Ancón
May 8, 2010
Originally famous as an exclusive beach resort in the mid 20th century, it is more popular today with the new population of Lima’s sprawling north. Its mix of Republican-era mansions and beach-front modern apartments still make it a very attractive place to visit.
Starting life as small fisherman’s cove in pre-Colombian times, it was recorded by the Spanish in their records as “the fisherman’s village of Lancón”, while sometime later during Republican times becoming known as just Ancón. The exceptionally calm waters make it as great for fishing as well as for swimming – two activities that continue to this day.
The forgotten history of the town was rediscovered in 1870 with the construction of a railway line to the town of Chancay further north. In a flat desert area raised just above the bay, workers discovered an impressive number of tombs. Early archaeologists descended on the area and determined that the site of the tombs – easily large enough to be termed a necropolis – was a place of burial for the various civilisations that held power over the area, from Chavín-era cultures to the Wari to the Incas. Less than one hundred years later the date of the first burials in the area was pushed back to thousands of years earlier, to the time of the yet to be discovered Caral-era civilisations.
It was also around the late 1800s that Ancón turned from fishing village to small town. A small port had sprung up (which was why the railway was being built in the first place) and so too had a few stately homes. The port was even used as a harbour during Peru’s war with Chile, and it was the location where the treaty was signed that ended the war with Peru’s defeat.
Later, in the mid-1900s, when Ancón was still tens of kilometres outside of Lima but other beach towns such as Miraflores and Chorrillos had been urbanised and swallowed by the city, Ancón became a fashionable resort town. In the process, many of the Republican-era homes on the beach front were gradually lost and replaced with multi-story apartment blocks. This process continued until the economic collapse in the 1980s, but since then new luxury homes have been built on the southern hills leaving the remaining Republican-era homes intact.
With the arrival of millions of Andean migrants to the coast, mostly in the 1970s to the 1990s, Lima has bulged at the sides and today the urban area stretches as far as Ancón before petering out. Surrounding the once-wealthy town are today several blocks of working class homes of the new majority-class of Lima. Whether working on the city bus routes that end and begin here, or using them to travel into the city each rush hour, they are also representative of many of the visitors who now choose to spend their summer weekends here.
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What this story captures is the Beauty, but not the Life in Ancon. The top photo captures the Beauty of the Hotels, and of people enjoying the water.
What it does not show, is the contamination level of the Bay area due to Raw Sewage being dumped in mid bay by the City. The Minster of Health has had to pitch tents near the beach area to treat people for illnesses to the contamination.
Ancon has been a fishing village of my wife’s family for generations, it is poor mixed with the rich. I wish your story covered more of the lifestyle of Ancon, and not tourists come and see type brochure.
Thanks David, those are all subjects that can be dealt with in the next article which will talk about the megapuerto.
Ancon is a beautiful place, even though in a sense it has had it’s time. I’d like to see the day when attractive and exclusive are not considered one and the same.
I whole heartedly agree. I think Herradura in Chorrillos (almost) captures that ideal.
http://rachelinperu.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/la-herradura-another-glorious-skeleton-of-limas-past/
Peru is a country full of contradictions. I think Stuart does an excellent job of documenting both the good and the bad, the beautiful and the hideous. He is able to capture the “diamond in the rough” and the Ancon feature does just that.
I really enjoyed seeing the photos, since we did not get to add Ancon on our itinerary to Casma.
Ancon para las personas que hemos veraniado ahi es mas que un balneario es un sentimiento. Cada parte de ella desde sus playas, su malecon, la iglesia,semana santa,el donofrio,cada heladero ,los barquilleros todos eramos una familia. No habia diferencia de religiones todos se conocian y se saludaban de un lado a otro con un hola efusivo. Las chalanas prestadas, el voley e la tarde, ese atardecer. El casino club para jugar bagamon o sus fietas al comienzo con orquesta y luego con cintas. En las mañanas ir al muelle en busca del pescado fresco y luego pasar por el mercado que maravilla. Y esa cancioncita a la hora que terminaba la fiesta qu era Ancon ancon balneario hermosa donde una vez me enamore ……. Gracias por todo mi ancon
[...] project to establish a port in the beautiful and traditional bay of Ancón has generated a lot of protest from locals who reject that private investment should take [...]
[...] dozens of far flung Lima districts over the course of the previous weeks and had even visited Ancón on the same day I did. The thing that interested me most though, was that Ancón and all these [...]