BT – 12 of 12, January 2017 – Lima

It was convenient to have the 12th of January occurring during our trip, as it meant that I didn’t have to get creative with a 12 of 12 theme. It was also, fortunately, a less “exciting” day, which means that it wasn’t too hard to restrict myself to only 12 shots.

Our early morning entertainment today was to observe the traffic chaos from our hotel window before breakfast. When we were in Lima last it was the weekend and new year, and things weren’t so bad (though still relatively crazy); today was a regular working week day and it was sheer madness. There was actually a small collision together with several near misses in the short time we observed things; I really don’t understand how it was that there weren’t more crashes. (In the photo below, you have to imagine that all the cars are moving — at some speed — in whatever direction they are facing, so the black and red cars are running though the cross traffic of the white and grey cars.)

After breakfast we had a lazy and and slightly frustratingly pfaffy morning in the hotel room, trying to book a tour for tomorrow, our last day in Peru. All the rest of our trip had been planned and booked for us (our whole South American component was brokered by a company called Chimu Adventures, and we’ve been really happy with what they organised); the free day on the end has given us a chance to do something spontaneous, but making the plans and completing the booking haven’t been entirely smooth … but it got done eventually.

In the afternoon we took a taxi to Huaca Pucllana, the ancient pyramid that we’d seen from the outside on our city tour nearly a fortnight ago. We arrived in time to tag onto the end of the just-started English tour (thus saving a wait, since you can’t guide yourself). This site is an interesting if dusty place. The pyramid is very big, and it’s hard to fully capture its size; I particularly loved the abstract patterns of the adobe bricks making up the massive structure.

Yesterday, during my tourist shopping just before we left Cusco, I purchased a lovely baby alpaca and silk large scarf, which I photographed for today’s 12 of 12. The scarf is made by Amano, and during the morning’s pfaffing, I had noticed the Amano museum nearby to Pucllana. As a result of yesterday’s purchase, and knowing the design was supposedly inspired by textiles in this museum, we decided to visit. The museum was a relatively short walk from the pyramid. We seemed to be the only people visiting, and yet it was an absolutely fantastic collection of ancient textiles, showing the types and techniques, and containing some remarkably well-preserved examples. It was well worth the visit and entrance fee to see these pre-Columbian textiles: they were truly beautiful. The down side was not being able to take any photos; hence the photo of my scarf instead.

From here we walked out to the coast, past a couple of nice parks and then back to the Larcomar shopping centre, picking up a couple of caches on the way. We were bemused at Larcomar by the employment opportunities for a “Designated Dangerous Step Highlighter”, clearly atoning for the work of the “Dangerous Step Designing Architect”.

It was still fairly light when we headed back to the hotel because we needed to prepare for an early start the next day, and so I got a shot of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean.

[The “12 of 12” project involves taking 12 photos on the 12th of the month. This provides the opportunity to get snapshots of different aspects of your life (or, sometimes, the same aspects of your life, but at different times … or, at times like this, a little travelogue of some exotic place). I have been doing this since 2009.]