Recently I was made aware of a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of a documentary film by another traveller to Peru: Carlo Rojas, a young Peruvian-American, who's returning to his late grandmother's hometown --Huaylas, in Ancash, close to Huaraz-- to get into the culture and explore and document the town's main festival. 

It looks interesting, and I urge you to take a look at it as well:   

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1020430657/huaylas-folk-capital-of-ancash

One the Eve of New Year's Eve in Lima

There are pretty much only two days when Lima --yes, pretty much  the entire city-- comes almost to a standstill: Christmas Day and New Year's Day. I mean, not even on Sundays does the place get as quiet and still as it does on those two days.

In between them, however, are a few days of frenzied activity for vendors who have a short window of time in which to get sell their New Year's themed merchandise in preparation for the big night.

 There are a number of traditions associated with New Year's Eve.  For example, some people eat twelve grapes or olives at the stroke of midnight.   Others walk around the block with an empty suitcase in hopes of traveling in the coming year.  Others, taking note that the word for a square block - manzana- is the same as that for apple, take things a bit tongue-in-cheek and stay indoors and just walk their suitcase around an apple.

Yellow, or more accurately, gold, is the color associated with New Year's Eve.  That means that, overnight after Christmas the street stalls and small shops, put away the multicolored swag and lights of Christmas, and everything turns yellow: yellow streamers, yellow table cloths and napkins, flowers, decorations, etc.

One of the things that most stands out is the astonishing amount of yellow underwear that appears as if by magic, as it is fortuitous to greet the New Year wearing new yellow underwear that has been received as a gift.

Where have all those yellow undies been during the rest of the year?  I don't know, but given the sheer amount of it, it seems impossible that it could all be sold in the course of the one week between the two holidays.

Lord of the Fall

On the third block of Av. Republica Dominicana, just down from Plaza San Jose and across the street from the main market in Jesus Maria, resides a local landmark that is, literally, an icon.   

Inside a relatively nondescript archway that looks like it might be the entrance to the several-storey building above it, there is a figure of Jesus that is an object of veneration by locals and even people from further afield, including Mama Pali, my late grandmother.

The story goes that a sculptor named Marcos Huapaya created the image with the intention of selling it, but that fate intervened.    Huapaya had fashioned a previous religious image from wood, cardboard, and plaster, and wanted to create a larger one of Jesus.  He selected to depict a moment from The Passion in which Jesus stumbles under the burden of his cross.   The family thus decided to name the figure the Lord of La Caida (The Fall), a choice that was further cemented by their owning a country estate named La Caida.

Before Huapaya could sell the figure, however, a neighborhood woman gave him a white cord to add to the figure's vestments in thanks for divine aid she said she had received after praying before the statue.  Soon others started to do the same and Huapaya ended up building a sanctuary for it.

Later, when the family moved to Jesus Maria, they built the niche where the statue now resides, and where it receives numerous visitors daily, some of whom leave behind tokens of the "miracles" they say they have been granted after praying to the Señor de La Caida.

Huapaya has since died, but the niche is still maintained by his family, who open it up every morning and close it up every night.

The Cross of Plaza Elguera (once the Plazuela de La Salud)

In a recent post I talked about Jiron Quilca, and mentioned that at the intersection of Quilca and Av. Garcilazo de la Vega there used to be an Inca way station, or tambo.

In time that tambo gave way to a house of healing run by a religious order, and the spot became known as the Plazuela de La Salud (Plaza of Health).  Today it is the Plaza Elguera.

In one corner of said plaza there is a cross affixed to the wall of a building.  No inscription accompanies it and it could easily pass unnoticed.  However, it is not a mere decoration.

In 1884, during the Chilean occupation of Lima resulting from the War of  the Pacific, two Chilean soldiers were attacked in that vicinity.  The Chilean military governor ordered a search and five men were arrested.  After questioning some of them were released, but a couple were kept.  Unable to assign assign responsibility to each, as they would not cooperate, the commander drew lots and put one of the Peruvians up against a long adobe wall that then ran along that spot, whereupon the man was executed by firing squad as a lesson to the populace.

The spot of the execution became a symbol of patriotic resistance and not long afterward a wooden cross was placed upon it.   Decades later, when the modern buildings of downtown Lima were going up, the building company respected tradition and marked the spot with the cross we see today.

Vichayito / Los Organos

Early Saturday morning, Liz and I flew north to Piura to spend a few days on one of the north coast's famed beaches.  We stayed at a resort that had been recommended by my cousin, the Vichayito Bungalows y Carpas, at Vichayito beach in the Piura district of Los Organos.

Los Organos is a two and a half hour drive from the Piura airport, something that wasn't made clear on the resort's website, nor was it made clear that their "airport pick-up service" is not complimentary, but must be paid for by the guest.   The going rate of 250 soles for the ride, which must be paid to the driver in cash, can leave one with nasty sticker shock surprise --in our case, the transportation from and to the Piura airport cost as much as our accommodations!- which is not at all a great way to start off one's vacation.

In any case, we determined to shake off the unpleasantness and enjoy ourselves, even though it was ten in the morning and we could not get into our room until three that afternoon (even though the literature in the room itself said that check-in was at 1 pm), so walked down the steps and onto the beach, where we spent some nice moments observing the waves, and watching boobies and frigate birds soar overhead, and whales spout and dive offshore, before heading up for lunch.

Last year, we were told, there were only ten days on which the sun did not shine.  We happened to arrive on one such day for this year.   Not only was Saturday overcast, it was quite windy - making it kind of rough on the few souls who gamely did their best to enjoy the beach they had come all this way to be at (we fared a bit better, since we were still fully clothed).

Sunday, despite an illusory promise early on, clouded right up by breakfast and, although not as windy, proved much the same.  There is a local folk belief that when the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, which land close together, are celebrated, it either clouds up or rains.  As it happened, Saturday was the Feast of Saint Peter (Day of the Fisherman).

On Monday, however -our last day- we arose to patches of blue in the sky, which cleared up a brilliant, sunny day by the end of breakfast.  We were thus finally able to break out our bathing suits and play in the surf,   Liz took the opportunity to go out on a sea kayak, during which trip she got to observe sea birds and a flying fish.  And, of course, we did what one expects to do at a beach resort: lounge in the sun, drinking pina coladas on the sands.  (In fact we got so sunburnt in our three hours on the beach on Monday, that we were kind of relieved that we didn't have three full days of such sun!)

All in all, it was three days well-spent in utter relaxation in a beautiful locale.

Video: Takanakuy

Another one. This time it's about the custom of takanakuy.

In the province of Chumbivilcas, in the Cuzco region, Christmas is celebrated with partying, drinking, fireworks -like in the rest of Peru.  What makes chumbivilcano Christmas different is the takanakuy, which is a festival of ritualized hand-to-hand combat. 

Fights are one-on-one bareknuckled fistfights accompanied by huaylia music, and all strata in the community take part -men, women, young, and old.  Even kids.  Through  the takanakuy grudges are settles, stress is released, community harmony is retained, and the Earth is repaid for her bounty through  the fighters' sacrifice.

In this video, the host, Thomas, travels to Chumbivilcas to witness and participate in the takanakuy.


PART ONE:





PART TWO:

Video: Scissor dance in Andamarca

Just browsing the web today I came across this cool little video on danza de tijeras, or scissor dancing, in Peru.  The danza de tijeras is an age-old custom, as one of the musicians in the video explains, and is intimately tied to Andean veneration of the earth and the apus and wamanis (mountain spirits).

The video shows two travellers -Krishna and Anthony- who drive  from Nazca to the community of Andamarca, in Apurimac, to witness a tijeras competition.      It reminded me of stories my mom told when I was little, of danzaqs she had seen in her travels, who -she said- seemed as if they had no bones in their bodies.

I've got to tell you that what the show's hosts witness the danzaqs do in Andamarca is a far cry from the tijeras dances you'd see on stage at folkloric shows in Lima.

Devils on the rooftops

In Paucartambo -and in other Cusco towns- during the feast days of the Virgen del Carmen, in mid-July, dance troupes associated to specific religious fraternities take to the streets and, through their dances, essentially act out religious plays.     One set of important characters in these are the saq'ras, or devils, who haunt the streets surrounding the church -being unable to enter it- and on the last day of the festival, when the effigy Virgin is carried in procession through the streets, the saq'ras are reduced to haunting the rooftoops and treetops, emiting their trilling cries, and waving their canes at the Virgin and her worshippers.

In Cusco, on the afternoon of the 7th, as part of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the "discovery" of Machupiqchu, Cusquenos made an effort to bring out elements of their folklore.  Accordingly, we found a troupe of saq'ras haunting the Plaza Espinar and the Basilica de la Merced.

As Liz said at the time, we were pretty lucky to have chosen those days to be in Cusco!

Casa Matusita

At the corner of Ave. Garcilazo de la Vega and Ave. Espana there sits a relatively nondescript building which is, nonetheless, believed to be one of Lima's most haunted buildings.   Painted yellow, with blue trim, and four-pane windows it looks far cheerier today than it did when I was a child.   Back then, in the 1970s, the upper story was unpainted and its windows empty of glass and, through them, it was evident that the upper story itself was empty, uninhabited and unused.   It is, after all, the second story that is said to be the locus of the haunting.

Then, and until not that long ago, the ground floor of the building was occupied by a commercial house specializing in home appliances and other electronics, owned by the Matusita family, for whom both the store and the building were named Casa Matusita.

Various stories surround the house and the origins of the haunting.   One is that the building was once home to a man who abused his servants cruelly.  In revenge they laced the food at a dinner party hosted by the man with a drug and locked them in the dining room.  When they checked on the man and his guests the next morning they supposedly found that, subject to the hallucinogen's effects, they had brutally killed one another.

Another story is that a man went mad there, and killed his wife and family before committing suicide.  And, yet a third and similar one, is that the original Mr. Matusita, founder of the business, found his wife was cheating on him and killed her.  He is said, to have then hung himself in grief over that act.

One of the first victims of the haunting was said to be a priest who entered to attempt to put the souls to rest, and died, perhaps of heart attack, in his desperation to leave the place.

The haunting story gained traction in the 1960s when an Argentine radio and TV personality,  Humberto Vilchez Vera, was said to have announced that he would spend the night in the upper story.   He was said to have emerged out of his wits, babbling incoherently and frothing from the mouth.   In fact, I remember being told that very story by my mom, as the bus we were taking home from downtown passed by the Casa Matusita.

Years later and by then back in Argentina, Vilchez wrote that, despite the fact that many people insist that he did, he never spent the night there, and that even though people insist that they saw him go in, he in fact never even entered the place.  He said that he was in a hospital about that time, but it was from nervous exhaustion, not ghost-induced hysteria, and that he was interned before he was supposed to go into the Matusita house.  Apparently, however, at the time of the supposed events, and since, few believed his explanation.

Whatever the origins, and whether haunted or not, the fact is that in many decades no one has occupied, and barely even touched, the second story of that otherwise sound and valuable property.

La Candelaria

My brother's being in Puno right now for the festival of the Candelaria has gotten me thinking back to 1988, when Liz and I had the fortune of being able to attend the festival. (These photos are from then.)

The yearly festival celebrates the Virgin of Candelaria, or Mama Candelaria, the patroness of the city of Puno, which is located on the shores of Lake Titicaca, in southern Peru, at an altitude of 12,420 feet above sea-level.

A supay

Characteristic of the festival and a recurrent motif in the folklore traditions of the Altiplano -the high plateau which spans the southern Peruvian and northern Bolivian Andes- are the supays or devils.   These extravagantly-costumed dancers -which are also a main feature of Carnival in Oruro, Bolivia- are said to have originally represented the visions seen by the Altiplano's miners under the effects of coca, hunger, and poisoning from the mercury used to extract the silver from the ore of Potosí.  Today teams of supays dance in the streets, in a diablada (devil dance).   The diabladas are joined by other types of costumed dance crews dressed as shepherds, bears, black men, Spanish overseers, angels, and the sicuris, who dance and play drums and pipes.

A "bear"

A "Spaniard"

The festival itself involves the crews dancing through the streets to the sounds of drums and zampoñas (pan pipes), and culminates, if I recall correctly after 22 years, with the arrival of the litter bearing the effigy of the Virgin at the church at Parque Pino in downtown Puno. 

A diablada

Virgen de la Candelaria

Even it is the third largest folkloric festival in South America, after Carnivals of Rio and Oruro, it is not much known about in northern latitudes, and remains a hidden gem amongst so many that Peru has to offer.

Certainly Liz and I knew next to nothing about it until we decided to go to Puno, while we were living in Peru for six months, during a break from our studies, and we simply picked the date because there would be "something" going on in town then.   It was, needless to say, an something neither of us has forgotten.

A supay

It is quite an experience, with the whole town thrumming with the vibrations from the drums, while fireworks go off at unexpected moments. The inescapable noise draws you in and makes you a part of the event, whether you want to be or not, while the nightmare figures whirling everywhere one looks add a surrealistic, dreamlike quality to it all, which is heightened by the drumbeats and, for visitors, by the lower oxygen level at that altitude.

 One particularly odd moment was when, while walking the streets one afternoon, I saw an elephant shoot across an intersection.   It was such an unexpectedly weird thing to see anywhere, let alone high up in the Andes, that I stopped in my tracks.  No one else seemed to have noticed, so I was seriously starting to doubt my senses and wonder if perhaps I were not hallucinating from oxygen deprivation even though I felt fine.  It wasn't until the rest of the elephants caught up a minute or two later, advertising the fact that a circus had just gotten into town for the festival, that I was able to regain my composure!

Huaráz (10,100 feet a.s.l.)

We left for Huaráz late Thursday night so as to not use a whole day on the 8 hr bus ride. We arrived in time for breakfast with our old friend Tato, who has also just arrived from Lima the evening before and was about to leave for work higher up in the mountains at the Antamina copper mine.

Our arrival in Huaráz

Benjamin, fresh off the bus

Our first glimpse of the Cordillera Blanca and Mt. Huascarán

Huaráz is a friendly, if drawn out and somewhat chaotic, city. Unlike Cusco or Ayacucho, it doesn't have a historic city center but has grown stretched out along the road through the Huaylas valley. The city was devastated in a massive earthquake in 1970, which damaged some 70% of the buildings and killed 20,000 people in town, as well as virtually wiping out the nearby town of Yungay in a huge landslide from Mt. Huascarán, where only about 400 people out of a population of over 10,000 survived.

Today Huaráz is a vibrant, lively city that feels very connected to the outside world. It abounds in cafés, restaurants, and nightclubs catering to Peruvian and international visitors as well as locals with money to spend. Huaráz is the point of departure for adventure sport tourism, including mountaineering, trekking, biking, and river rafting. However, thanks to global warming, which has melted the glaciers on Mt. Pastoruri, it seems skiing not an option anymore.

In Huaráz's Plaza de Armas

Although we did not plan it that way, we happened to arrive at the start of a week of celebrations marking the 151st anniversary of the founding of the Province of Huaráz and the dedication of Huaráz as the provincial capital. The celebrations included a multitude of parades throughout the weekend featuring dancers in traditional costumes, bands belting out waynos, and frequent setting off of fireworks.

Ayacucho, Carnaval 2008

Here are two short videos taken by Diego of Liz and Co. dancing in the streets and plaza of Ayacucho during Carnaval. If you keep your eyes open you'll also be able to spot Danny and Juan Ramon in the comparsa. They did this for three days and on into the nights, and though it rained often, "it didn't dampen any spirits, just our clothes." The semi-official estimate is that 150 such groups took part in this year's Carnaval festivities.

Liz is in Peru

Yep, Liz is in Lima to enjoy some sun and leisure for a bit. Tomorrow she journeys to Ayacucho for Carnaval.

As a preview of what awaits her, I offer this video by Ayacucho singer Kiko Revatta, featuring some of typical street dancing in traditional dress (It also has some good views of the historic downtown streets):