Peru is home to world-famous sites such as Machu Picchu and the Nazca Lines, as well as celebrated backdrops like Lake Titicaca and the Amazon Rainforest, but in recent years the country’ s capital has risen to rival them all. Chaotic and gritty, this city of around nine million people is perched on the Costa Verde— vine-covered cliffs that stand hundreds of feet above the Pacific. It’ s dominated by a ring of pueblos jóvenes— young neighborhoods that climb the steep, brown hills that surround the city and were settled by migrants who escaped violence in the Andes during decades of civil unrest. Even five centuries after it was founded beside the Rímac River, Lima remains a city trying to bridge the world of the haves and have nots.