Huaca Huallamarca

Huallamarca is a huaca ("precolumbian ruin", but lit. "holy place" in Quechua) in Lima's San Isidro disctrict. It used to be known also as Huaca Pan de Azucar and can be found referenced in older books about Peru as the "Sugar Loaf," which is what pan de azucar means.

Huallamarca was occupied in the second century BCE, and construction of the first structure on the site seems to have ocurred by about 400 CE, which makes it probably the oldest man-made structure in Lima.

Huallamarca was abandoned as a ceremonial centre two centuries later, which seems to coincide with the building of the Huaca Pucllana a few miles to the south, in Miraflores. It was then used as a cementery by a succession of cultures. Remains of Maranga, Chancay, Lima, and Huari-Tiawanaku-influenced peoples have been found. When the Inca arrived on the scene in the 15th Century the area was occupied by a people called the Hualla, hence the name given to the site: Hualla + marka (place of).

Lima-style ceramic depicting a feline, but it remided us of Diego's dog, Kafu

Spondylus shells.
These only grow in the warm waters near the border with Ecuador.

Funerary masks of wood with shell eyes.

The huaca is located at Nicolás de Rivera 201 in San Isidro, and can be visited daily (except Mondays, when it is closed) from 9:00 am til 5:00 pm.