Jun. 1 – 2 – One last time in Lima

My bus arrived mid morning and my cab driver took me to a hostel he knew about, and since I didn’t sleep a wink I was more than happy to have the driver select a hostel for me (but when he tired to convince the front desk staff that I was willing to pay at least twice as much for the room I decided I should take care and notice what was going on). Once I got settled I went out on the town to get a few things done before I came home including get a haircut, buy a few last minute souvenirs.

One of my stops was taking doing some art shopping. After my conversation in Cusco, I decided I needed another piece of art as my quintessential souvenir from South America and headed to the artisan alley in Lima. After poking around a dozen or so art shops, I managed to find the perfect piece of art which they packed for me in a piece of PVC pipe. Needless to say, it looked like a pipe bomb, so I was a little nervous going through the airports with it later.

As I had spent much time in Lima, there wasn’t much for me to do there, so I spent most of my time left in South America relaxing at Larcomar and at various places in Miraflores that I enjoyed reading and relaxing before my flight (there was lots of fog and quite cold so I didn’t head down to the beach as planned). The one thing I did do that I hadn’t made time for before was head to the Museo de Oro del Perú. This museum was one of the must see attractions in Lima, but in 2001 there was a story that over 80% of the artifacts were fakes. Needless to say, this destroyed the reputation of the museum which was filled with the largest collection of gold artifacts in Peru. Since then they have cleaned up their exhibition and have reopened.

When you go into the Museo de Oro, you head down to the basement to view the artifacts, which are all located within the massive underground vault. There are rooms filled with thousands of artifacts made of gold, silver, bronze and clay from all the various South American cultures. There is even a room dedicated to only cups, there’s that much stuff. As they had problems in the past regarding reproductions, some of the items are labeled as reproductions and the wax figures dressed in the traditional costumes of different tribes are labeled as being representations. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a mummy room complete with four mummified remaines and the various items found in their graves (including cone shaped sculls and a poncho made of gold).

The ground floor of the museum, though not as interesting or filled with historical significance, is astonishing. This part of the museum is known as the Museo de Armas, and holds the world’s largest collection of weapons. There are at least 10 massive rooms where the walls, tables, shelves, drawers, ceiling and every nook and cranny are filled with every imaginable type of weapon. They have a whole room dedicated to Japanese weaponry, swards filling four rooms, every kind of gun known to man (in some display cases the guns are two or three deep) and helmets from every army to ever fight. When you look at a room you think you saw everything, only to notice that stuck under the table, beside your feet, is another shelf filled with more guns or swards, or brass knuckles. It reminds you of an old book store where there are books everywhere you look, but instead of books they are weapons.