Barranco

The district of Barranco is one of the 43 districts of the Province of Lima, capital of the Peru. It is limited to north by the district of Miraflores, in the west by the Pacific Ocean in the east by the district of Santiago de Surco and in the south by the district of Chorrillos. It is populated of 45.922 inhabitants for a surface of 3,33 km ².

The " term; Barranco" indicate a type of gullied cliff characteristic of the coast of Lima. The cliff dominates a narrow beach and a fast track which connects Miraflores to Chorrillos.

Today, Barranco is the romantic, Bohemian district and night bird of Lima with many restaurants, bars, discotheques and “peñas criollas” (bar-restaurants where one plays the music criolla). It pleasant there to walk in the middle of the flowered parks and to traverse the raised streets bordered of large villas surrounded by garden. The compositrice and Peruvian singer Chabuca Granda lived in this district.

History

Barranco is in the beginning a village of fishermen, recognized like such in 1860. October 26th, 1874, it is officially set up in district, is initially called San Jose de Surco with like capital Ermita de Barranco.

Barranco was a Seaside resort very gravitational for the estivants liméniens of high middle-class and the foreigners, who were established there by building large villas in the style of the European countries. Its distance of the city, made necessary the construction of a train then of a Tramway whose remainders are visible on the avenue Pedro de Osma. This tram connected Chorrillos/La Herradura to the center of Lima). With the passing of years, Barranco was absorbed by the metropolis.

The district was affected by two significant events in its history which tested its population:

the war between Peru and the Chile, during which the district was plundered and set fire to by the Chilean troops the January 14th 1881.
in 1940, a seism a magnitude of 8 degrees destroyed most of the historical center. The inhabitants and the authorities worked successfully with its rebuilding.

Its parks and its places were between 1913 and the years 1950 the theater of memorable festivals of Carnival and floral Jeux.

Remarkable places

Public library:
Parc in the center of which the sculpture of a danaïde is, marble Venus or nymph to the top of a water mirror. One also finds there a vase Etruscan, called the Candelabrum of Barbenini, original part of IIe century in ON position note the decorations of elements of nature like the sheets of acanthus. Two pedestal out of Carrara marble with angels called Puttis.

Bajada of los Baños (Descent of the Baths):
In the beginning it was a ravine by which the fishermen of Surco gained the beaches of Barranco. It was planted olive-trees and willows which were replaced by ficus which exist always at the present time. On cliffs Bajada, villas were built at the beginning of the XXe century.

Bridge of the sighs:
Built in 1876 and inaugurated on February 14th under the mandate of the first mayor of Barranco Enrique García Monterroso. It makes it possible to cross the ravine between the Ayacucho streets and Ermita.

Church " Ermita" :
In the beginning, this church was a small vault which accueillaít the fishermen and the voyageurs.
His origin merges with a legend dating from the XVIIe century: one day of winter, a group of fishermen left at sea was taken in the thick fog which covers all the littoral (the neblina). Disorientated, the fishermen had wandered for several hours when they transfer with far a dazzling light towards which they moved. They gained the shore thus healthy and safe. With the approach of the place from which the light came which had guided them, he realized that it was about a cross. Thus the place became a place of pilgrimage.

San Francisco Place:
C' is one of the most pleasant places of Barranco. The place is bordered by typical houses of Barranco with their windows and their gardens bordered of grids. The house of the poet Jose María Eguren is to the 202 of the street Colón.

San Francisco Church:
Building built thanks to Jose Tiravanti, an Italian engineer who immigrated in Peru in 1850 and was mayor of Barranco in 1887. It drew up the plans of the church of the Franciscaine congregation. It is on the San Francisco Place.

External bond

Site of promotion of Barranco with photographs

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