a flight to the next morning. I woke up a little anxious; therefore I can get motion sickness in bus, boat, car. I imagined in a small airplane for three people who turn 90 degrees sidewise...

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Lima – Soccer and Elections

I arrived in Lima on the weekend of the presidential election, important date to the politics of the country. The city was gray and cold. I thought that on the same latitude in Brazil, in the Atlantic coast, it should be hot and sunny.

Saturday I was supposed to meet two English friends to see the soccer match of Peru and Ecuador. The idea was to root for Ecuador. The English girls because had lived there and got affection for the country. And I, because I believed that they deserved, after all, they had never been in a world cup before, they were doing well and could get classified. It was in Quito when Ecuador won from Paraguay, it was an enormous party on the streets, everything stopped, everybody were wearing their team t-shirt and painted their faces. Also thinking about the historical facts, the frontier wars, Ecuador always lost to Peru, maybe for being smaller and weaker country. They deserve to win this time; even if it is only in soccer.

We saw the match in a popular restaur...

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Trujillo and surroundings


I arrived in Trujillo at 4am. As I was the only person to get off the bus that was going to Lima, once again, I suffered the fight of taxi drivers for my backpack. This time I got a little scared because I was not in a bus terminal, I was alone in a dark street. I decided not to argue and let them fight to decide who was going to take me. Well, the louder one earned.

To visit the ruins I didn’t want to get a tour, I decided to go by myself. In the morning I visited the Huacas del Sol y de la Luna. It is not known if they really were temples of the sun and moon. The name was given by the Spaniard when they arrived in the place and they thought these were Inca constructions. They did not know these were constructions from the Moche period, from hundreds of years before Incas.

Only one of the temples is opened to visits. I could see the different rooms, the sacrifice place and where they had found ceramic, skeletons and objects in gold, silver and copper...

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