Navy Lighthouse

This guide to the Navy Lighthouse on the Miraflores cliffs in Lima opens in December 1973, when navy engineers took wrenches to a lighthouse and reduced it to hundreds of numbered pieces. It traces the tower back to a Swedish firm, Chance Brothers, which built it in 1900 for a rocky point near the port of Ilo, and follows the decision to truck it north across the desert and rebolt it above Lima instead. Along the way it takes up a persistent local rumor about who really designed it. Stand at the railing at dusk to watch the same beam that once warned ships off Ilo.