Historic Centre of Lima

SONY DSCLocation: Lima, Peru

Visited: June 23, 2013

Site Type: Cultural

Background and Opinion:

The capital of Peru was also once the capital of the Spanish dominion of South America. It was added to the World Heritage list for its extensive preservation of the town center with beautiful yellow buildings dating back hundreds of years. While much of it was destroyed by earthquakes, including the cathedral which partially collapsed in 1940, much of it looks much like it did from the very beginning.

Unfortunately, we chose a lousy time to go sight seeing as I had my first encounter with tear gas. While we were safe for the most part, there were large students protests which led to riot police and us being caught in the middle of it all.

Panoramic Plaza Major Lima

Marking a striking resemblance to Mexico City, Lima’s center can be considered the ‘Plaza de Armas’ and expands in a circle all around. The city center is buzzing with activity and a must if you are ever in the Peruvian capital. At night, the dim street lights make for a spectacular view of the night sky.

Evaluation:

Completeness and Originality (8/15): The site is very well taken care of and is nice to just walk around.

Extensiveness of the Site (3.5/15): In all honesty, besides walking around there isn’t much to do. The churches are nice and the buildings pretty, but everything can be done in about 1.5 hours.

Cultural Significance (7.5/25): As the capital of South America, it served as the administrative center of Spanish dominions. It is a shame however that the UNESCO bid does not include the ancient ruins of Huaca Pucllana in south Lima as those are dated to about a thousand years before the Spanish even arrived.

Monastery of San Francisco Lima

Personal Impact (3.5/15): Lima was not bad, but if it wasn’t the capital and the starting and ending point of our trip, I would not spend more than a day or two in it. It is not so much that it isn’t nice as there is so much more to do in the rest of Peru. Compared to Machu Picchu or Nazca, there just is no comparison.

Logistics (6.5/10): Navigation was cheap and easy since I speak Spanish. I imagine the buses are a bit harder for most foreigners, but still cheap enough to allow for getting lost once or twice.

Uniqueness (2/20): I liked the yellow buildings very much, but it feels a lot like the many Spanish cities scattered all around the region and in Mexico. While that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there was nothing particularly unique about Lima’s center at all that would make me want to visit again.

Combined Score: 31/100

 

Is this a good score? Find out how it compares with other UNESCO World Heritage Sites in our rankings.

Curious how the scores are derived? Check out the scoring criteria.  

While this has nothing to do with the UNESCO Entry, while in Lima there are other must see places:

1) Huaca Pucllana – 2,000 year old pre-Incan ruins

Huaca Pucllana Lima Peru

2) Larco Museum – Quite possible the best museum I have ever visited. Very informative, well organized, and you can even see their archives which are open to the public.

Larco Museum Archives

City of Cuzco

Cusco CathedralVisited: Jun. 2013

Site Type: Cultural

Inscribed: 1983

Background and Opinion

Cuzco, was one of the two most important cities in the Americas prior to the Spanish conquest, the other being Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital). It was the center of the empire of the Inka, a word meaning ‘king.’

What people think of as the “Inca Empire” (also misspelled) was actually a multicultural state of dozens, if not hundreds of different ethnicities. The ruling people are called ‘Quechua,’ one of the many things I learned while visiting Machu Picchu. They are also more than one ethnic group, but are tied together by the use of the same language (also called ‘Quechua’). Needless to say, the Spanish conquistadors were not too interested in a history lesson when they came in pillaging and thrashing about. Read more

10 Questions You Never had about Machu Picchu

During my visit to Machu Picchu, I loaded up with a bunch of useless facts, anecdotes, and quirky information. I actually also got some important questions answered, too. Some of these are things I actually wondered, while other information has no other place to find shelter than in this blog. I’ll try to mix the serious and the goofy ones, but am not making any promises!

1) Are there llamas in Machu Picchu? Read more

Wayna Picchu Exploration: A Complete Guide

Sooo… What is Wayna Picchu?

If you look at the official Peruvian site to buy tickets to Machu Picchu, it might get a little confusing as to what exactly is Wayna Picchu and why it’s in a different category than “montaña,” which means ‘mountain’ in Spanish. While I did go over the differences in my post on ‘How to get to Machu Picchu,’ let me re-iterate that it is a mountain that overlooks Machu Picchu. There are two mountains, ‘Machu Picchu Mountain’ and ‘Wayna Picchu Mountain,’ both of which require additional tickets to enter (besides the basic Machu Picchu ticket). It should also be noted that you are not allowed to enter both mountains on the same day. If you want to visit both, you should buy tickets on separate days and they ONLY come as a bundle ticket with the basic Machu Picchu entrance.

That is Wayna Picchu in the back.
That is Wayna Picchu in the back and on the right.

Should I Visit Wayna Picchu?

Read more