Lima, Peru, is a place of contrasts.
Tall, steel skyscrapers, with the rays of the winter sun (Peru is in the southern hemisphere) glinting off their glass facades, are mere blocks away from the intricately carved and perfectly maintained Gothic architecture of 500-year-old buildings from the Spanish Conquistadors era.
For the modern architecture, the question seems to be, how high can you go?
As regional journalists attending a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/government of Peru-sponsored workshop on climate change were shuttled to and from the hotel in Miraflores to the BBVA Continental Bank in San Isidro, building projects on a scale not yet seen in Barbados were many.
Towering above the ever present traffic, these buildings under construction rose 15 floors or more into the Peruvian sky.
At night, dull building façades by day came alive under creative lighting displays that swooped, swirled, danced and played peekaboo to create a nightly Christmas effect.
But (and maybe I am prejudiced) it was how Lima’s officials have painstakingly and lovingly maintained their historic street façades, including overhanging street balconies (think Roebuck Street), that caught my attention.
My taxi driver Guillermo proudly revealed that there was a metropolitan committee dedicated to carrying out the work on the historic buildings.
And a banner proclaimed: “Recuperacion de fachadas efectuada por la municipalidad metropolitana de Lima. Seguimos trabajando por el centro historico de Lima.” (Façade recovery carried out by the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima. We keep on working for the historical centre of Lima.)
And as luck would have it, I was in time to witness the Procesion del Senor de los Milagros llega al Congreso (Procession of the Gentleman of the Miracles to reach Congress) an all-day religiously-themed street parade and spectacle.
The country’s pride in its history is also seen in one of its restaurants which has incorporated an ancient adobe and clay fifth-century pyramid, Huaca Pucllana, into its construction.
The pyramid, tastefully illuminated by subdued lighting at night, stretches a mile or more and offers commanding views of the Pacific coastline below.
But step away from the bright lights and historic buildings of the city, and there is a part of Lima that makes you shudder and roll up your car windows.
Gone are the clean streets with their brightly coloured flowers and the verdant hues of mature trees; replacing them are slum areas where the streets are strewn with garbage; emaciated stray dogs outnumber vehicles; the buildings are crumbling and defaced with graffiti and rivers are choked with the detritus of human living.
Along the banks of one river, piles of garbage, obviously thrown from galvanised dwellings above, made their slow yet inexorable descent down the slopes, while mounds of garbage lie trapped on rocks, around which the blackened waters of the river flowed.
And the population seems hardened, vaguely threatening and has accepted its lot.
