Ruins in Peru

Ruins in Peru | July 27, 2025

Lima - Machu Picchu - Cusco, 2021

Peru, for me, is a landscape of ancient, colonial, and contemporary ruins. The Covid-19 pandemic framed everything: it turned every place we visited into both memory and mirror. I can't separate that country from the lens in which I viewed it - the lens of the pandemic. 

Autumn 2021 was nearing the height of Covid-19. I still can't believe we actually pulled off our trip as planned. Years after our return, I would continue to receive updates in my feed about how Peru experienced the highest Covid fatalities in the world. I didn't know that at the time of our trip, of course. Tickets were booked 6 months in advance, just like I usually do with our international trips, and before the height of the pandemic. But as September drew closer and the situation worsened, I monitored the Peruvian travel websites, the U.S. travel advisory site, and news in general to make sure I had all of the attestations, paperwork, and vaccine boosters completed correctly. I was sure that at any time, the plug would be pulled on the trip. But, I kept complying with the ever-increasing requirements, and the time eventually came where we arrived at the airport the day before our flight to get the mandatory PCR Covid test. This test was required to be performed within 24-hours before boarding an international flight, and no clinics in my county provided it. My husband and I ended up driving in a day early and paying $500 to sit behind shoddily-erected fabric screens in the airport basement, having swabs shoved up our nose in exchange for a quickly-printed attestation form. The printout looked official, but I could’ve made the same thing in Word for free. We had just paid $500 for the piece of paper that would buy our entrance into our desired travel destination. 

The next day at check-in, the baggage handler proclaimed that she was surprised that we had successfully navigated the red tape for Peru, given how strict the requirements were. She told us that Peru and the Czech Republic were the two hardest countries to enter due to Covid. But, my diligence paid off and we boarded without issue. Apart from mandatory masks at all times during the flight, it went fairly normally. 

In Lima, those masks were ubiquitous. Everywhere we went, we were met with double n95 masks, face shields, and temperature-taking at every store entrance. Mask adherence was nearly 100%, and authorities would stop people in the street to ensure they had their masks on correctly. Joggers, running by themselves on the gray streets in the early morning, could be seen with masks faithfully covering nose and mouth. 

In Lima on our first full day, my husband and I Ubered to downtown Lima. I had read about the ossuary in the catacombs beneath the Convent of San Francisco; the macabre arrangements of skulls and femurs interested me, and their location in the historic city center fit our bill of visiting UNESCO sites while travelling. Once inside the cathedral, we followed our mandatory guide, Renzo, to descend on stone stairs to the catacombs beneath. Besides my husband, Renzo, and myself, we were virtually alone in the catacombs. I guess this was a virtue of being a tourist in during a pandemic, in the country with some of the strictest travel requirements in the world. 

The dark and winding caverns were intermittently lit with electric lights, which illuminated thousands of bones. Some were piled haphazardly into mass graves, others were carefully arranged according to bone type, or to complete a geometric design. In one area, skulls were set on tiered stone shelves; the empty eye sockets of Peruvians long since dead stared back at our masked faces as we peered at their final resting place. This is the one place that I chanced a photograph - I needed to remember what this place looked like and what I was feeling, the eerie aura that pervaded my senses. Because the more I looked, the more disconcerted I felt. These people had died mostly due to Spanish introduction of diseases, and were now resting in mass graves or used as macabre ornamentation beneath the cathedral representing the very religion that promoted the colonialism that led to their demise. Tourists, us included, now paid money to that same church for privilege - entertainment? - of gazing upon these peoples remains. Did my fascination make me complicit? Were we seeking knowledge or simply something to fill a morbid curiosity? In the silence of the catacombs, with no other tourists to smooth that friction, I wasn’t sure whether I was honoring the dead or intruding on them. 

I asked Renzo what he thought about this as a Peruvian and a tour guide. His response was that it's sad, but it was a very long time ago and didn't really affect him at all, except that he makes his money from showing tourists these features. Practical, forward looking, and to the point - I suppose that response reflected the reality of his needs of today. What happened in the past can't be changed; today's need to make a living and continue living life overshadows whatever happened half a millennium ago. 

But now, looking back the single picture I took, another unsettling realization crosses my mind. When I was looking at those skulls, and they looked back at me, they saw a face masked to protect again a contagion not unlike those which claimed their lives 500 years ago. Their countrymen were now dying at rates higher than anywhere else in the world, succumbing to a virus brought to their lands by people not unlike myself. History was repeating itself... as it has, as it does, as it will. If the skulls could speak, what would those old bones say as they looked at their newest visitors?

After we left the cathedral, our afternoon consisted of wandering around the historic district of Lima. After a time, we found ourselves near the Rimac River, namesake of Lima. The Puente Rayito de Sol ("sunshine bridge") spanned the river's levees, and we walked across to the Rimac district. The differences between the sides was immediately apparent - this district looked like so many others of its kind in the developing world. Overhead tangles of electrical wires spanned rundown storefronts. In the distance, the extensive pueblos jóvenes (slums) creeped up Cerro San Cristóbal. We had been warned about wandering around this area, and since there wasn't anything in particular I wanted to see we soon left. 

The next day, we took a bus tour of Lima starting from our hotel in Miraflores, the "Bellevue, Washington" of Peru. The bus wound through the streets and slowed at various sites, and the tour guide would speak through his n95 mask to share stories and facts over a microphone at the front of the bus. We slowed in front of a walled area and the bus eventually stopped to give the passengers a chance to to look through the metal gates. Tattered blue face masks blew across the concrete before the gate, and we were informed that we were looking at Huaca Pucllana, an archaeological site funded by the wealthy Municipality of Miraflores. Miraflores takes pride in restoring and displaying their very own pre-Incan pyramid, with teams of archaeologists and specialists restoring the site, the speaker said. He followed up with an explanation that archaeological sites are found all through Lima and Peru, but given how prevalent they are, there is little monitoring or policing, and most are not given the care that we see here at Huaca Pucllana - in fact, many historic sites such as the ones surrounding Cerro San Cristóbal are actively dismantled by the impoverished inhabitants, who use the readily-available stones as building materials. This practice isn't unique to Peru; I remembered seeing the same thing in Beijing at the Great Wall. 

But, what was unique was the starkness of the disparity of Huaca Pucllana compared to the pueblos jóvenes from yesterday, those poor hovels in the distance, creeping up the hillside as though reaching toward the cross atop the pinnacle. Realizing that those grasping fingers of development overtook similar pyramids and archaeological sites and consumed them to feed the needs of current Peruvians was in stark contrast to the orderly neatness of Huaca Pucllana and the subsociety it represented. The money of this area allowed the elevation of one ruin among hundreds - thousands - by virtue of its fortunate location. Gated security now keeps the mansions and bougainvillea-laden streets from encroaching on the restoration; money now buys the archaeological teams that restore the site of pride and cultural history. And, it is beautiful, and worthy of pride. 

In the face of this disparity, what does this represent? What stories do we choose to restore, and which do we let be consumed by need? Is history more valid, more attractive, when it’s funded and fenced? In one area, the ruins fuel the needs of a disadvantaged citizenry who dismantle their cultural heritage out of true need for survival in the face of todays inequities. In other areas, the ruins are a medium of privilege as they absorb the economic advantages of the surrounding area and grow backwards to their former glory, the money allowing those sites to cheat the decay of time and live unscathed amidst modernity. 

The next day, my husband and I found ourselves walking around Parque Kennedy upon a recommendation from the Great God Google. The god's suggestion was a good one, as the park contained dozens of well-cared for stray cats and even a small mobile adoption facility. Water and food dishes abounded, and several cats showed signs of having received medical care. It was another courtesy of the Municipality of Miraflores: a central park with well-cared for stray cats and lovely landscaping, in the heart of a safe metropolitan area with ceviche restaurants and espresso shops just around the corner. We sat on a bench in the park and watched cats sleeping in the tree branches. In the grass below, a tortoiseshell cat with a surgical scar drank water from a plastic cup. The privilege of the well-kept cats, living lucky lives in contrast with the street cats of everywhere else, reminded me of Huaca Pucllana. 

Later that week found us walking the streets of Cuzco, our breathlessness from the elevation gain not helped by the n95 masks we were wearing. We had finished with our visit to Valle Sagrado and Machu Picchu a few days prior. The emptiness of Machu Picchu was an unexpected privilege of visiting during a global pandemic and was worth the extra work of hiking in a face mask. Now, in Cuzco, breathing at Machu Picchu seemed easy: the additional 3,000 feet of elevation resulted in noticeably more difficulty in even simple actions like walking around the city. The silent sentinels of Cuzco, the oxygen tanks, stood vigil in all the corners of the city in case a tourist needed their support. Their presence beneath the pervasive   Catholic iconography was slightly unnerving, given that a casual conversation with a Peruvian man earlier in the trip informed us that the majority of Peru's Covid-19 deaths were due to lack of oxygen in hospitals and inaccessibility to citizens. "Not enough oxygen, very terrible," he had told us from under the blue mask. The number of deaths and the deadliness of the virus in this country were the reason behind the mask compliance rates. 

I reflected on what that man had told us as I looked at the oxygen tanks scattered throughout Cuzco. Not enough oxygen for the regular Peruvians, but more then enough for the out-of-shape tourists that flock to this city. I'm sure it's on a different scale of distribution and need, but still, I felt unsettled when looking at row of oxygen tanks behind the front desk of our hotel. 

On our second to last day in Peru, my husband and I took a taxi from the main square up to Sacsayhuamán, the historic capitol of the Incan empire, now an archaeological site overlooking Cuzco. Sacsayhuamán is known for its huge, intricately carved stones which fit together like multi-ton puzzle pieces, forming its famous walls. Placards and informational signs informed us that the majority of Sacsayhuamán had been dismantled in the 1500s because the convenient stones were harvested by the Spanish. Everything but the largest, heaviest stones were removed to build the cathedrals, Spanish government buildings, and houses in the then-new city of Cuzco. My husband and I wandered the ruins and looked at what remained, framed by the city of Cuzco in the distance. 

Later that day, after walking downslope back to town, I sat on repurposed stone steps in the central plaza of Cuzco. My husband was off buying something or another, and I was content waiting for him and people watching. I found myself looking at the churches and wondering what percentage of them had been constructed from Sacsayhuamán stones. The city itself now felt like a palimpsest, history scraped away and rewritten again and again. I mused over what the locals thought about living in the reconfigured ruins of their ancestors - probably similar to how Renzo felt about the skeletons in the catacombs, I told myself. Aware, but not concerned. Worried about life today, not whatever happened 500 years ago. 

As I sat thinking, I was approached by a woman selling trinkets. The lack of tourists made me an easy target. I don't remember what she was trying to sell - I wasn't interested - but I was happy to practice my Spanish with her, and she was surprised that I could speak it even rudimentarily. She indicated that she wanted to talk to me, and so sat down next to me on the stone steps. Perhaps we sat on Sacsayhuamán stones as we looked across the square in the lowering afternoon light. She wanted to know where I came from, and about my family, and who I was travelling with, and why we came to visit Cuzco. I answered to the best of my abilities and asked her similar questions: does she live in Cuzco? Where is she from originally? Does she have children and family? Her answers were shocking - she came to Cuzco years ago after fleeing Shining Path terrorists in rural Peru, where she grew up. Some of her family members survived, others had died, but she managed to leave and move to Cuzco. She now made a living selling items to tourists, but times were hard in the pandemic - not many tourists to sell to. But, she was alive, and life was fine. 

My husband eventually came back and I said goodbye to the woman. She stood up and I watched as she walked down the steps and crossed the street to the central plaza. We returned to our hotel with its oxygen tanks and coca tea and religious motifs. We had our obligatory nasal swabs in the lobby and, passing the test, received the authorization we would need the following day to depart this country and return home. It went without a hitch, and soon Peru became a construct of the past, existing only in my memories.  

Today, I think about what that woman shared about her life, having escaped the Shining Path, and contrast it with what Renzo said about how he makes his living giving tours in Lima's catacombs. I think about the Covid-19 pandemic that caused us such headache in entering the country, but ultimately impeded us not at all in our annual international trip. I think about how that same pandemic claimed thousands of lives in Peru, and how the safety measures aimed to preserve life caused massive economic difficulty to those that remained. 

I think about how the architecture of Peruvian history has been restored through privilege, or dismantled because of socioeconomic need, or broken down and reincarnated by the conquerors of history. I think about how, at the end of the day, I am simply living and observing this thing called life. 

Ruins are the remains of the past, and they come in many forms; time floats through its circular rhythm. The old gives way to new and the world grows from, or around, or through what remains. The stones that make up the structure of our beliefs are not as permanent as they seem. Even the largest stones shift, and eventually become the framework of our current reality. In the end, we are all walking through ruins - some ancient, some newly made - trying to make sense of what to preserve, what to repurpose, and what to let go.