San Blas. A blend of ancient, colonial and modern, religious and decadent, peaceful and lively, traditional and new – the district is a bit of a mix to say the least. It’s a hippy hang out, an artists retreat, a backpacker’s home. It’s a tourist puller and a night-life mecca. A religious site that is home to an important parish church, and also a place where locals live in the same homes that have stood here on the same streets, high above Cusco, for centuries.
August 13, 2009 | Cusco Guide
The origins of the magnificent ruins of a building that we call Hatunrumiyoc are lost in time. Built with huge polygonal stones, cut and fitted with exceptional precision, it is one of the most impressive structures of ancient Cusco. Its imposing walls hide a number of surprises, from the famous 12-Angle Stone, to shapes of local animals built into the structure itself.
July 13, 2009 | Archaeology, Culture & History, Cusco Guide
Starting life as a rocky bay that was the nearest natural port to Pizarro’s capital of Los Reyes, El Callao soon became the most important port in the Spanish colonies. It has witnessed colonial splendour, pirate attacks, disastrous tsunamis, battles, republican splendour and economic collapse. Each of these events have left a mark on the city and the chalacos that live there, many of these marks visible to this day.
May 21, 2009 | Culture & History, Lima City Guide
The Spanish settlers in Spain, upon their deaths, often wanted to be buried beneath the churches they had built on what they considered foreign and certainly un-Christian land. Doing so they thought was the only way of ensuring themselves a place in heaven. The richest or most important Spaniards in Lima were given prime spots – beneath the alter of the city’s grand cathedral. Here, when work on the church’s foundations was being carried out in 1977, a led box was found proclaiming; “Here is the head of Don Francisco Pizarro, Don Francisco Pizarro who discovered Peru and presented it to the crown of Castile.”
January 30, 2009 | Culture & History, Lima City Guide
Born in Cuzco in 1539, Garcilaso de la Vega was the son of Spanish conqueror Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega y Vargas and Inca princess Palla Chimpu Ocllo. He grew up in the earliest years of the Spanish empire, just when the conquered Incas were becoming used to Spanish rule. He lived among and was related to indigenous Peruvians who were alive in the days of Huascar’s rule in Cuzco and his subsequent battle with half-brother Atahualpa, as well as those who were alive during the rule of Huayna Capac.
He grew up learning both Quechua and Spanish while living with his mother – until he turned 10. It was then, with the death of his father who had long since abandoned the family, he decided to go to study in Spain with the 4,000 pesos he had received as an inheritance.
January 1, 2009 | Culture & History
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
Arequipa’s “Old Bridge” began life on the 11th of June in 1577, but it took until 1608 to be completed at a cost of 150,000 silver pesos. The city was in need of a way across the river Chili from the city’s center, and Spanish architect Juan de Aldaná oversaw the project during all this time.
April 14, 2008 | Arequipa Guide, Culture & History
It was in Cajamarca that the Inca empire started down its path to swift destruction. The newly arrived group of Spanish lead by Francisco Pizarro, aiming to conquer the Inca empire, arrived in Cajamarca to be met by Emperor Atahualpa and his army. After tricking him into entering the city with only a light guard they captured him, ransomed him and killed him.
January 28, 2008 | Archaeology, Cajamarca Guide, Culture & History
Competing with the Bosque de Pomac, in my opinion, as the most interesting place in Lambayeque are the ruins of Zaña. Refreshingly, these ruins are of a different kind to the ones you might be used to seeing while visiting Peru.
January 2, 2008 | Archaeology, Culture & History, Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide
The Sicán abandoned the old center of their civilisation at Batán Grande and relocated to the current site of Túcume. Built entirely of adobe mud bricks between 1000-1100 AD, the site flourished for nearly a milenia under Sicán, Chimú and Inca rule until the arrival of the Spanish in 1532. Spread over more than 220 hectares, there are 26 enormous pyramids standing in ruins.
January 1, 2008 | Archaeology, Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide
The town of Lambayeque is the old Spanish colonial city founded in the 1500s that was the centre of power in the region of the same name. It stayed a relatively small town until 1720, when the rich families of the town of Zaña relocated here after Zaña was destroyed in a flash flood.
December 19, 2007 | Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide
Chiclayo is a huge disorganised commercial city that sits on the Panamericana highway. It has a population of over 650,000 in a green (by Peruvian coastal standards) agricultural area with easy access to the mountains. The name of the city probably comes from the Mochic language; Chiclayoc meaning “hanging greenery”.
December 18, 2007 | Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide
