Friday 21st August 2015
In the morning, we had brekky together upstairs with Rosa, Peter and a guy from New York, Nick, that Rosa had met the day before. Peter suggested that we could go to some ruin which was only 20 minutes walk away. Peter and I checked out our luggages from the room to a storage room and off we went, walking towards there.
First, Peter showed me a bank which does NOT take 15 soles commission when you withdraw money called Multi Red. In Peru, most banks take a withdrawal fee of 13 to 15 soles each time you withdraw money, so annoying. Not that one!
Also, same thing, if you are from Australia, the card Peter uses to travel abroad outside of Australia is Citibank which does not take credit card fee when you withdraw! I use the 28 degrees mastercard and it is a great card when being able to pay by card in a country, for example in Europe, but in South America most things are paid in cash and 28 degrees
is not good to withdraw abroad! So better get a citybank card before to go travelling!
And off we walked in the streets, seeing beetles everywhere.
Crossed this park
We got to the entrance of Huaca Pucllana, an ancient religions temple area built in clay by the Lima civilisation between 200 and 700 AD.
Conservation of this site started in 1981 and restoration is still being performed. They estimate that 40% of the site is still burried. It is a very impressive ruin, especially right in the centre of Lima, surrounded by all modern buildings.
We arrived just on time to join the 1-hour English tour of the ruins. Here was the group made of whoever English person had turned up at that time that day!
A photo of the site
This is an original wall, you can see the pyramid shapes in this wall, they used to be painted.
This is a wall which has been renovated, we can see the difference as the mud bricks are really regular. During the original construction, the guide said that each level of bricks took 20 years to build!
From some perspective, it looks like a giant tetrix game.
Parents and children weren contributing to building it, every family had to contribute to it with their time.
It is said that there are finger prints in the clay.
We climbed up and had this view of the site
These big holes were mad small holes were made to put offerings in them.
View of the city from the ruin
Excavation still going on. Must be taking forever.
Down we went to continue the tour
Some reproduction of a local scene of the time.
What they would eat and trade
After that we saw the local botanical garden, with some weird plants like this one.
Cotton
Alpaca
Llama (or is it the opposite!!!??)
Guinea pig. In Peru they eat them, it is a dish called “cuy”.
Physalis plant
A maquette of the site
A reconstitution of the men building this site
Others moving around a big jar
Original jar
During the visit, Nick left as he had a flight to catch for Cusco. After the visit, Peter, Rosa and me went for lunch near the hostel, again to La Lucheria where we had other delicious sandwiches.
While eating, the security guard even made sure that the cat would not come bother us! It tells you how much they care to make sure tourists feel safe and happy here and wanna come back!
Back at the hostal, enjoying the WiFi for a little bit on the terrace.
Here was the bar where we had our drinks the night before.
Peter was off to Huaraz in the evening with the Cruz del Sur bus, Rosa was still not sure of her plans. And I was off to Guayaquil with a 26-hour bus with Cruz del Sur! Off to the station for the long bus ride!
