Perú, Mucho Gusto – Primera Feria Internacional de Lima

Lima’s top chefs unite through the Peruvian Society of Gastronomy and Peru’s tourism and exports promotions agency PromPeru to bring the world the First International Fair of Lima, a gastronomic fair of epic proportions.

September 27, 2008 | Lima City Guide, News, Peruvian Food

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Lima’s Archaeological Sites (.KMZ)

I’ve been putting together a map of some of Lima’s estimated 10,000 archaeological sites. The vast majority of these, as shown in the Lima Precolombina series, are found in the middle of regular residential areas of Lima and include Inca palaces, towering pyramids and the ruins of towns and cities.

Since posting Glorious Pre-Columbian Lima, I’ve had dozens of requests to make the Google Earth placemarks I used available as a downloadable .kmz file. This is something I definitely want to do, but with so many sites it will always be a work in progress. In the course of mapping the pre-Columbian artificial water channels the Spanish thought were rivers, for example, I noticed 3 archaeological sites I had no idea existed.

September 26, 2008 | Archaeology

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PromPeru: Living the Legend

The new promotional video from PromPeru; some say it’s wonderful, others that it’s a little bizarre.

What do you think?

September 25, 2008 | Opinion

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When the U.S. sneezes, Peru drinks tea. [Featured]

They say that “when the U.S. sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold.”

Well it seems Peru was prepared to avoid a cold.

September 23, 2008 | News, Opinion

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30,000 illegal mines polute Lake Titicaca

President of the Autonomous Authority of Lake Titicaca, Julián Barra, said today that more than 30 thousand informal unregistered small scale mining operations near the world’s highest navigable lake are causing terrible pollution to both it an surrounding rivers.

September 22, 2008 | News

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Bar Maury and the Pisco Sour

Californian immigrant Victor Morris arrived in the city in the early 1900s and set up a bar that operated until 1933.

It is said that it was here in Bar Morris that the Pisco Sour was first conceived, invented either by Victor or one of his bar staff, based on the recipe for whiskey sour.

The new cocktail was a huge hit, and the city’s biggest hotels, such as the Hotel Bolivar and Hotel Maury began serving their own versions to their international clients.

Bar Maury took up the mantel, and according to barman Eloy Cuadros, who is now part of the furniture, it is here the recipe was perfected and it is their version that has spread across the country. It seems very plausible – Eloy served me the best Pisco Sour I have ever had.

September 19, 2008 | Culture & History, Lima City Guide, Peruvian Food

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Peruvian Pisco Conquers the World

It was not much more than a century ago that, thanks to a bar in San Francisco’s Bank Exchange, the then little-known national spirit of Peru started making an impact on the international stage. Since then, due to under-appreciation by Peruvians, Chile sneakily claimed ownership of the Pisco brand, making and exporting a greatly inferior mass-produced imitation product that had run the spirit’s reputation abroad into the ground. For many outside Chile, Pisco was now considered junk.

September 17, 2008 | Lima City Guide, Peruvian Food

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Victims of the Boom

As property prices and rents sky-rocket, and Peru’s economy enjoys its best rates of growth ever, some are left behind. Not able to pay more for rent and with nowhere else to go, this family has found themselves out on the street, evicted by the property owner who wants to cash in and sell the building that was once the family’s home for new construction.

September 16, 2008 | Lima City Guide, Opinion

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Glorious Pre-Columbian Lima

When Francisco Pizarro arrived in the Rimac valley, founding the city of Los Reyes on the 18th of January 1535, he arrived in place quite different from what you might imagine. Here was an expansive green and fertile land, in the middle of the Peruvian desert coast, home tens of thousands living under the rule of the Incas. Where Lima is found today was once a land of pyramids and palaces, cities and farms, with complex irrigation canals spanning kilometres in length bringing water to every home.

September 15, 2008 | Archaeology, Culture & History, Lima City Guide

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Taulichusco, Lima’s Last Curaca

The Inca Empire had all but collapsed, the Inca capital of Q’osco had been conquered and a puppet emperor placed on the thrown. By following the Inca road from Jauja to Pachacamac, conquistador Pizarro was back on the coast with many of his men looking for a place to found his city. The choice was obvious… the green paradise spanning out from the river Rimac, a vast urban and agricultural area home to tens of thousands of indigenous who had transformed the desert with complex irrigation systems and who had constructed countless towering truncated pyramids that could be seen for miles around.

September 14, 2008 | Archaeology, Culture & History, Lima City Guide

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Maranga and the Lima Culture

In the heart of Pre-Columbian Lima, at the time of the arrival of the Spanish, a vast city was found south of the Rimac River between modern day Lima and Callao. Certainly the administrative centre of power in northern part of the Inca province of Ischma, with Pachacamac an important centre of the south, this city was built long before by the native “Lima Culture” who lived here. Today most of this important complex has been destroyed through the efforts of the Peruvian Government, the University of San Marcos and the Peruvian people in the earlier part of the last century – a time when Peruvians couldn’t care less about their ancient past. Remaining though, and some now finally being restored, are several large huacas, pyramidal mounds, that bare testament to Lima’s long history.

September 11, 2008 | Archaeology, Culture & History, Lima City Guide, Opinion

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Huaca Mateo Salado

Found at at the Plaza de la Bandera where the district of Pueblo Libre meets Breña and Lima Cercado, the ruins of five pyramids that make up this Lima Culture complex called Huaca Mateo Salado tower over the surrounding modern houses.

September 10, 2008 | Archaeology, Culture & History, Lima City Guide

3 Comments