My favorite museum in Lima is the Larco Museum in Pueblo Libre, which covers over 3,000 years of pre-Columbian history. I went there during my first week in Lima with my ASA site coordinator and three other American students. The museum has a really cool collection of vases with very detailed images depicting faces, animals, ailments, and more. The pottery with the faces are really cool because the faces are so unique and distinct. Our tour guide pointed out that some faces look more Asiatic, and others African, even though they were created long before the founding of the New World. The museum also has a famous Pre-Incan erotic pottery collection located in a separate building due to its mature content. I have a sneaking suspicion that Northeastern would flag this post as inappropriate if I were to describe this exhibition and provide photos, so I’ll just offer my suggestion that anyone with a sense of humor Google the collection. It’s worth it.
Another location I like in the city is Parque Kennedy in the heart of Miraflores. Even though it’s in the touristy part of town, Parque Kennedy is still a great spot to observe Peruvian culture. Street venders line the park selling their artwork, and there’s a lot of street-food options as well. Every weekend, elderly couples come to dance, and it’s a lot of fun to watch them. The park is also home to fifty or so cats. Limeños and tourists alike can be found all over the park playing with them, and some people actually visit the park regularly enough to consider certain cats as “theirs.” It’s awesome to see limeños in Parque Kennedy spending time with their family, friends, and cats.
One of the coolest things I’ve seen here in Peru actually just happened this past Friday. I was in central Lima, the old part of the city where the buildings date back to the time of the conquistadors. It’s the most touristic section of Peru I’ve been to yet, and was mostly full of Peruvian tourists. Just past the Plaza de Armas is a bustling marketplace full of street performers. There, I saw a group of fifteen or so teenagers dancing. They brought their own instruments, and were dancing traditional Peruvian dances (mostly la marinera limeña and afro-Peruvian). I’ve seen a lot of dancing exhibitions here, both professional and amateur, but these kids were by far the best. One boy who couldn’t have been older than 15 danced la marinera so well that the crowded went silent every time he entered the circle to dance. I stayed and watched the dancers for almost thirty minutes, they were that good. It was so cool to see how they played the instruments on their own (instead of just bringing speakers), but would take videos and photos with their smartphones. Or how they would dance such traditional dances in the oldest part of the city, while wearing sweatpants and Converse. The juxtaposition of old and new was very powerful. It was truly awesome to see them participate in such old traditions, with their own modern twist. Anyone that says millennials have no respect for culture, or are technology dependent, has clearly never visited downtown Lima on a Friday night.
