Back in Ayacucho

The week following my arrival in Peru I journeyed to Ayacucho in order to spend a few days back in my beloved Huamanga.

Huamanga's main plaza

It has been four years since I had been there last, and I was indeed missing it.  Unlike other trips there in past years, I was on my own and with no agenda other than to just hang out and be there.

Hostal Via Via Plaza

Also, unlike most other years, I did not stay in the old family house, but instead opted for the Hostal Via Via, on the plaza.  The Via Via is located in a converted Spanish-era mansion, that had also previously been the Hotel Sucre, overlooking the main plaza.

So, I just hung out, wandered around a bit downtown, and took in the sights and sounds.

Monument to Gen. Jose de Sucre, victor in the Battle of Ayacucho

28 de Julio Street, looking from the plaza toward the Independence Arch, and the central market.

Church of the Company of Jesus (c. 1700)

Views from around Lima's main square

Lima's Plaza de Armas or, as it is officially known today, Plaza Mayor, is Lima's main square. It was there that the Spanish city of Lima was founded in 1535, on the site of an existing native settlement.

The square is surrounded by the Cathedral, the Presidential Palace, and City Hall. Many visitors mistakenly think that the buildings are colonial, but the only colonial architectural elements still surviving there are the art cast iron fountain, inaugurated in 1651, and the Royal Magistrate's House, also from the 1600s. Over time earthquakes, fires, and "progress" have led to the reconstruction or replacement of the rest.

The plaza and the surrounding boulevards are usually crowded with tourists, local visitors, taxis, and hawkers.  The reason I was able to capture images relatively devoid of crowds was that on the day I went in late July the plaza was closed to visitors.

Public school teachers from the Cusco region had gone on strike for better wages and better conditions, and had journeyed to Lima to press their case. There, there were joined by local teachers, and were staging rallies and marches a few blocks away, near Congress.  The government had decided to close off the plaza to avoid any disturbances or scenes in the vicinity of the Presidential Palace and to "protect the historic center".

Of course, I did not know that when I ventured downtown and found myself cut off from the bookstore I wished to visit.  After being rebuffed at one intersection, I found a spot where the police were letting a few people in. They shut access just as I was about to go in, and asked us to wait a bit. People got verbally belligerent, and the officer in charge --feeling stung after his earlier gesture-- now insisted that access was definitely closed unless one had an ID showing that one lived or worked in the area.  Fortunately, someone called to him that she had some foreign visitors who had "come all this way to know the historic center", so he instructed her to go in at the far end of the barricade.  Hearing that, I quickly followed, and when challenged, I told the officer there that "he said for tourists to come in this way" and handed him my California driver's license.  The cop glanced at it and waved me through.

Thus, I got to stroll around the periphery of the nearly deserted plaza, emptier that I've ever seen it, and on a serendipitously sunny day.

Lima city hall (built in 1944).

Art cast iron fountain (from1651), and the Presidential Palace (1938).

From L to R: Presidential Palace, Mt. San Cristobal, Royal Magistrate's House (17th C.), Archbishop's Palace (1924).

Lima Cathedral, viewed across the Plaza, from Pasaje Santa Rosa.

In the foreground, the monument to Taulichusco the Elder, last indigenous ruler of Lima.

Old Post Post Office & Telegraphs building

Callao and La Punta

Last week (I've been a bit remiss about posting updates, I know) Toya and Orlando took me to Callao, Lima's port district.

Officially, Callao is a province, independent of other jurisdictions, and whose existence has been built into successive national Constitutions for years. In practice, it does depend quite a bit on the metropolitan government of greater Lima (although arguments do arise, as is the case now over reform of the city's transportation system).

Until the middle of the last century Callao was a separate city from Lima, although it has served as the capital's port for hundreds of years.  Long ago, however, its fortunes faded and it acquired a reputation as one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods -which it does, I think deservedly, retain to a degree.

Today, Callao's former glory can still be glimpsed in its crumbling early Republican architecture

All of it, presided over by the Real Felipe fortress, erected to defend the city from pirates and English privateers.  Its construction was begun under Viceroy José Antonio Manso de VelascoViceroy in 1746 and completed in 1774 during the administration of Viceroy Manuel de Amat y Junent.

At the far end of the peninsula that comprises Callao, and the northern end of the bay of Lima, lies La Punta, which -as its name implies- is a point of land extending into the pacific.  On its northern side lies the deepwater anchorages that serve the port, and on the southern side, the bay which is overlooked by the city of Lima.

At La Punta's very end, there is a beach which is still used by artisanal fishermen -many of Italian descent-  who supplement their income by giving boat tours when the weather is good.

Off the coast, lie a set of islands, comprised mainly by the large isles of El Fronton and San Lorenzo.  The latter harbors the last of Lima's sea lion population,  a myriad seabirds, and even Magellanic penguins on its far side.  It has also been found to contain Pre-Columbian ruins and traces left by pirates and English privateers - including gravesites.  

El Fronton (at left), San Lorenzo (at center), and the Naval Academy at La Punta (at right)

Unfortunately, the powers that be have dreams of building a causeway between La Punta and the island and turning it into a deepwater port for larger ships or building an airport on it, either of which would devastate the ecology and archaelogy of the island.

El Fronton, for its part, was infamous as an island prison over which lurid tales were spun.  In the 1980s it was used  to house prisoners from the Shining Path.  The prisoners rebelled on June 18, 1986, and by the next day, courtesy of the Navy, most had been killed and the prison reduced to rubble.  The Navy demolished the cell block even with wounded prisoners inside, precipitating a scandal and crisis for the government of President Alan Garcia.

(From L to R) Orlando, myself, Mr Peñaflor

Of course, being surrounded on three sides by ocean, La Punta is known as a prime locale for quality seafood meals.   And, of course, we took advantage of that, at La Caleta, a restaurant run by Mr. Rodolfo Peñaflor its friendly and talkative owner.

Cebiche

A bowl of parihuela, a Callao classic

A Few Pictures of the Old Family Home in Ayacucho

The view down the street, on Av. Garcilazo de la Vega.  The peach-colored building used to be a police station, and during the Shining Path attack on the city jail in March 1982 guerrilla snipers took over the rooftops on the near side of the street in order to prevent the officers from sallying in support of their comrades at the jail, five blocks down the street.

The view out back.  The large building used to be the Cavero family's cinema.  Every afternoon on my summer visits to Ayacucho was marked by the sound of the cinema's generator going on for the day's showings.  Today it is an evangelical church, but they have kept the projector on display in what used to be the lobby.

The main part of the house, likely built in the 1700s, viewed from the entrance to the courtyard. My great aunt Esther had a parrot, named Pepinillo Landaeta (or Pepe, for short), who lived on the ledge on that nearest column.

A partial view of the house's courtyard and balcony.  The door at the end of the balcony used to be my great aunt Esther's room, and to its right, behind that shuttered window, was the parlor.

A Few Views of Downtown

From L to R: The Presidential Palace, the House of the Oidor, the Archbishop's Palace, the Cathedral.  In the background, at the end of the street is the old Desamparados train station, and in the distance, Mt. San Cristobal overlooking it all.

The House of the Oidor (member judge of the Royal Audiencia during colonial times).  Built in the early 1700s, it is said to be the oldest house in Lima.

Main door to the Lima Cathedral and Basilica

The church of the monastery of San Francisco

Antioquia

Continuing on our road trip up the Lurín valley from Cieneguilla, we headed into Huarochirí province and to the town of Espíritu Santo de Antioquía, more commonly known as just Antioquía.

Antioquia's main square

Antioquia city hall

Antioquía's claim to fame is recent, and due to the townfolk's practice of decorating their homes with images drawn from nature - birds, plants, flowers.  The paintings, done in a naïf style, were the idea of a priest assigned to the town, who convinced the locals a few years ago to buy into the idea as a means of building town pride and pulling in a bit of the valley's tourist trade.  

Elba, Willy, and Liz in front of Antioquia's church

It must be admitted that the idea has on fact worked.  We, for example, were the third delegation from our family to make the trip to the town in the past several months, and we had all learned about it from it's being featured in newspaper, magazine, and television segments.

The road to Antioquía is still a bit rough, but even so there's enough traffic to allow a couple of restaurants with large seating to operate in town.   I expect that once the road is paved the whole way, it won't be long before a good segment of Cieneguilla's weekend tourist traffic will head that way, even though it is about an hour further, much as the summer beach exodus has moved ever further out of the city in the past decade.

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Lima Art Museum & José Sabogal exhibit

Yesterday afternoon I headed toward downtown, to the Lima Museum of Art (Museo de Arte de Lima, MALI).

The MALI is located at one end of the Parque de la Exposición, at the intersection of Paseo Colón and Ave. Garcilazo de la Vega (everybody still calls it Wilson, its former name), about a block down from the former US Embassy and the Casa Matusita.

The "Byzantine Pavillion".  In the background, at right, the "Moorish Pavillion".

The Parque de la Exposición was built for the 1872 Lima International Exposition, and the MALI occupies the main building, the former Palacio de la Exposición (Exposition Palace).

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The former Palacio de la Exposición, today the MALI

Interior atrium of the Palacio de la Exposición

The building itself was restored in the late 1950s to house the museum, which opened its doors to the public in 1961.

Installation in the foyer of the MALI

The MALI houses examples of 3000 years worth of Peruvian and other artistic creations.  It also offers art classes and courses in art history, and has a library that is open to the public.

My purpose for going, however, was to view the current exhibit of works by Peruvian indigenist painter José Sabogal.

Part of the Sabogal exhibit

Sabogal was one of the first, if not the first, artist of note to directly and explicitly incorporate Andean and indigenous imagery and persons as central subjects in art.  

At L, "Varayoc de Chinchero" (1925); at R, "Mujer del varayoc" (1926).

Sabogal thus played a key role in Peruvian art and in Peruvian social history, at a time when the idea of Peruvian nationhood was being redefined as result of the disastrous war with Chile, immigration, and other pressures.   There was a search for an "essential Peruvianness", based less on geographical accident than on culture and history. 

That gave rise to a broad indigenista movement, which sought to bring to the fore Peru's indigenous culture.  In politics, it led to movements to promote civil rights and integration of Peru's Indian majority, and the exhaltation of Peru's Inca past.  In literature and art it led to investigation of traditional arts and legends, the exploration of native Andean themes.  (Pretty much the same thing was going in Mexico, for example, which gave birth to that country's famed muralist school of art.)

"El gamonal"

Sabogal made a study of traditional pyrography and etchings on dried gourds, an traditional craft that is practiced throughout the country, and published several articles on the subject, and was inspired by it in his own etchings and other designs.

He played a foundational role in the development of Peru's indigenistas.  For example -and this was a revelation to me- it was Sabogal who suggested the name of Amauta, the seminal political and literay magazine founded by José Carlos Mariátegui, and it was Sabogal who developed its logos and interior artwork, as well as a number of the cover designs. 

Issue of Amauta with cover by Sabogal, in my library

Sabogal influenced a generation of Peruvian painters who could be called the indigenista school. Camilo Blas (1903-1985), just to give one example.

Last year I attended the opening of a show of paintings and drawings by Camilo Blas , who was the grandfather of my friend Carla, and was a friend and disciple of Sabogal's.  Blas' work made an impression, and from the MALI showing the influence that Sabogal had on Blas's work was clear.  In fact, my initial interest in the Sabogal show was that I confused Sabogal's work with Blas' when reading an article in a magazine about the opening of the exhibit!

Portrait of José Sabogal