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:
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.
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.
This video was prepared by El Comercio for showing during the 7 Mares ("Seven Seas") festival held in Lima on March 17. The video honors the Peruvian sea as the source which allowed Lima's ancient cultures to develop, and is part of El Comercio's campaign to build awareness and pride in Lima's ancient past and for preserving it's historic monuments.
I recently received the link to a really cool video, with amazing -and amazingly beautiful- images of Lima from the air. I immediately knew that I needed to share it as well.
Madre Mar is a documentary created by a quintet of Peruvian friends to warn the rest of us about the pressing need to conserve Peru's marine ecosystem and resources in the face of the growing pressure put on it by indiscriminate fishing practices and pollution. (Unfortunately it's not been subtitled in English.)
While we were in Cusco there was celebrated the 100th anniversary of Hiram Bingham's announcement of the existence of Machupiqchu. As part of the celebrations -aside from a ceremony and concert in Machupiqchu itself- there were musical acts and a concert in Cusco's main square.
Some of the acts were folkloric dance groups, called comparsas. The first of the below is from Cusco's Paucartambo province, and the sencond, from Puno.
At the end of March, Perú launched a new "country brand" with a logo for Peruvian products. Incorporating a spiral into the P the logo gives a nod to Perú's ancient past, and cultures such as Nasca and Caral. Modern inhabitants may be reminded of the final part of the old AeroPerú logograph.
As part of the campaign to get Peruvians to adopt and use the logo, the company hired to produce and promote the brand sent a delegation of Peruvian "ambassadors" headed by chef Gastón Acurio to share Peruvian culture with the 569 inhabitants of Peru.
Confused? Watch the video and all will be explained!
Added to the links at right: PBS's episode of Moments of Luxury, this time showing the "softer side" of Lima.
From the program blurb:
"Bill visits Lima's magnificent historic sites and discovers the lasting influence of the Incas on modern day Peru. Peruvian contemporary artisans and designers honor their Incan and pre-Columbian roots in creating some of the world's most fascinating art, textiles, jewelry, modern architecture and food."
I just came across this item on Youtube, while filling a need for a small Peru fix until my next trip. It is a 1937 "Traveltalks" short film by James A. Fitzpatrick, Glimpses of Peru.
The film opens with these lines, as the camera pans across downtown's Plaza San Martín:
"Lima is the surprise city of South America, for most visitors who gaze upon it for the first time do not expect to find a modern and up-to-date metropolis... . We are impressed by its beautiful buildings and plazas, modern hotels, the very finest cinematheques, and all the ... innovations found in the cosmopolitan cities of the world."
The US's Public Broadcasting System (PBS) TV network has started placing their programs online for free viewing. Among them, and listed as one of the "most emailed", is Ghosts of Machu Picchu.
The video details new evidence as to the origins and uses of the famous Inca city, and recent archaeological finds at the site. It can be viewed at http://video.pbs.org/video/1392958573
I have added links to the video on YouTube of Michael Woods' documentary on the conquest of Peru from the series "Conquistadors."
Though the emphasis early on is on the ostensible subject of the program, Francisco Pizarro and his band, the account shifts toward the Inca's resistance to the Spanish, and the accounts cited become those native chroniclers, including Waman Puma.
I find this documentary moving every time I view it, and Peru's physical and historical landscape are presented in all their depth and breathtaking beauty. It is one of my favorite documentaries on Peru.
Over the weekend we headed south along the coast to Ica for a cousin's wedding. While there we took the opportunity to visit some vineyards and the desert around the Huacachina.
Bodega Lazo
We went to Bodega Lazo looking to purchase a botija - one of the old ceramic amphorae used to age pisco.
Bodega Lazo, a small artisanal winery and pisco distillery, turned out to be a truly weird place. They still use the botijas, which alone sets them apart, but along with the botijas, the place is crammed with the oddest assortment of brick-a-brack, from pre-Columbian artifacts to old phones, broken radios, swords, stuffed animals, and even a large bust of Juan Velasco Alvarado.
The owner wanted to sell us some of the small fake botijas produced for tourists, but refused to sell us one of the antique ones, even when we pointed out a couple that were lying in the dirt clearly long unused.
Sandboarding
This morning, before heading back to Lima, we headed to the oasis of Huacachina for some fun in the desert.
From Huacachina one can hire a ride in a four-wheel drive sand vehicle for a ride across the desert and over the large sand dunes which surround the Huacachina.
Part of the ride is a stop at a large multi-tiered dune for some sandboarding:
On Sunday, to get away from Lima for a bit, we loaded ourselves into my cousin Juancho's and my uncle Willy's cars and headed down to Punta Hermosa, hoping for a change of scenery and a good seafood meal by the ocean.
Punta Hermosa is a a beach town a few kilometers south of Lima. It is just south of these islands, which face the long, long beach of San Pedro, where I often spent time with my friends the Zamudio's when I was a child. Their mom would pile us kids into her Mini and we'd drive down for the day. The surf was notoriously rough at that beach, but that just added to the excitement of it. The islands are called the San Pedro Islands, but are often referred to as The Whale.
As for Punta Hermosa itself, the water was quite rough today, but the town has a nice, curving beach, one end of which is marked by a small peninsula which was once an island separated from the mainland by a few dozen yards. As it was a favoured fishing spot, the townfolk built a causeway to it, and today due to the accumulation of sand along the causeway, it is no longer an island. It is presumed -no one seems to know for sure- that it was this outcropping that gave the locale its name as Punta Hermosa means "beatiful point."
Perhaps due to the rough surf or to some offshore feeding frenzy by large fish or dolphins, the beach was littered with pieces of jellyfish, including this singular chunck which led to all manner of crude jokes due to its resemblance to certain parts of a woman's anatomy.
We spent about and hour walking and playing on the beach before lunch at an ocean-front restaurant, and had a great time all around, before heading home and collapsing.
Here are two videos of the day. The first shows a crab crawling around my niece's leg and Mito rounding it up and then chasing his daughter down the beach with it. The second shows Mito with the girls braving the surf.
Lima Family is a documentary by Julien Bryan and released in 1944 by theU.S. Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, which had hired Bryan to produce a series of films on Latin American culture to be shown in schools and other venues during World War II.
It is an interesting exercise to compare the pace of life in Lima of 2008 shown in Huk Punchaw to Lima as it appeared in the 1940s.
Those familiar with Lima will be able to recognize landmarks such as the racetrack which provided the ground upon which San Felipe was built and its grandstands which later became the Ministry of the Navy, as well as a very different La Herradura beach. Included among those sights is this house, located on the corner of Av. Salaverry and Jr. Mariategui, in Jesus Maria:
This is a house that I have always noticed, ever since I was child, as it is a striking edifice, grander and more graceful than other, and later, constructions along that stretch of Salaverry. I have often wondered about its history and what it might have been like in its glory days. Lima Family provides answers to these questions.
Watching it, I am struck by how little some patterns have changed since then: the valuing of old things -"treasures from earlier, better days", the frequent getting-together of the family for meals, Papá Ramón's and, particularly, Mamá Pali's hold over their far-flung, multigenerational clan.
Unfortunately, the film's Lima family, shown so happily enjoying their "leisurely life", would soon be struck by tragedy.
The family shown is the Graña Garland family, and the surgeon and patriarch depicted is Dr. Francisco Graña, several times president of the National Academy of Medicine. One of his children, was Francisco Graña Garland, owner of a farmaceutical firm and director of the conservative daily La Prensa, and noted archi-conservative commentator and fervent opponent of the then-reformist movement, APRA.
On January 7, 1947, as he left his farmaceutical firm, Graña Garland was shot to death by unknown assailants. This event is often noted as one of the factors in the crisis which brought down the government of Pres. José Bustamante y Rivero and ended the brief "Democratic Spring" of the 1940s.
One the young women appearing in the film, Dr. Grañas daughter, Rosa, also known as "Mocha," later became a fashion designer, theater and dance figure, and tireless promoter of the performing arts. She died in the old family house in 2003.
The house itself, has been apparently unocuppied since then, if not before, and has sported a "for sale" sign for many years.
Stuart at ...en Peru has posted about this amazing video on his blog. It is Huk Punchaw ("one day" in Quechua), by Oswaldo Villavicencio and Eva Machado, the 2006 winner of the Instituto Superior Toulouse Lautrec's Imagen prize for Best Documentary.
Huk Punchaw shows one day in the life of Lima, from dawn to dusk:
Yesterday we journeyed four hours south to Ica, a city of over 250,000 which is the capital of the department of the same name. Ica is near the epicenter of last year's massive earthquake and signs of the damage are still evident in the city.
After my cousin Juancho finished an errand, we took off from downtown toward the Huacachina, an oasis 5 km from the city amidst the desert and sea of dunes which surround the city.
Early in the last century the Huacachina was a tourist destination, where people would spend several days bathing and boating, or just hanging out lakeside. People don't bathe in it much anymore, specially since its waterquality has been reduced due to the depletion of the aquifer from unwise farming practices such as growing water-intensive crops such as asparagus and table grapes in a rainless desert.
The oasis is still a great place to spend time, but today there is the added attraction of the desert itself, which one can view from off-road vehicle tours, which take one racing across the dunes to good sandboarding spots (the boards are provided by the tour).
At the end of March, Perú launched a new "country brand" with a logo for Peruvian products. Incorporating a spiral into the P the logo gives a nod to Perú's ancient past, and cultures such as Nasca and Caral. Modern inhabitants may be reminded of the final part of the old AeroPerú logograph.
Punta Hermosa is a a beach town a few kilometers south of Lima. It is just south of these islands, which face the long, long beach of San Pedro, where I often spent time with my friends the Zamudio's when I was a child. Their mom would pile us kids into her Mini and we'd drive down for the day. The surf was notoriously rough at that beach, but that just added to the excitement of it. The islands are called the San Pedro Islands, but are often referred to as The Whale.
