Larcomar
Larcomar is the new beachfront shopping mall in Miraflores. It is obviously designed with US malls in mind, and the lineup of shops, restaurants and cafés will seem somewhat familiar to anyone who has been to a US mall: You have your T.G.I. Fridays, your Radio Shack, and so on.
So far nothing new.
But what sets Larcomar apart is the location: It is embedded in the sandstone cliffs that drop down from Lima to the beach below. When I first saw this I was reminded of the cliffs in California, where heavy rain can mean that everything on top of the cliffs end up in the Pacific. I assumed that the builders of Larcomar had sunk concrete poles to the cener of the Earth to anchor the mall to the cliffs. This was until our Amazon tour guide made his guess: It almost never rains in Lima, and when it does it is very light rain, so the risk is basically non-existent.