Without Machu Picchu you’ll enjoy the trip of a lifetime

SPECIAL: PERU WITHOUT MACHU PICCHU – Machu Picchu is closed. It will stay that way through all of February at the very least. Do you have your flights booked and are wondering what to do next? Should you cancel or put off your trip to Cuzco?

February 4, 2010 | Travel and Places

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Real Felipe Fortress

The Fortaleza del Real Felipe is the most prominent landmark in Callao. Built during colonial times, it was used to defend Spain’s most important port in the Americas against pirates and corsairs who would otherwise raid Callao or nearby Lima as they did up and down the Pacific coast. Today it is a tourist attraction and museum run by Peru’s army.

April 24, 2009 | Culture & History, Lima City Guide

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Makatampu

The pre-Columbian town of Makatampu stood on the outer edges of the city of Maranga, and as its name suggests, it was a tambo, or resting place, set in the scenery of fields irrigated by two artificial aqueducts. No longer standing – the complex was destroyed in the 1940s to may way for the construction of factories on the old hacienda Conde de las Torres – it was said to have been an important site.

November 7, 2008 | Archaeology, Culture & History, Lima City Guide

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Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú

If you plan to visit only one museum while in Lima it should probably be this one. The National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Peru beats the Museo de la Nacion, which can close for a month or two at a time with little notice, hands down. Located in the district of Pueblo Libre, in the beautiful little plaza, there’s no excuse not to try some of Lima’s world-renowned food while you are there.

August 4, 2008 | Culture & History, Lima City Guide

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Pueblo Libre

Once a small town outside Lima on the way to the port of Callao, Pueblo Libre still maintains its colonial looks and that small town feel.

Now deep in the centre of the metropolis that is Lima and Callao – one of South America’s biggest cities – Pueblo Libre manages to remain relatively quiet. Only a couple large thoroughfares pass through the district – and the streets just off of these are mostly residential.

August 1, 2008 | Lima City Guide

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Kunturwasi

High in the hills above the Rio Jequetepeque valley that leads from the northern Peruvian coast into the mountains of Cajamarca, is a temple named Kuntur Wasi, the House of the Condor. Looking out over a vast area from its mountain top perch, from this ancient temple you can survey an area as vast as a condor could.

February 15, 2008 | Archaeology, Cajamarca Guide

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Museo Nacional Sicán

The museum gets a special mention, not only because like all museums in northern Peru it shames the rest of the country, but also it allowed you to take photos of the artefacts unlike the Sipán museum, also unbelievably excellent.

The Sicán of course, are the pyramid builders who left us Batán Grande and Túcume. This museum exists to display the most important finds of the tonnes uncovered.

December 28, 2007 | Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide

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Hans Heinrich Brüning

Hans Heinrich Brüning Brookstedt lives on through his museum in the town of Lambayeque in northern Peru. This Peruvian archaeologist of German origin, born in 1848, travelled to Peru in in 1875 to find work on the Pátamo estate.

December 21, 2007 | Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide, Opinion

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Museo Arqueológico Cassinelli

What do you do if you own a successful gas station on the road out of town? Build your own collection of ancient artefacts, of course! For over 40 years Señor José Cassinelli (sometimes incorrectly written as Casinelli) has been buying ceramics and other items from the illicit black market of huaqueros or tomb robbers.

December 12, 2007 | La Libertad & Trujillo Guide

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Patrimony destroyed by earthquake

The incompetent INC, that’s Peru’s Instituto Nacional de Cultura or National Institute of Culture, has once again found itself responsible for destroying Peru’s priceless heritage.

Not content with exploiting and destroying Machu Picchu, and despite the vast revenue way into the tens of millions of US dollars they pull in, they had housed precious artefacts in cheaply constructed museums that are not earthquake proof in Ica and Paracas.

August 21, 2007 | Ica, Pisco, Nazca Guide, News

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Banco Central de Reserva del Peru

I decided to wander off through the busy noisy streets of central Lima.

My main aim was to visit the Banco Central de Reserva del Peru, to which Annett’s father and I had tried to enter last time we had came here – but failed – we had been walking past on the one day of the week it was closed, and even if it was open we were a few minutes too late. I decided I had to come back to visit some day in the future.

December 1, 2006 | Opinion

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