In a bid to get over my cold faster, we left the winter of Lima and travelled 20km into the hills past La Molina suburb of Lima. Here it is warm, sunny and dry all year round.

Our route to La Molina is a pass through the foothills, which are like mountains in themselves. Here in the dry desert these foothills look like gigantic piles of dirt, rock and sand. The road from Surco into La Molina is cut through these foothills, from which you have a good view of fog-covered Surco about 100 meters below. La Molina feels like a separate city as between it and the rest of Lima these hills are a divider.

From the suburb of La Molina we climbed to 800m into the sun, through winding roads and down into the valley. This place is sunny because the fog and clouds that come in off the sea can’t get this far inland and are cut off from Cieneguilla from the mountains.

The centre of the valley is kept green by a trickling river that is quite bigger in the wet season.

The last photos show some of the houses poor people have built on the road back to Lima. Photos below.

Tags: cieneguilla, foothills, la molina, lima, lurin valley, surco