El Μalecón of Lima, Perú

While Lima is not an expensive city, people are always on the hunt for low-cost fun. A walk along El Μalecón is one of the best free things to do in Lima, Peru. El Μalecón is a narrow park along the western edge of Lima where Limeños and travelers can take respite from the busy city and enjoy the tranquil lookout.

El Μalecón will probably be the first image to appear on your Google or Instagram search of Lima, Peru. A trichomatic view of city, park and ocean, can be seen through one camera lens in El Μalecón. This grassy park runs along a skinny stretch of land between the beautiful, bustling district of Μiraflores and a series of cliffs plunging down to a rocky beach. Walking along El Μalecón you straddle the division between a sprawling city of over 8 million inhabitants and the shore line of the largest ocean on earth, while passing through parks loaded with impressive sculptures. The most famous of these parks is the Parque de Amor, recognized by its statue of a couple embraced in a kiss.

The official El Μalecón stretches for 5 kilometers, and there are several public exercise stations along the path, which makes El Μalecón an attractive location for a workout. Furthermore, the cliffs of El Μalecón serve as the jump off point for paragliders.

Distance markers are painted every 200 meters

An alternate to walking in El Μalecón is to rent a bicycle. The terrain is flat and a paved bike lane runs the stretch of the park. With this option, you have two choices. The first choice is to rent a bicycle from Μirabici on the top deck of the Larcomar. The Larcomar acts as a very easy-to-find, central meeting point along El Μalecón, making it a good choice for convenience when renting a bike. Μirabici rents bicycles for 20 soles per hour and is easily spotted by its row of bright red bicycles.

The second choice is to rent your bike ride from a tent further south in Barranco. Here you will find a husband and wife renting bicycles for only 5 soles an hour (plus deposit). As one expects in Bohemian Barranco, the rental tent doesn’t have a fixed location, but is always in the park near the intersection of avenidas Colina and Junin. The rental place is less centralized, and therefore entails a longer ride, however it provides riders the satisfaction of using a ‘Μom and Pop’ local business.

Whichever your choice, walk or bike, the beauty and simple pleasure of being in El Μalecón will certainly be a highlight of your trip in Lima, or a great choice for a weekend hangout spot.

Feline Fine in Parque Kennedy?

Cat nap

Most metropolitan cities around the world have an animal population; in parks, alleys, gardens or subway stations we will find various species making a home for themselves. In the bustling centres of the globe, crowded with locals, tourists and business visitors, there are generally communities of animal counterparts going about their day too.
The image one usually conjures when contemplating nature’s other city-dwelling creatures is of sewer rats, common pigeons, seagulls, or maybe the dogs so prevelent in Asian countries. Lima however,or more specifically Miraflores, has an animal group a little different from rodent or rabid canine. The cat. Not your mainland Spain ‘sneak it some ham from the hotel buffet please, Mum’ stray cat. These are somewhat more established and somewhat more controversial.

A rough estimate leads us to assume that Lima’s Parque Kennedy is haven to 100 ‘stray’ cats or more. Your first visit will most likely consist of ‘oh mirar, el gato’, ‘oh look a cat and another…’ Until you realise that despite the children’s play area, the food vendors and the artists at the outer edge,this is not a park for people, but rather a park of cats for human visitors.

Their genesis is somewhat hazy, with no one really knowing how they came to habitate this small, city landscape and stories amongst locals vary. The creation myth of the Kennedy cats has two main branches, one ‘tail’ claims that these not so ferral felines were placed there by the city, as a rat attack, ridding this area of other city inhabitants; the rodent kind. The outcome being a decline of scurrying fiends but a steep rise in moggies. The other more common account is that the area became somewhat of an ‘orphanage doorstep’ for unwanted kittys. With the Iglesia de la Virgen Milagrosa Chuch looming over the inner city greenery it may just be ‘God’s will’ that abandoned animals may thrive here, or so the ‘donators’ may like to think.
Tourists love a holiday snap with a local cutey, hence the popularity of these fluffy friends. If you sit for a few minutes in the colosseums of the park you will find yourself surrounded, and while these cats are strays they are generally pretty healthy. They also have rather a following, Facebook fans, Instagram presence and youtube videos, and this online popularity would suggest that vacationers and visitors generally find the park novel, and the area pleasant.

However, there are those who don’t appreciate this petting zoo, and although the city doesn’t feed or officially care for them it has been called on to remove them. In 2012 an adoption drive was launched, bidding people to home the cats in only a few short days, this was a reaction to public objection that called the strays an unsanitary, public nuisance. Furthermore, the city imposed a threat that stated all cats remaining at the close of the re-homing deadline would be ‘put to sleep’. This was of course met with activist’s outrage, their concern being that cats would be taken to new owners too quickly and without the appropriate background checks that are usually advised in the homing process.
The general local opinion is that the Kennedy Cats are a health concern, and are very much capable of spreading disease. There is a widely shared worry amongst the city locals that illnesses and general kitty health issues can spread like wildfire in a close environment like this one, especially when eager children, tourists and holiday makers rush from one stray to another for a pat and a cuddle.

While this theory may be valid in many cases, there doesn’t appear to be any real cause for concern here. At least not amongst the cats of winter 2014, who are all in all well fed, well rested and seemingly in good spirits and health.
Despite The adoption drive, the city’s call on charitable souls to prevent their extermination, and the many complaints from the permanent folk of Lima, there doesn’t appear to have been a huge impact on the prevalence or popularity amongst visitors of the friendly felines. Just glancing around the area you can see that the ‘pests’ are rife and that children and adults alike flock to the district of Miraflores for a kitty cuddle, a browse of the paintings and a handful of popcorn from the food sellers there. Opinions may differ on the matter but for now the cats of Parque Kennedy remain.

Pro-cat Kids

Lima’s Bug Problem

 

Cities are remembered for their landmarks, their food, their people, and even their most visible automobiles. One vehicle can serve as the international symbol, the mechanical mascot, of a city. The Vespa scooter conjures images of Rome, in New York City we see the ever-present yellow cabs, in London the black cabs, and in Bangkok it’s the tuk-tuk. Lima, Perú can be represented by the Volkswagen Beetle, or Bug, found on nearly every street.

The Volkswagen Beetle (original, type 1) is one of the most popular, or at least most conspicuous, vehicles on the road in Lima. The most widely produced car in the world was last produced in 2003, but you wouldn’t know it living in Lima. Here the German-created car is ubiquitous.

The Beetle was originally deigned in the 1930s to be an affordable, reliable family vehicle to be driven on the early Autobahn. German engineers wanted an efficient vehicle and looked to nature for inspiration in finding aerodynamic shapes. The humble beetle, of which there are myriad variants, became their muse; curved and compact. Thus, a hardworking, popular, easily-customized car was born. Not only suitable for Bavarian countryside drives, the Beetle was perfectly at home amongst the crowded avenidas and calles of Lima. An adaptable little Bug, indeed.

Long lasting is perhaps the best adjective bestowed upon the Beetles of Lima. Though some Bugs show the typical signs of aging, rusted bumpers, foggy headlamps, and torn seat covers, others are as slick and peppy as the day they rolled off the the assembly line. Those industrious assembly lines cranking out now-Peruvian Bugs were most likely situated in Brazil, the largest Beetle-producing country of South America. Up until the mid nineteen nineties Brazil sent thousands of Beetles to Perú, giving a stylish, alternative crowd a capable vehicle for the Limeon traffic.

Traffic in Lima moves more like a competition than a cooperation. Each vehicle acts as an animal, aggressively fighting off larger predators (busses or trucks) or giving chase to smaller prey (pedestrians or motorbikes). Roads don’t guarantee consistency, fairness or punctuality. Getting on a bus, hiring a taxi, or even driving yourself is a roll of the fuzzy, rearview-mirror dice. However, what at first appears as chaos has its way of self-governing. No vehicle wishes to harm it’s own self by smacking into another. Though cars and busses play constant battle on the roads, collisions are rare. Like turbulent water rushing through rapids, the flow of vehicles spastically takes people from A to B, though there may be some detours to visit F and U along the ride. The law of the road in Lima is akin to the law of nature. No wonder that one of the most durable creatures in nature gave namesake to one of the most durable vehicles in Lima, the Beetle. A spunky insect of a car that can thrive almost anywhere.

On your next day out around, or trip to, Lima see how many Beetles you notice. Try to spot one in each of the primary colors, a task actually accomplishable in a single day. It won’t take long to catch the ‘Bug of Lima’.