Stories: Aracari Team Insights

It was during a walking tour of the neighborhood of Los Olivos in Lima that I encountered my first huaca. I stood behind a row of houses on a patch of dusty land that had a few hills and a sign that said "No Trespassing", which failed to deter any of the many trespassers who were crossing the open expanse to reach their homes on the other side. Huaca Pucllana is one of the highlights of a visit to the capital, Lima.  Huaca Pucllana Lima A huaca, as I later found out after some investigation, comes from the Quechua word wak’a, which means “sacredness” or “holiness”. The term was used to describe objects with a spiritual significance like a sacred ritual or offering or to refer to the afterlife in pre-Inca cultures. Worship and Sacrifice Huaca is also used to refer to the ceremonial and administrative centers built with stone or adobe, which were used for community gatherings for sacred worship, sacrifices and rituals as well as social, administrative and political meetings. The remains of huacas, such as the one I encountered in Los Olivos, are scattered throughout Peru, many neglected, forgotten or built over by modern development. However, efforts to restore and protect these archeological sites have increased in recent years, and municipalities have built fences around huacas to protect them from vandalism and damage. Huacas in the heart of Peru's capital Lima, a fertile coastal region, was the home of many ancient cultures in Peru and is thus replete with the remains of huacas—more than three hundred are scattered throughout the region. Two well-preserved huacas in Lima are the Huaca Pachacamac in the south and the Huaca Pucllana, located right in Miraflores. The construction of Huaca Pucllana I recently visited the Huaca Pucllana or Huaca Juliana, as it is also called, which was a