Circuito Mágico del Agua -- Ridiculous and Enjoyable

Since Lima is located on a desert, the last thing that I would expect the government to support and fund would be a water park.  But yeah, 3 years ago, the alcalde (mayor) of Lima inaugarated a 15 million US dollar water park project, se llama Circuito Magico del Agua, in the middle of the city (i think technically it's on the border of los distritos de lima y jesus maria). Here are a few shots of the spot including lima's claim to fame, the tallest water fountain the world--fuente magica.  Plus a couple of shots of the coliseum where a few of the fountains are located.

This walled plantation style water park (more correctly fountain park) for a lot of reasons, doesn't make much sense.  Lima has major potable water access problems because once again, it's located in  desert, which makes the costs of the park including maintenance kind of increible.  Even though , the city charges a 4 soles entrance fee, they have only recouped less than 700,00 of that. But like so many prioritized events and structures that are funded and built by the government of any country, things like water parks are used as propoganda to say "we did something"...vote us into office again...and again...and again.   

With all of that said though, I can't go all Scrooge over that park since my ass was there.  And at the end of the day, this park is kind of awesome.  First of all, its just water fountains, which on one hand sounds stupid but they have so many different kind of water fountains with amazing shapes and what not, like a water fountain bridge that you can go under.  Chuya and I did several times.   It's called the fuente de las sorpresas.   It's below on the left and to your right is Chuya admiring the Fuente Cupula Visitable.

Also, there also fountains to just get wet in which is kind of a need during a Lima summer--below is Fuente Labarinto Del EsueNo.  Chuya brought her parasol to mark the sunny occasion.

 

The park is only open from 4 or 5 p.m. til 11 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. I suggest going at 5 or 6 p.m. and then wait around because at 7, they put on this crazy light show in the fuente de la fantasia.  They project images of "peruvian culture" into the water.  Its kind of corny, simplistic, and once again the motivation is propoganda but it's also super cool to see anything projected into water.  It was sort of what i imagined the Great White show looking minus the fire.  To top it off in the background amazing elevator music celebrating the best of hits from the 90s and 80s plus of course the beatles have to be thrown in there some how. Here are a few some panoramic shots I took based on my interpretation of the "great white" lazer show. i wonder if the mayor beat his chest when he realized that he could easily take us in by building the tallest water fountain in the world.  It's the closest thing to a geyser I will get.