Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of cuadra 12 off Av Arequipa, south of the Parque de la Reserva, the Museo de Historia
Natural run by the Universidád de San Marcos, has a modest taxidermy collection that's a
useful overview of Peruvian fauna.
STRANGEST SADDEST CITY
Visit Lima in winter (April through October) and you will likely find it steeped - day after day - in the fog known
as
garúa
. It is relentless, a mist that turns the sky an alabaster white and leaves the city draped in a melancholy
pall. Interestingly, this otherworldly microclimate has been the source of much literary inspiration. The most fam-
ous citation is in none other than
Moby Dick
by Herman Melville, who visited Lima in the 1800s. It is 'the
strangest saddest city thou can'st see,' he wrote. 'For Lima has taken the white veil; and there is a higher horror in
this whiteness of her woe.'
Countless Peruvian writers have also chronicled
garúa,
including the Nobel-winning Mario Vargas, a native
limeño
. In his 1964 treatise,
Lima la Horrible
(Lima the Horrible), essayist Sebastián Salazar Bondy describes the
mist as a 'tenacious
garúa,
a floating powder, a cold fog.' Novelist Alfredo Bryce Echenique compared it to 'the
belly of a dead whale,' while Daniel Alarcón depicted it as 'heavy, flat and dim, a dirty cotton ceiling.'
So why would the Spanish build the capital of their Andean empire at the one point on the coast regularly
blanketed by this ghostly fog? Well, they likely wouldn't have known. Francisco Pizarro established the city on
January 18 - right in the middle of summer - when the skies are blue every day.
RÍMAC
Rímac can be a rough neighborhood. Taxis or organized tours are the best options for the
following sights:
Museo Taurino
(Bullfight Museum; 481-1467; Hualgayoc 332; admission S5; 9am-6pm Mon-Fri)
Plaza de Acho, Lima's bullring, was built on this site north of the Río Rímac in 1766.
Some of the world's most famous toreadors passed through here, among them the
renowned Manolete from Spain. A visit includes a free guided tour inspecting cluttered
displays of weapons, paintings, photographs and the gilded outfits worn by a succession
of bullfighters - gore holes, blood stains and all.
MUSEUM
Cerro San Cristóbal
This 409m-high hill to the northeast of Central Lima has a
mirador
(lookout) at its
crown, with views of Lima stretching off to the Pacific (in winter expect to see nothing
LOOKOUT
