On Saturday, May 7th we spent our last full day in Lima visiting the local fresh food market with lots of amazing local produce. It’s tempting to move to Lima just to have access to all these fresh ingredients.
We then moved on to Museo Larco, arguably the best and largest collection of Pre-Columbian art in all of South America; perhaps the world. It is a museum where you could spend the entire day there, and still feel that there is more to see. I am sharing just four of a multitude of photos that I took in 90 minutes.
Douglas and I then peeled away to visit the historic port defence “Fortaleza Real Felipe” located in Callao, which is the port city next to Lima. The army (not navy) use the facility as barracks now as it no longer is next to sea with land reclamation putting it a good 500m from the sea. Commodore Anson and his fleet passed straight by Lima / Callao for fear of being outnumbered. Local records however indicate that the Spanish navy were in disarray at the time, and Anson might have faired better - and changed the course of history on the west Pacific seaboard of South America. We then finished up with a quick visit to the Museo Naval del Peru, which was just around the corner.
Callao is a very rundown and depressing town. Destitution on every corner, and our guide told us matter-of-factly that if he let us out of the transport van at the next corner, we wouldn’t have any clothes left on our back by the next corner. I told the driver not to stop at the next traffic light.
This excitement was all followed up afterwards with a well-earned Fiftli lager at the Barranco Beer Company just down the street from Hotel B, our location for the last 2 nights.