On the second day here I walked to Miraflores, the coastal area that has masses of high rise apartments, restaurants, parks, Indian (that is Peruvian indigenous) art and jewellery stores and markets, and the usual pimples on the face of authenticity such as KFC and McDonalds. It’s a bit like a supersized Glenelg Beach or St Kilda. The walk took a bit over an hour from where I’m staying.

The beach is far below the road…

The Airbnb guy told me that the water is always cold, because of the current from the south, so swimming without a wetsuit is for the hardy or determined. There are a lot of people surfing in places.

There were some nice Gaudiesque touches along the top…

In one of the parks there is this sign…

It says ‘authorised zone for the feeding of cats’, but I guess you could of worked that out by yourself. Actually gato means cat, and gatito means something like pussy cat, or even kitten

The rest of the notice tells you to report any mistreatment or abandonment to the authorities.

The cats are street cats, and the shire workers have decided to take care of them in the park. There were a dozen or more there as I strode past.

For lunch I decided to be adventurous and try the famous Peruvian dish ceviche (pronounced se-beach-eh). It is raw fish, marinaded in lime juice, chilli, basil and served on sliced red onion with corn and sweet potato. The cafe was an open-at-the-sides, very basic place, and, without looking at the menu, I asked the spruiker chica, who also turned out to be the waiter, did they serve fish? She gave me the strangest look, and pointed to the name of the place, which had del mar in it…from the sea! Dur…what a dope.

So, out came the ceviche…

The marinading has the same effect as cooking, but leaves the fish beautifully tender. It was delicious, such a variety of flavours in the marinade, that leave the mouth tingling and fresh for hours. This cost about $8. There are apparently countless recipes for the dish, so I’ll be trying it again.

There is a great museum here, specialising in pre-Columbian, that is before 15th century, ceramics and gold and silver. It’s called the Larco museum, and lives in a viceroy’s residence from the colonial period. Outside there are cascades of bougainvillea tumbling down the white walls, and heaps of cliveas and potted crucifix orchids.

Inside it is cool and quiet and beautifully set out …

Ceramics are stunning

Walking in the street, quite often, you see faces such as these, strong, brown and with straight black hair.

There was quite a bit about human sacrifice (most religions seem to have the requirement of spilling blood in order to appease the vengeful god)…

There were jars for the collection of the blood, depicting the act…

The silver and gold things were stunning…here are nose…rings

and ear ornaments…

that leave the average pierced Goth of today at the starting gate!

The other big site in Lima is the Huaca Pucllana pronounced as Wukka Pookyana. It’s an ancient mud brick pyramid built and developed over 200 to 700 of the Common Era (formerly known as A.D.) by a couple of cultures that inhabited the area. They used irrigation from the river for agriculture and the sea for fish. The pyramid was used for assembly, administration, religious practices and burial.

The structure is made from sun dried mud bricks, millions of them laid in a bookshelf style…

Each brick is about 15 cm high. They are laid like this so as to be flexible when there are earthquakes. A triangular structure also assures the integrity of the structure…

Seen from above…

It was covered over and appeared as a hill in the middle of creeping suburban spread until the 1980s when archaeologists started digging, and there is still lots to do. The suburbs have been built over a considerable proportion of the original site.

It’s about 27m high.

Today, Tuesday 10 October, I fly to Cuzco, high in the mountains, for 3 nights. It’s about 3.4 km higher than coastal Lima, so the chances of getting altitude sickness are higher too.

Here’s the weather forecast…

…so I won’t be packing the shorts.

Apparently the airport is a bit hairy to land at and to take off from. Hmmm …should be interesting.

I notice on the administrator’s page of the blog, in the statistics section that there are visitors to the site from South Korea, China, Taiwan, Ireland. I would be very interested in knowing who you are, so feel free to leave a comment, or post something on the Messenger page ‘Texinturkey…or Chile’.

Next blog….Cuzco

Hasta luego