Our Last Few Days in Lima

Flaco and Gretta at the Temple of the Sun,
Pachacamac

After we got back from Ica and Paracas, we spent a few days packing, doing final errands, and taking one more day trip to Pachacamac, 30 minutes south of Lima.  It's a pre-Inca site, dating to 1,000 years before the Inca empire.  It was, however, an important Inca site of temples and palaces.  There is a Palace of the Chosen women.  There is a lot of desert and rubble, but excavation still continues.  Luis used to ride motorcycles around the site, but now most of it is roped off due to vandalism.  There is a lot more to excavate and Luis says that in 20 years, a lot has been done.  I keep thinking of how things would be done in the US.  Private companies would put up the money and they'd hire archeologists to find everything...no waiting for government funds that trickle in.  But, this is Peru and although the Peruvian govt tries, they have so many expenses.  We noticed the same thing in Bolivia at Tiahuanaco...it takes forever to fund these things.

This part fell down in the last earthquake

Palace of the Chosen Women

This is what most of it looks like

These paintings are pre-Inca

When you climb up to the Temple of the Sun, you can see up the coast towards Lima.  It wasn't a sunny day, but looking up the coast you can see as far as the Salto del Fraire (see my very first post.)

Cliffs up the coast towards Lima

 I took some people photos too:  the ones of the  kids go with ones I took during our first year in our house of the 3 of them.  I have always loved those photos and here they are 13 years later.

Marcio rarely smiles these days-a
rare treat!

We went into town for lunch at this really cool place:  Casa de Don Cucho.  This is a popular lunch place.  The entire place is outside. There are several outdoor rooms for sitting and eating, several outdoor kitchens, including the famous anticucho grill (not my favorite, marinated beef heart), and even the dishes are done in outdoor rooms.

eating rooms

There was a maze of these little rooms.  We ate so much incredible Peruvian food.

Anticucho grill

Outdoor kitchen

After freshly made aji (salsa).  I missed the woman making it.

We even had traveling musicians who played old criollo music, with a cajon (box instrument).  I didn't get a good photo.

This guy is the cajon player

Gillian listening.

The food was super fresh.  Mariana and I were leaving the next day, so this was the grand finale.

Aji amarillo (yellow chiles)

One more post of last minute events and people we met to come soon.