Parque de las Leyendas vs Huachipa: Which Lima Zoo Should You Visit?

Go to the original Parque de las Leyendas in San Miguel if you want the bigger day out: at 970,000 square metres it is nearly nine times the size of the Huachipa site, and it adds the first Indian rhinoceros in Peru and 53 archaeological sites to the animals. Choose Parque de las Leyendas - Sede Huachipa, the former Huachipa Zoo in Ate, for a compact visit of about four hours built around penguins, bears and big cats.

Which site to choose

Both sites carry the same name, but they have different histories. The San Miguel park was founded in 1964 by the conservationist Felipe Benavides Barreda and is managed by the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima. The Huachipa site first opened as Huachipa Zoo on 22 February 1999; the municipality acquired it in 2023, and it opened to the public as a Parque de las Leyendas on 8 November 2023.

San Miguel: the original, and far bigger

Wikipedia calls San Miguel the most visited zoo in Lima and counts 2,071 animals of 215 species there. Some are survivors of the old Barranco Zoo: a female Tumbes crocodile called Naylamp and two Galápagos tortoises, Sansón and Job, each weighing 220 kg.

The star is newer. In February 2024 the park announced a first for Peru: a three-year-old female Indian rhinoceros from the Plackendale zoo in Belgium, who went to the San Miguel site. Her name is Valentina, she now weighs more than one and a half tonnes, and at weekends long queues form in front of her enclosure, so see her on a weekday if you can.

The cats have their own felinario, opened on 2 October 2010. There is water, too: in the 2026 summer season visitors could kayak among the park's green areas, and the park's tariff lists a kayak trip at S/15 per person and a two-seat pedal boat at S/12.

What Huachipa cannot match is the archaeology. The park's heritage includes 53 archaeological sites, some a little over 2,000 years old. They belong first to a Lima Culture ceremonial centre (0-600 AD) and later to the Curacazgo de Maranga (1100-1532 AD), and the finds are shown in the park's Middendorf site museum.

San Miguel is also where the next big arrivals are going. Two African elephants, young males aged three and five, were donated by Africam Safari in Puebla, Mexico, and will mark the species' return to the zoo after more than 25 years.

Featured location Parque de las Leyendas San Miguel, Peru ALPZA It is the country's biggest and best-attended zoo, and also holds museums, a botanical garden and leisure areas. The metropolitan municipality of Lima administers it.

Huachipa: the former Huachipa Zoo

Peru's tourism resource inventory counts more than 1,100 animals of more than 100 species at Huachipa, in areas that include a carnivore zone, a spectacled bear zone, a marine world and a bird forest. Look for the colony of more than 60 Humboldt penguins, and for the 616 giant Lake Titicaca frogs, a critically endangered species of the altiplano.

The park's own school-tour routes fill in the rest. The coast route passes flamingos, crocodiles, caimans, otters, penguins and sea lions; the highlands route takes in Andean camelids, spectacled bears, an Andean eagle viewpoint and an amphibian world. The third route starts at a felinario with white tigers, a white lioness, a pair of lions, a puma and a jaguar, then moves on to hyenas, monkeys, bears, river otters, an anteater, tortoises, a serpentarium, a tapir, a zebra and a giraffe. A new llama was born here at the start of 2026.

When the site reopened, La República reckoned a visit takes about four hours. Do not expect it to be quiet because it is smaller: the inventory records 630,457 local day visitors in 2024. On site there are restaurants, food and drink kiosks, children's play areas, picnic spots, a first-aid post and interpretation centres.

Featured location Parque de las Leyendas - Sede Huachipa Peru ALPZA Parque de las Leyendas - Sede Huachipa is a zoo in Peru.

So which one?

Pick San Miguel for a full day: the rhino, the archaeology, the boats and, once they are out of quarantine, the elephants. Pick Huachipa if you want animals only and a visit you can finish in an afternoon, with the penguin colony, the spectacled bears and the white tigers as the highlights.

Tickets and saving money

These are the prices on Parque de las Leyendas' published tariff, checked September 2026:

• Ages 13 and over: S/20.
• Children aged 3-12: S/10.
• Visitors aged 60 and over: S/4, every day of the week including public holidays.
• People with disabilities: free with a CONADIS card.

The tariff page gives the San Miguel address, so confirm the price at the ticket office before you set out for Huachipa. At San Miguel, budget for the extras: parking is S/15 for a car, a pedal boat S/12 and a kayak S/15 per person. If anyone in your group is 60 or over, their S/4 rate applies on weekends and holidays too.

Getting there

• San Miguel: Av. Parque de las Leyendas 580, San Miguel. Parking costs S/15 for cars and vans.
• Huachipa: Av. Las Torres, in Ate, next to the Huachipa bridge. By private car it is 18.3 km, about 43 minutes, from Plaza San Martín in the historic centre. La República recommends taking the Panamericana and then the Ramiro Prialé.

Best time to visit

Parque de las Leyendas lists its hours as 9am to 5pm, Monday to Sunday, public holidays included, with tickets sold until 4:30pm. Arrive by early afternoon at the latest: Huachipa alone takes about four hours.

Lima's weather rarely rules a day out. Rain is extremely rare, but the city's summers, December to April, are sunny, hot and muggy, so start early and bring sun protection. From June to September a persistent morning drizzle called garúa often falls, so in winter an afternoon visit is the better bet.

If you have children aged 5-9 and are in Lima in summer, watch for Huachipa's summer programme. In 2026 it ran seven sessions in January and February, with an Eco Juniors track for ages 5 and 6 and a Bio Exploradores track for ages 7 to 9.

Other wildlife nearby

• **Acuario Nautilus:** this aquarium is in Comas, at Calle Las Chontas 178, and opens daily from 10:00 to 18:00. It says it is the only aquarium in Peru with live corals.
• Pantanos de Villa Wildlife Refuge: 263.27 hectares of protected marshland in Chorrillos, within the city. Birdwatching is the main activity, especially from December to March.
• Palomino Islands: a group of small islands off Callao where more than 8,000 sea lions live, and where the lack of predators has let visitors swim among them.