When you think of Peru, it is very likely you think of the famous ruins of Machu Picchu, icon of the Inca civilisation and considered a ‘must-see’. Yet I did not set one foot in that area and I can’t say I regret it.
In fact I hardly ventured outside of the country’s capital Lima, formerly known as Ciudad de los Reyes, The City of Kings. The city has a rich history and the buildings to show it, reason why its old centre is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The city is huge: just under 10 million people. I shall not write about the traffic; my head still hurts today, 2 days after I left…. Lima is the second largest desert (surprise!) capital city (after Cairo in Egypt) and is divided in 34 districts, 2 of which I have gotten to know a bit in the 5 days I’ve spent there: Miraflores (upper class neighborhood) and Barranco (middle classe, bohemian/artistic neighborhood). The city has known its share of violence (and still has one of the highest crime rates in Latin America) but according to the inhabitants the situation is much better today. Maybe thanks to the huge number of police troops visibly present throughout the city.
The first thing I learned about the history of Peru, is the often used expression ‘pre-Columbian era’. My initial thought was that Peru at some point in time had belonged to the country Colombia. Sounds the same, but the one letter difference gives it an entirely different meaning. It refers to the period before the arrival of Christopher Columbus or, more in general, the entire history of the indigenous cultures before the Spanish came and basically changed everything.
The second thing I learned is that the Inca Empire may have been the largest empire in the Americas, some say even in the world, but they were certainly not the oldest. The Inca Empire was actually the last chapter of thousands of years of Andean civilisation. Machu Picchu was only built around 1450.
Experts are still not done unravelling Peru’s history. The country must be a true heaven to archeologists. Experts estimate that there are around 100,000 sites of archeological importance, but only around 10% has been excavated so far.
Still a lot of digging to do!
