Callao: Gateway to Lima and the Echoes of Empire

The port of Callao doesn't announce itself with beauty. Industrial cranes, container stacks, and the utilitarian architecture of South America's busiest port greet arriving ships. But what lies beyond — Lima, Peru's sprawling capital — is a city of contrasts so profound that you feel them in your bones: colonial grandeur built on Incan foundations, world-class cuisine born from poverty, Pacific fog shrouding a desert metropolis. I came here not for Callao itself, but for what it opens: a window into 500 years of conquest, survival, resilience, and transformation.

My ship docked early in the morning, the garúa — Lima's characteristic coastal mist — hanging low over the harbor. The Real Felipe Fortress stood nearby, its 18th-century Spanish walls still imposing despite centuries of earthquakes and wars. I would return to it later, but first I wanted Lima's historic center, the colonial heart that UNESCO recognizes as a World Heritage Site.

The drive from Callao to Lima's Plaza Mayor takes about 45 minutes through traffic that ranges from chaotic to apocalyptic. When you arrive at the Plaza de Armas, though, the noise falls away. Francisco Pizarro founded this square in 1535, and it remains the symbolic center of Peru. The Cathedral of Lima dominates the eastern side — Pizarro himself is entombed here in a glass casket, a conquistador's bones on permanent display. The Government Palace occupies the northern edge, its Baroque facade a reminder that Lima was once the capital of the entire Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, governing most of South America.

I walked from the plaza to the Monastery of San Francisco, a short distance through streets where colonial balconies overhang modern storefronts. The church itself is beautiful — yellow and white, with Moorish-influenced tile work — but I came for what lies beneath. The catacombs beneath San Francisco hold the bones of an estimated 25,000 people, arranged in deep pits organized by bone type: femurs here, skulls there, a macabre architecture of mortality. The guide explained that these were burial vaults from colonial times, before Lima had proper cemeteries. I stood there looking down at centuries of anonymous dead and thought about how many layers of history this city contains, how much is buried and forgotten beneath what we see.

The Larco Museum, in the Pueblo Libre district, became my favorite stop in Lima. Rafael Larco Hoyle founded it in 1926 to house his private collection of pre-Columbian art, and it's extraordinary — room after room of ceramics from the Moche, Nazca, and Chimú cultures, all of them predating the Inca. The gold and silver gallery holds treasures that gleam under soft lighting: nose ornaments, ear spools, ceremonial knives, proof of artistic sophistication that Europeans refused to acknowledge. Then there's the famous erotic pottery collection, hundreds of ceramic vessels depicting sexual acts with frankness and creativity. The Moche culture that produced these pieces saw sexuality as integral to cosmology and fertility. The Spaniards, when they encountered such objects, called them evidence of depravity and destroyed most of them. That anything survived is remarkable.

I spent my afternoon in Miraflores, Lima's upscale coastal district. The contrast with the historic center is jarring. Miraflores is manicured, modern, full of high-rise condos, boutique hotels, and the Larcomar shopping center built into the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. Surfers ride the waves at Playa Makaha below, and paragliders launch from the Parque del Amor, those colorful canopies drifting over the ocean like tropical birds. This is the Lima that tourism brochures show: prosperous, cosmopolitan, safe. But even here, history intrudes. The Huaca Pucllana, a massive adobe pyramid built around 500 CE, rises incongruously in the middle of the neighborhood — ancient ceremonial architecture surrounded by luxury apartments.

For dinner, I walked to Barranco, the bohemian neighborhood south of Miraflores. Barranco was Lima's beach resort in the 19th century, and its colonial and Republican-era mansions still line streets now filled with art galleries, live music venues, and some of Lima's best restaurants. The Bridge of Sighs — a small wooden bridge over a street that legend says you must cross while holding your breath and making a wish — is Barranco's most famous landmark. I crossed it properly, breath held, and then sat down at a cevichería nearby.

Lima is the ceviche capital of the world. Peru's national dish is deceptively simple: raw fish marinated in citrus juice (usually lime), mixed with onion, cilantro, and chili peppers. But simplicity requires perfection. The fish must be impeccably fresh, the lime juice balanced, the timing exact. My ceviche arrived in a shallow bowl, the fish opaque and firm, the leche de tigre — the citrus marinade — bright and acidic, with a heat that built slowly. It was served with choclo (giant Andean corn), sweet potato, and cancha (toasted corn nuts). I ate slowly, savoring every bite, understanding why Peruvian cuisine is considered among the world's finest. This is food born of geography: the Pacific's cold Humboldt Current providing fish, the Andes providing potatoes and corn, the Amazon contributing chilies and exotic fruits. Lima synthesizes all three regions on a single plate.

On my way back to the ship, I stopped at the Real Felipe Fortress in Callao. Built between 1747 and 1774 to defend against pirates and foreign navies, it's one of the largest Spanish fortifications in the Americas. Walking its ramparts at sunset, I looked out over the harbor and thought about all the ships that have passed through here: Spanish galleons carrying Andean silver to finance European wars, independence fighters breaking Spain's grip on South America, merchant vessels bringing immigrants and goods, and now cruise ships bringing people like me, tourists with a day to glimpse a history too vast to comprehend.

People ask me about Machu Picchu when they hear I stopped in Callao. The sacred Incan citadel in the Andes is Peru's most famous site, and it's true that Lima is the jumping-off point for trips there. But Machu Picchu is not accessible as a day trip from a cruise ship. Getting there requires flying to Cusco, acclimatizing to the altitude, and taking a train to Aguas Calientes. It's a multi-day journey, one worth making if you have the time, but not something you can squeeze into a port call. What Lima offers instead is context: the colonial power that conquered the Inca, the artistic achievements that preceded them, the modern nation that carries all of it forward. That's not less important. It's just different.

Lima is not an easy city. It's smoggy, sprawling, marked by inequality that puts penthouse condos and hillside slums side by side. The garúa creates a gray ceiling over the city for much of the year. Traffic is maddening, and poverty is visible in ways that make comfortable tourists uncomfortable. But it's also a city of profound depth, where three millennia of human civilization have layered themselves into a place that refuses to be simple. I left Callao at sunset, watching the Real Felipe Fortress fade into the mist, carrying with me the taste of ceviche, the weight of catacombs, and the gleam of pre-Columbian gold. Not everything can be seen in a day, but some things can be felt, and that's enough to carry forward.