Lima and around Travel Guide

Wedged into the arid Rímac River valley, with sandy mountains hemming in its edges, Lima is a chaotic, high-energy sprawl where battered taxis weave between luxury SUVs and money talks loudest. Beneath the city’s tough exterior, though, is an irresistible energy — a fascinating mix of cultures and lifestyles, from the fast-paced, criolla flair to the easygoing, no-frills attitude of its working-class neighborhoods.

Despite the noise and hustle, Lima still finds ways to slow down. In the barrios, life feels more laidback, and the Pacific breeze takes the edge off the city’s relentless buzz. Even if you don’t linger, a few days here are enough to get a feel for its contrasts. If you're wondering how long to stay in Lima, give yourself at least a couple of days — you’ll quickly discover that Limeño hospitality runs deep once you break past the surface.

Considered the most beautiful city in Spanish America during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and long established as Peru’s seat of government, Lima retains a certain elegance, particularly in colonial Lima Centro. The city still brims with culture and history, though it may not be obvious at first. Top of its attractions are some excellent museums – the best of which should definitely be visited before setting off for Machu Picchu or any of Peru’s other great Inca ruins – as well as fine Spanish churches in the centre, and some distinguished mansions in the wealthy suburbs of Barranco and Miraflores. Add to this some outstanding restaurants and hedonistic nightlife, and you’ll find there’s plenty to explore in Peru’s distinctive capital.

As a transport and communications hub, Lima also makes a good base for exploring the surrounding region, and the immediate area offers plenty of reasons to delay your progress on towards Arequipa or Cusco. Within an hour’s bus ride south is the coastline – often deserted – lined by a series of attractive beaches. Above them, the imposing fortress-temple complex of Pachacamac sits on a sandstone cliff, near the edge of the ocean. In the neighbouring Rimac Valley you can visit the pre-Inca sites of Puruchuco and Cajamarquilla, and, in the foothills above Lima, intriguingly eroded rock outcrops and megalithic monuments surround the natural amphitheatre of Marcahuasi. To the north, meanwhile, the oldest stone pyramids in the world sit abandoned in the desert of Caral.

Inland from Lima: into the foothills

If you're planning a trip to Peru and want to explore beyond Lima, head inland into the Andean foothills. Within easy reach of the capital, the archaeological sites of Puruchuco and Cajamarquilla offer a fascinating glimpse into pre-Columbian history. These ruins, though often overlooked, provide a solid introduction to Peru’s ancient civilizations — without the crowds of more famous sites.

Cajamarquilla

First occupied in the Huari era (600–1000 AD), CAJAMARQUILLA flourished under the Cuismancu culture, a city-building state contemporary with the better-known Chimu in northern Peru. It was an enclosed city containing thousands of small, complex dwellings clustered around a higher section, probably nobles’ quarters, and numerous small plazas. The site was apparently abandoned before the Incas arrived in 1470, possibly after being devastated by an earthquake. Pottery found here in the 1960s by a group of Italian archeologists suggests habitation over 1300 years ago.

Today the site is a vast and almost overwhelming labyrinth of cracked and weathered adobe-built corridors, rooms and small plazas, and feels almost as if it was only recently deserted after a massive earthquake.

Puruchuco and around

An 800-year-old, pre-Inca settlement, PURUCHUCO is a labyrinthine villa. Nearby is the small but interesting Museo de Sito Puruchuco, containing a complete collection of artefacts and attire found at the site (all of which bears a remarkable similarity to what Amazon Indian communities still use today). The name itself means “feathered hat or helmet”, and recent building work in the locality discovered that the Puruchuco site was also a massive graveyard, revealing greater quantities of buried pre-Incas than most other sites in Peru. The villa’s original adobe structure was apparently rebuilt and adapted by the Incas shortly before the Spanish arrival: it’s a fascinating ruin, superbly restored in a way which vividly captures what life was like before the Conquest.

Very close by, in the Parque Fernando Carozi (ask the site guard for directions), two other ruins – Huaquerones and Catalina Huaca – are being restored, and at Chivateros there’s a quarry dating back some twelve thousand years.

North of Lima

To the north of Lima, the desert stretches up between the Pacific Ocean and the foothills of the Andes. A couple of short trips north of Lima are becoming increasingly popular as long-weekend breaks. One of these is a horseshoe loop connecting the Chillón and Chancay valleys via the beautiful town and region of Canta in the foothills of the Andes. Another route, further out from Lima, heads up the Huara Valley from Huacho; although the road can be traced all the way to Huánuco, most people only get as far up into the Andes as Churin where their efforts are pleasantly rewarded with a visit to the hot springs. Futher north again, yet still feasible as a day-trip from Lima, the recently discovered pyramids of Caral are considered to be the most ancient ruins in the Americas.

The coast around Lima

Stretching out along the coast in both directions, the Panamerican Highway runs the entire 2600-kilometre length of Peru, with Lima more or less at its centre. Towns along the sometimes arid coastline immediately north and south of the capital are of minor interest to most travellers, though there are some glorious beaches, mostly to the south, with next to no restrictions on beach camping. The best of the beaches begin about 30km out, at the impressively hulking pre-Inca ruins of Pachacamac, a sacred citadel that still dominates this stretch of coastline.

Top image: Lima © Christian Vinces/Shutterstock