Barranco is Spanish for ravine which aptly describes the cliff-top area with walkway cut through the rock to the sea
Barranco is one of 43 districts in Lima, Peru. Its current mayor is Jose Rodriguez Cardenas. The district is considered to be the city's most romantic and bohemian, being the home and working place of many of Peru's leading artists, musicians, designers and photographers.
Why all the murals in Barranco?
"One morning in 2015, a downtown mural of Peruvian revolutionary Tupac Katari emerged flat yellow. In subsequent days, several more of Lima’s murals suffered the same fate. A shocking 60 murals and hundreds of hours of art were erased under yellow paint, but it wasn’t taggers or rival artists to blame. Instead, the new city mayor, Castañeda Lossio, took credit. He publicly claimed that the street art didn’t fit with the aesthetic of Lima’s downtown, but those closest to the incident knew otherwise. The murals were left over from the LatinAmerica Heartbeat Festival, and with buckets of yellow paint, he attempted to paint over the legacy of the late mayor, Susan Villaran. Little did he know that with buckets of yellow paint, he had unleashed a small revolution amongst artists who pledged #BorraronUnoPintaremosMil (they erased one, we will paint a thousand). In protest to the blatant destruction of public art, the street art in Lima emerged into an entire movement."
So, we took a tour to check it our for ourselves. It did not disappoint!
