Lima, Peru - But is it safe?

'Don't take a cab from the airport.
Don't flag a taxi in the street.
Don't walk anywhere after dark.
Don't wander into the wrong neighbourhood.
Drive a car in Peru! Are you insane?'

Pachacamac: looking into the eyes of a God.

When the Spanish Conquistador Hernando Pizarro arrived at The Temple of the Sun, near present day Lima in Peru, he was disappointed to discover that the Temple's God and Oracle was nothing more than a wooden idol. He expected solid gold. I know how he felt. One of the pitfalls of independent travel is that sometimes you miss things - and this miss was bigger than most. We missed the opportunity to look into the eyes of a God.

Oracle, Creator of the World and God of Earthquakes, Pachacamac was feared and honoured by both the Incas and the Ichma culture which preceded them. Today he dwells in a museum attached to the pyramid and temple complex which bears his name; half an hour's drive south of Lima. The museum is small, only a couple of rooms and there are no more than a dozen or so objects on display. The God/Oracle is one of them. We must have walked straight past it. We probably looked at it, but failing to recognize its significance our eyes slid seamlessly to the next item on display. I have no recollection of seeing the God and no photographs.

Drive a car in Lima! Are you crazy?

David is in his element - never happier than when he is behind the wheel of a rental car in a city in which no sane tourist would ever consider driving.  Yesterday we wandered the streets of Miraflores by foot. An easy, stress-free day after our exhausting flight and arrival in Lima. Today we have hired a car. It is Saturday and the theory is that Lima's traffic will be less chaotic on the weekend.

Peru without Machu Picchu

We must be the only Australians EVER to come to Lima in Peru and not go to Machu Picchu. David, as regular readers will know, detests tours. Since the only practical way of seeing Machu Picchu is on a tour, in the company of crowds of other tourists, David point blank refuses to go.

The Murals of Valparaiso

Valparaiso is magical. There is a narrow strip of level land, 'El Plan', adjacent to the ocean. Seething with humanity it leaves you gasping for air. Tourists, touts, beggars, pick-pockets, thieves, buskers, cars, buses, trucks and motorcycles all jostle for space. Magnificent colonial buildings and grotesque modern sky-scrapers stand edge to edge, equally desecrated by graffiti and neglect.

Surviving earthquakes and theft in Valparaiso

If it feels like a while since I last up-dated my blog that's because it is. In Valparaiso I came down with the same cold David had had in Salta. It was inevitable really.  This must be the first holiday in twenty years I haven't carted cold and flu tablets around the world with me. It has been a long time since we got sick on holidays and I figured what was the point. I won't leave them at home again for a while.

Tucumán and the million-moth highway.

David wants to see the true Argentinian countryside. I'm not so sure.  Although we have done road trips here before they have been mostly on our way to and from Chile, never in the vastness of the country's interior.

We know very little about the condition of the roads. We do know there are many unpaved roads, even on reasonably well travelled routes. We also know that suicidal over-takes are common and directional signs range from average to very poor. It is not uncommon to arrive at an intersection and find no road signs at all.