Peru. Part II. Cities

December 28, 2012 — January 2, 2013

Lima

The capital looks fairly boring.

But on closer inspection, you notice an important detail.

All the buildings are protected with barbed wire fences, outer walls, enclosures, and other means of keeping potential robbers and aggressors at bay. Although it seems peaceful here, and doesn’t appear as though anyone is about to attack anybody else.

Lima is a unique city. Even the most skilled umbrella salesman would go bankrupt here. It never rains (it might drizzle once a year, much to everyone’s surprise). Instead, you’ll see “sun lights” in the street—devices which display the current UV radiation level.

A recently unearthed clay brick pyramid has managed to survive here for many centuries precisely because nothing ever poured down on it from the sky.

The typical local trash can looks like a living incarnation of the Android logo.

There are regular traffic lights as well. Here’s one for vehicles.

A fire hydrant.

A poor neighborhood.

Westerners might think that there’s only one giant white Jesus with outstretched arms in the world—the one in Rio. But that’s not quite the case. Latin American countries love to put a white Jesus figure with outstretched arms on every hill.

The city has a bus rapid transit system (similar to those in Curitiba, Guatemala City, and Bogota).

You can find policemen on Segways.

A fairly strange ceremony takes place here daily. An orchestra comes out to stretch its legs and play a few notes on the territory of the presidential palace behind the fence. Viewers are supposed to observe this spectacle from across the street.

Graffiti.

A letter S in a circle indicates a safe spot during an earthquake.

Písac

At country markets, all the locals are dressed in traditional garb.

But as soon as you drive outside the village, you’ll see regular clothes like everywhere else.

Ollantaytambo

The Peruvian landscape.

Peruvians got lucky—the Incas left behind a bunch of traces of their life here.

And the most striking part isn’t even the mighty terrace cities—it’s the ordinary streets. Here’s a typical Inca-era street which is alive and in use to this day (the cobblestones and masonry on the sides are from Inca times):

From here, you have to take a train to get to Machu Picchu—there are no car roads which go up there.

Machu Picchu

Trash cans.

A Christmas tree out of plastic bottles, with a nativity scene inside.

Once upon a time, some people decided to settle here, and now tourists have something to keep them occupied.

I’m absolutely positive that every reader of this modest travelogue has always wanted to see what the urinal at the base of Machu Picchu looks like.

The Inca settlement itself could have remained in its natural-looking form—as a pile of rocks (like on the right side of the photo):

But instead, everything was restored and reconstructed here, so you just walk around and marvel.

How did the Incas arrive at stone masonry, streets, houses with hip roofs, and other attributes of European civilization, when there was no contact whatsoever between the two cultures for ten millennia?

Cusco

Cusco has the most beautiful traffic lights in the entire world.

Nothing like this exists anywhere else.

The bus stops are made to match the traffic lights.

The sidewalks are paved with magnificent diamond-shaped stone tiles.

The playbills are multilayered and marvelous.

The names of artistic and cultural establishments are impressed in stucco. It looks incredibly gorgeous.

The city is full of streets dating back to Inca times. When the Spanish came through, they made a few improvements here and there. The wall masonry is Inca, the doorway is Spanish.

The local bread is large and round.

In the street.

A policewoman.

Peruvians have a tradition of bringing a doll which symbolizes the baby Jesus to church. The priest blesses the dolls, everyone goes home happy.

The city.

If you wander off the beaten tourist path, you can witness simple Peruvian life.

Unpolished.

With giant staircases leading up to the more elevated neighborhoods.

With smoldering trash dumpsters.

Juliaca

Peruvians rightfully consider Juliaca to be the ugliest city in the country.

Vast amounts of money have been pumped into it for many years to improve roads, yet there isn’t a single normal road. Just dirt tracks, dust, and monotonous hideous neighborhoods.

Without end.

Even the cutting-edge university building looks like a UFO parked in a cowshed.

Puno

A new feature appears on cars when you get to the south of the country: there’s a neon green sticker on the right side of the front bumper and a neon orange one on the left.

Buses have headlights that are located in the center of the coach body.

The city is almost exactly like Juliaca, only all the streets are paved.

The houses are ugly brick ones with tinted windows.

But this is where you’ll find the highest navigable lake in the world—Lake Titicaca.