Colourful Latin American Cities: 10 Places from Huacachina to Old San Juan

From a desert lagoon in Peru to the blue-cobbled streets of Old San Juan, these ten places show how much colour Latin America packs into its cities. Seven are in South America, one is the vast capital of Mexico and one sits on a Caribbean island, and every one of them rewards a few unhurried days.

Peru: the Huacachina oasis and Lima

1. Huacachina

Huacachina is a tiny village around a natural lagoon about five kilometres from the city of Ica, in south-western Peru. Only about a hundred people live there permanently, yet the oasis draws visitors from all over the world. Dunes rise around the water to heights of up to 500 metres, which makes it one of the best places in South America for sandboarding and rides in the dune buggies known locally as areneros.

Local legend says the lagoon was once a mirror dropped by a princess who fled from a hunter, and that the folds of her cloak became the dunes. Huacachina was a fashionable resort in the 1960s, and families from Ica still come to bathe in the water, which many locals believe has healing properties. Go early in the morning or near sunset, when the sand is cooler and the light is softer.

2. Lima

Francisco Pizarro founded Lima in the Rímac valley in January 1535 and called it the City of Kings. For more than two centuries it was the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru and the most important Spanish city in South America. Its historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Monastery of San Francisco is one of the most complete colonial convent complexes in Latin America. The National University of San Marcos, founded in 1551, is one of the oldest universities in the Americas.

Today Lima is one of the continent’s great food cities. Spend one day in the old centre around the Plaza Mayor and another along the clifftop districts that face the Pacific. The official Peru tourism site is a good starting point for planning the wider journey south to Ica and Huacachina.

Chile: Valparaíso and Santiago

3. Valparaíso

Spanish explorers reached this bay in 1536 and named the settlement Valparaíso. By 1544 it was the port of Santiago, and from the 1880s until the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 it was one of the leading commercial ports on the Pacific coast of South America. When trade moved elsewhere, the city’s growth slowed, and that is why so much of its 19th-century fabric survives.

The historic quarter of the seaport is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It covers five neighbourhoods on the flat strip by the sea and the hills above it, including Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción, where brightly painted houses and murals line steep lanes. The famous ascensores, funicular lifts that climb the hillsides, are part of the protected heritage, along with the old trolleybuses and Prat Pier. Ride a lift up, then walk down through the stairways and alleys.

4. Santiago

Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago on 12 February 1541 as Santiago del Nuevo Extremo. Chile’s capital spreads across a valley at around 500 to 650 metres above sea level, with the Mapocho River flowing through it and the Andes rising directly to the east. Cerro Santa Lucía, the hill where the city began, and Cerro San Cristóbal, home to the Santiago Metropolitan Park, both give wide views over the city.

The same enclosed valley that frames those mountain views also traps smog in winter, so the clearest skies usually come after rain or in spring. Valparaíso, on the coast west of the capital, is an easy trip to combine with it.

Brazil: São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro

5. São Paulo

Jesuit priests, among them Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta, founded São Paulo on 25 January 1554. It is now the most populous city in the Americas and in the Southern Hemisphere, with almost 12 million people in the city and more than 21 million in Greater São Paulo. It is the capital of São Paulo state; Brazil’s national capital is Brasília.

The city’s energy runs along Avenida Paulista, home to the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP). Ibirapuera Park, opened in 1954 for the city’s 400th anniversary, is its green heart, and neighbourhoods such as Liberdade, Bixiga and Mooca reflect the Japanese, Italian and other immigrant communities that shaped it.

6. Rio de Janeiro

Few cities sit in such dramatic scenery. UNESCO lists Rio’s “Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea” as a World Heritage Site, a designation that covers Tijuca National Park, Corcovado and its statue of Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf Mountain, the Botanical Garden founded in 1808 and the waterfront along Copacabana. Take the cable car to Sugarloaf for sunset, and visit Corcovado early, before the crowds and clouds arrive.

Our Rio guide covers the city in more depth.

Colombia and Argentina: Cartagena and Buenos Aires

7. Cartagena

Cartagena de Indias on Colombia’s Caribbean coast was one of Spain’s key ports in the Americas, and its defences show it. The Spanish began building fortifications in 1586 and extended them to their present size in the 18th century. The port, fortresses and old walled city are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the huge Castillo San Felipe de Barajas still stands on its hill east of the centre.

Inside the walls, balconied colonial houses painted yellow, blue and ochre line the streets around the old squares. Walk them in the early morning or evening, when the Caribbean heat eases.

8. Buenos Aires

Pedro de Mendoza founded the first settlement on the Río de la Plata in 1536, in today’s San Telmo, but it was abandoned. Juan de Garay founded the permanent city on 11 June 1580. Argentina’s capital now has about 3.1 million people, and more than 16 million live in its metropolitan area.

San Telmo and Montserrat hold much of the historic core, the Teatro Colón ranks among the world’s great opera houses, and Avenida 9 de Julio is about 140 metres wide. Tango is the city’s signature art: see a show one night and visit a milonga, a social dance hall, on another.

Mexico City and Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

9. Mexico City

Mexico City stands on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital built on an island in Lake Texcoco. The Spanish destroyed it, drained the lake and built a new city on top in the 16th century. The Historic Centre and Xochimilco together form a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the centre you can see the excavated Templo Mayor, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the largest on the continent, and the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Xochimilco lies about 28 km to the south. Its canals and chinampas, the artificial islands often called floating gardens, preserve a farming system that dates back to pre-Hispanic times. Rent a colourful trajinera boat at a weekend to see it at its liveliest.

10. Old San Juan

Old San Juan, the historic district of Puerto Rico’s capital, guards the entrance to San Juan Bay. Between the 16th and 20th centuries the Spanish built a ring of defences here: La Fortaleza, Castillo San Felipe del Morro, Castillo San Cristóbal, the small fort of El Cañuelo and long stretches of the city wall, including the San Juan Gate. Together they form a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and San Juan National Historic Site has protected the forts since 1949.

Between the forts, pastel houses with wrought-iron balconies line streets paved with blue-grey cobbles. Walk the path below the walls to El Morro in the late afternoon for the best light over the sea.

Planning a Latin American city trip

The distances here are huge, so pick a region. Lima, Huacachina, Santiago and Valparaíso make a good Pacific-coast route; Rio, São Paulo and Buenos Aires work well together on the Atlantic side; Cartagena, Mexico City and Old San Juan suit separate trips. Remember that the seasons are reversed south of the equator, so December to March is summer in Santiago and Buenos Aires.

For a quieter stretch of coast between Brazil and Argentina, read our Cabo Polonio guide about the Uruguayan village without mains electricity.

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