Lomas de Lucumo (sort of)
So yesterday we went on our first excursion outside the city. The destination was "Lomas de Lucumo", supposedly a "destino de Ecotourismo" with hiking trails and nice views. In the end we had success, but it was quite an adventure!
The challenge was getting there. This place was not in any of our guidebooks, since tourists don't come to Lima to hike in random valleys outside of the city. Taylor and I first heard about it from our hostess from our initial days, and then I found it on the official Peru tourist website as a thing to visit in the Lima area. That website didn't have any public transportation info, though.
Fortunately, the Lomas lies close to one of the tourist desinations that is in all the guidebooks--the ruins of Pachacamac--and thus we had some information on public transport to the area. But since we don't live in one of the areas where all the hostels are, none of the directions in the books were super-convenient for us, and we figured we must be able to catch a bus somewhere along the route. And Taylor was convinced that he had seen buses with a destination of "Pachacamac" running along the main street where we live. As it turns out, he was right! We waited for one of those busses and all 5 of us (me, Taylor, Maiah, John, and Alexandra) piled in.
We enjoyed the ride, going up into the hills from the nice parts to the more barren outskirts of the city. And then, the combi stopped at its final destination, nowhere near where we wanted to be. We soon discovered that a destination of "Pachacamac" means somewhere in the department of Pachacamac (like a county or something), not necessarily the town of Pachacamac where we wanted to be. The combi driver told us to go back down the hill to catch the right combi, but I had a map and remembered from reading a Pervian exploradores site that it was possible to get there by going up and over the hill we were on. So we caught a second combi that when further up the hill, and the money-taker on that bus told us we could get a taxi to where we wanted to go. Or at least, to a town that was on the map that looked like it was close to where we wanted to go, since she had no idea what we were talking about when we said "Lomos de Lucomo."
So then we got a taxi (a colectivo--there were 10 people in the station wagon when we started off) and asked to be taken to one of the towns that was supposed to have an entrance to the park--we knew it wasn't the main entrance, but there was suposed to be an entrance. When the taxista tried to let us off at the parque--the park in the middle of town--we explained that we were looking for something else. He had no idea where to go, so we asked some people and they said we should keep going down the road to the main entrance. So we agreed to pay 1 sol more per person to be driven another 15 minutes. When we got to that town--which we knew was the right place and had a big sign on the road into town about the "circuito de ecoturismo"--we asked another guy along the side of the road where to go, and he directed us to that town's parque--a nice little square. Finally, someone in the square pointed us in the right direction and we decided to get out and walk. Meanwhile, the taxista was totally confused as to what we were planning to do--"are there restaurants? a bar?" he asked. No, we said, we just want to walk around. Clearly hiking was not a popular recreational activity in these parts.
We found the trail, and it was actually pretty well marked, although the section we were on was not actually called "Lomos de Lucumo"--it was just the "Circuito Ecoturismo." Clearly, the Peruvian government is trying to establish this area as a nature spot near Lima, but it hasn't quite caught on. And the fact that we were coming in February might have been part of the problem--the Peru tourist site says "you should visit between August and October," although in Spanish, so I think I missed this the first time I skimmed the information.
So since it's the middle of the summer--not the early spring--it was hot and dry and it wasn't quite as beautiful as the photos on the web. But, it was still a nice hike, out of the smog, and at the top we did have views of the city, the ocean, and the river valley. Unfortunately I can't post pictures until Maiah or Alexandra send me some, because our camera was misbehaving.
The trip back was less adventuresome, because we took the way the guidebooks told us to go and it was relatively easy. It was great to come back after a long, hot, dusty day of exercise and clean up, satisfied with my first trip outside of Lima. Moreover, now when we want to go see the ruins it will be a piece of cake!
The challenge was getting there. This place was not in any of our guidebooks, since tourists don't come to Lima to hike in random valleys outside of the city. Taylor and I first heard about it from our hostess from our initial days, and then I found it on the official Peru tourist website as a thing to visit in the Lima area. That website didn't have any public transportation info, though.
Fortunately, the Lomas lies close to one of the tourist desinations that is in all the guidebooks--the ruins of Pachacamac--and thus we had some information on public transport to the area. But since we don't live in one of the areas where all the hostels are, none of the directions in the books were super-convenient for us, and we figured we must be able to catch a bus somewhere along the route. And Taylor was convinced that he had seen buses with a destination of "Pachacamac" running along the main street where we live. As it turns out, he was right! We waited for one of those busses and all 5 of us (me, Taylor, Maiah, John, and Alexandra) piled in.
We enjoyed the ride, going up into the hills from the nice parts to the more barren outskirts of the city. And then, the combi stopped at its final destination, nowhere near where we wanted to be. We soon discovered that a destination of "Pachacamac" means somewhere in the department of Pachacamac (like a county or something), not necessarily the town of Pachacamac where we wanted to be. The combi driver told us to go back down the hill to catch the right combi, but I had a map and remembered from reading a Pervian exploradores site that it was possible to get there by going up and over the hill we were on. So we caught a second combi that when further up the hill, and the money-taker on that bus told us we could get a taxi to where we wanted to go. Or at least, to a town that was on the map that looked like it was close to where we wanted to go, since she had no idea what we were talking about when we said "Lomos de Lucomo."
So then we got a taxi (a colectivo--there were 10 people in the station wagon when we started off) and asked to be taken to one of the towns that was supposed to have an entrance to the park--we knew it wasn't the main entrance, but there was suposed to be an entrance. When the taxista tried to let us off at the parque--the park in the middle of town--we explained that we were looking for something else. He had no idea where to go, so we asked some people and they said we should keep going down the road to the main entrance. So we agreed to pay 1 sol more per person to be driven another 15 minutes. When we got to that town--which we knew was the right place and had a big sign on the road into town about the "circuito de ecoturismo"--we asked another guy along the side of the road where to go, and he directed us to that town's parque--a nice little square. Finally, someone in the square pointed us in the right direction and we decided to get out and walk. Meanwhile, the taxista was totally confused as to what we were planning to do--"are there restaurants? a bar?" he asked. No, we said, we just want to walk around. Clearly hiking was not a popular recreational activity in these parts.
We found the trail, and it was actually pretty well marked, although the section we were on was not actually called "Lomos de Lucumo"--it was just the "Circuito Ecoturismo." Clearly, the Peruvian government is trying to establish this area as a nature spot near Lima, but it hasn't quite caught on. And the fact that we were coming in February might have been part of the problem--the Peru tourist site says "you should visit between August and October," although in Spanish, so I think I missed this the first time I skimmed the information.
So since it's the middle of the summer--not the early spring--it was hot and dry and it wasn't quite as beautiful as the photos on the web. But, it was still a nice hike, out of the smog, and at the top we did have views of the city, the ocean, and the river valley. Unfortunately I can't post pictures until Maiah or Alexandra send me some, because our camera was misbehaving.
The trip back was less adventuresome, because we took the way the guidebooks told us to go and it was relatively easy. It was great to come back after a long, hot, dusty day of exercise and clean up, satisfied with my first trip outside of Lima. Moreover, now when we want to go see the ruins it will be a piece of cake!
posted by HelenO at
5:22 PM
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