Things to Do in Lima

Ceviche at a Surquillo market cevichería

For one lunchtime, skip the polished Miraflores spots. Head to Mercado de Surquillo No. 1, where the cevicherías inside the market serve fish that was swimming at 4am. The leche de tigre arrives alongside in a small glass, milky and electric with lime, rocoto pepper, and a slug of the marinade. Cleavers thump on wooden boards. Cumbia drifts from a tinny radio. The whole meal costs less than a cocktail in San Isidro.

Paragliding off the Miraflores cliffs

The thermals along the Costa Verde make Lima one of the few major capitals where you can launch from a city park and ride the updrafts above traffic. You'll lift off near Parque Raimondi. From there you drift over the Larcomar shopping mall and the surfers below at Playa Makaha, then land back on the grass roughly ten minutes later. The pilots are mostly veterans of the local club, chatty in decent English.

Catacombs and convent of San Francisco

The yellow baroque facade in Centro Histórico hides a basement ossuary where roughly 25,000 skeletons are arranged in concentric circles of femurs and skulls. The air down there runs dry and cool. The ceiling sits low. Guides walk you through tight stone passages with the kind of dark humor you'd expect from someone who works among bones all day. The upstairs library, with its hand-painted Moorish ceiling, tends to get overlooked. It's worth the climb.

Barranco bar crawl starting at Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca occupies a creaking 19th-century mansion on Avenida San Martín, with chandeliers, peeling murals, and rooms that each have a slightly different personality. The pisco sours are properly made. Egg white foam, Angostura swirl, the works. From there you can wander down to Juanito de Barranco for a vermouth and a sandwich, then on to Victoria Bar for cocktails that lean into Amazonian ingredients like cocona and camu camu.

Day trip to Pachacamac ruins

About 40 kilometers south of central Lima, Pachacamac is a pre-Inca pilgrimage complex of adobe pyramids spreading across a dusty hillside above the Pacific. The Incas built the Temple of the Sun atop much older structures. The view sweeps to the coast. The on-site museum was redesigned a few years back. It does a decent job. The displays explain why this place mattered for a thousand years before Pizarro showed up.

Miraflores: the default choice, with cliff-top parks, the malecón, and easy access to restaurants. Safe and walkable.

Barranco: bohemian, art-filled, slightly grittier. Best for nightlife, galleries, and a younger crowd.

San Isidro: leafy, upscale, financial-district feel. Quieter at night. Full of high-end hotels and steakhouses.

Centro Histórico: colonial architecture and museums. It tends to empty out and feel less safe after dark.

Pueblo Libre: a quieter residential district near the Larco Museum. Good value. More local feel, fewer tourists.

Magdalena del Mar: emerging cliff-side neighborhood north of Miraflores. Cheaper rooms. Ocean views, decent ceviche scene.