This footage was filmed and produced 20 December 2023.

Few tourist brochures mention it, but it could well be said that Lima, the capital of Peru, is the city of the huacas, sacred places in the pre-Columbian culture where 5,000 years ago rituals were performed to honor the gods and ask for their protection. With more than 10 million inhabitants and an area of 2,600 square kilometers, Lima is home, incredibly, to 400 huacas within its urban area, distributed in almost all the neighborhoods of this great megalopolis. Sacred places of different sizes that preserve part of the historical memory of Peru and the ancestral wisdom of the Incas.

However, the vast majority of Lima huacas, one of the largest pre-Hispanic possessions in South America, have suffered the deterioration of oblivion and indifference. Today they are just an amalgam of empty, disconnected and dangerous spaces that, for the new Limeans, do not represent any heritage, cultural or historical value of the city they occupy.

Although there are endemic cases of huacas valued as tourist sites or parks, the vast majority are surrounded by walls and bars that make them invisible to the community. To top it off, long-standing legislation has made pre-Hispanic heritage intangible. Which means you can’t touch, intervene or empower in any way.

SHOTLIST:
1. Various from Huaca Pucllana;
2. Various Huaca San Miguel;
3. Various of the Huaca Pucllana from the air.

[Note: partially no sound]