Sampling the World's Attractions, Lima 2

LIMA, PERU, STORY 2


       In a previous story I talked about our adventures in Lima, Peru. This is a follow up to discuss some of the excellent museums in the city. But first a few observations. Around the country children are adopting American models of clothes and behavior while their parents may still wear traditional clothes. Sixty percent of the people live in poverty. For years the bases of the economic was saltpeter from guano that was used to make gunpowder.
       When the economy collapsed cocaine became a major source of funds and added to the general corruption of government. The coca plant is evidently easy to grow, is a guaranteed cash crop and is processed and disseminated from the neighboring state of Columbia. The coca plant itself has a long honored tradition in Peru and is very much a part of the culture. We were offered coca tea, which is said to be a mild stimulant wherever we went. It was used by people in the high country with low oxygen to ward off fatigue and hunger. We were also informed that as mild as coca tea was we should not attempt to take any back to the U.S.
       Besides the National Museum of Peru that I talked about in a previous story, we had the time to visit three other museums interesting enough to deserve recognition.

Museo de Oro.

       The museum of gold in Lima is an astonishing collection of textiles, ceramics, gold objects and military artifacts. It was put together by one of the richest men in the world and could only have been gathered by someone to whom price was no object. For one thing he didn't worry about repeats and as a result has a whole wall devoted to dozens of identical spurs, a wall of pistols, one of swords and one of gold objects.

       The owner personally made the displays but did not label them and the museum really needs a curator to go through and label and reorganize. The owner refuses and as a result when he dies it will take many curators years to label and create informational cards on each. I suspect there is not another museum in the world private or public with this kind of riches. Most of the gold and textiles were bought from grave robberies who I'm sure vandalized the graves in taking the best from them.

Museo de Oro, Lima, Peru

       Yet they in a way are preserving the pieces that if the Spanish had found them in their greed would have melted them down into ingots and sent them back to Spain. A lot of those riches did not make it to Spain and still lie at the bottom of the ocean. Textiles are preserved hundreds and even thousands of years in some areas of the country because the climate is so dry.

       Even bodies are well preserved. At this museum are skulls that have been trepanned. Most likely the result of head blows in battle which left bone in the brain that had to be removed if the person was to survive. The place where it was removed was covered with gold or silver plate and often the bone rebuilt over the spot.

A display room in the Museo de Oro (Wikimedia Commons)

       Some of the ceramics were of special interest, they showed various sexual positions, and suggest our modern sexual practices go back a long way. Some pots had the penis as a spout and other objects had penises bigger than the man who owned it.

Meseo de Textiles.

       This museum has many well preserved textiles which are made and decorated in many different ways. Some of the displays looked very new and it was hard to believe they were hundreds of years old. Gladys our regular guide translated for the house guide who was Japanese and Gladys added lots of detail not covered by the house guide.

        The museum had been put together by a Japanese man who noticed that when huaqueros robbed a grave they took the pots and gold but left the textiles which were often in a state of almost perfect preservation. Retracing the robbers’ steps he put together a world class museum.

St. Francis Church in Lima, Peru 

(Wikimedia Commons)

Saint Francis church.
       While the church looks like most Catholic churches built in the 17th century (1620) it is very impressive, but it is what goes with it that makes it worth a special trip. The walk there from the hotel is a broad mall with shops on either side. Lots of people also selling things on the street, and people, people, people. The church has cloisters and a number of rooms of paintings, many from the P. Paul Rubens School of painting.
        It houses a library that was turned into a museum of 25,000 volumes in 1853 and has some volumes that are hand done on parchment. The vestry has impressive carvings of saints and a group of painting from the 17th century.
        The piece de resistance is the catacombs where 25,000 people of note in the community and church were buried. The catacombs had been forgotten and rediscovered in 1940. As large as it is that hardly seems possible. The bodies were put in a pit and covered with lime to reduce them to bones as quickly as possible. When enough bodies had accumulated in a pit they were taken out and sorted into integral designs in another pit.

Designs in human bones in the catacombs of

 St. Francis Church in Lima, Peru

Sampling the World's Attractions, Lima 1

LIMA, PERU, STORY 1


       A few years back Carla and I took an Elderhostel in Peru and while I wrote several articles about Machu Picchu and Chan Chan I never got around to writing about our stay in their capital city, Lima. Going over my journal and reminding myself of the wealth of interesting sites there, I believe that was a serious omission.
       Lima was started in 1535 by the Spanish conquistador Pizzaro who is seen by present day Peruvians as a villain because of his brutality to the original peoples and ravenous manner in which he let nothing stand in the way of pillaging the wealth of the Inca Empire.
        Lima grew quickly in the 20th century and half of its 8 million people live in shanty towns. While some newcomers came looking for opportunities to find a better life, many came to avoid the brutality of the Shining Path. Shining Path was a terrorist group that used violence to polarize people and in the process forced many people to flee from their homes in the villages into Lima.
        When we were there terrorism had been virtually wiped out as a threat. The viciousness of Shining Path, which had villagers fleeing into Lima for protection, caused families to become separated. This left many children on the loose that for survival formed gangs of 10 to 12 members called Piranhas. They made walking in many if not most parts of Lima dangerous. These gangs of preadolescent children would knock their victims down and strip them of all their bodily possessions. This includes glasses, watches, and shoes. Because they didn’t usually attack people who are moving in groups we were admonished to always walk with a number of other people.
        In addition we were warned that in a crowd our watch could be ripped off, or the bottom of our backpack slit open. It was recommended that when we went on the streets we take off all jewelry, watches, fanny packs and if you were a man keep your wallet in a front pocket with a handkerchief over it. I had received similar advice in other cities including Karachi and Nairobi.

Downtown Lima, Peru from our hotel room.

       When terrorists were active a few years back many people who could afford it built fences, steel gates, electric fences and walls to protect themselves against attacks. It cost so much to remove them so these security items were left in place.
       Despite the above precautions we found the city easy to get around in and nobody in our Elderhostel group suffered from any crime.
        Among the interesting sights in Lima is the National Museum of Peru. The National Museum is a large concrete and glass monolith built in the late USSR ugly style. It had been the Ministry of Fisheries at the time that business was nationalized. Since the fish business proceeded to go under when placed under government control and no other ministry wanted the building, it was revamped into Lima's Cultural Center and includes the symphony and ballet. The museum displays trace the complete history of Peru's different cultures in artifacts and you can see the ebb and flow of civilization. Separate development of villages and towns and then centralized governmental rule which breaks down and then more separate community development then centralized rule, etc.
        The information cards keep stressing how advanced Peruvian culture was in contrast to every where else in the world. After going through the museum a Peruvian won't lack pride in his ancestors. The museum was packed with families, school kids and others all of whom were creating much din.

The National Museum of Peru

        When we left a long line, was waiting to get into the La Dama Del Ampato exhibition. She is a 14 year old girl who had been scarified by the Incas and whose frozen body, almost perfectly preserved, had been knocked lose from its place in the mountains by a volcano in 1995 which melded the ice surrounding her. Juanita, the name they gave her because she was found by a man named John, had been trained to be sacrificed and felt it was an honor to be chosen. She ate only vegetables the five days before she died, drank a mixture of coca and crista before she was killed with a sharp blow to the head.

La Dama Del Ampato

       Waiting in line to view the body were many women in identical attractive outfits. It seems that to cut costs for workers that the companies provide uniforms at cost so different expensive clothes are not needed. Checking the Internet I find that the Lady of Ampato is now displayed on the premises of the Catholic University of Arequipa and is a major attraction of that city.

The main square in Lima, Peru is active, day and night.