Back in Ayacucho

 

I'm in Ayacucho, having arrived yesterday for a two-evening colloquium on "Class, Gender, and Building of Peace in Peru".

I'm staying at the rather pleasant ViaVia Hotel, right the main square.

The hotel is located in Colonial  mansion that has been fixed up with funds from Belgium and is run by the ViaVia traveller's cafe and hotel chain  - they even have Belgian beers on sale in the restaurant.

Normally, I'd stay at the family home on Garcilazo de la Vega street, two block from here, but it's never that comfortable -despite being free- so I opted for the hotel and hot showers on demand.

Not much sooner than I had arrived than the power went out and remained out through lunchtime and on into the late evening.

That meant that I missed all of the Argentina-Holland soccer game in the World Cup except for the addiional time added on because they were tied at the end of egulation time.

The game went to penalty kicks, which I had to miss as otherwise I'd have been late to the colloquium. Fortunately, like sio many others, I could keep up with the progress at any shop doorway and window!

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

The Changing of the Guard at the Presidential Palace

On Thursday, Liz and I headed downtown for a bit before lunch just to look around and get out a bit.  As luck would have it, we arrived just as the Changing of the Guard ceremony at the Presidential Palace was getting started.

The guard regiment at the palace are the Dragoons of the "Marshall Domingo Nieto" Cavalry Regiment.   Every midday, Monday through Saturday, some 40 Dragoons, accompanied by the regimental band, take part in the ceremony which was established by President Manuel Prado in 1940.

This was only my second time witnessing the ceremony up close, and the first time I was a little kid, so it was pretty cool.  (I might go back with a video recorder!)

 

 

 

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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Lunch on a Stone Table

Yesterday Liz and I headed out with Willy and Elba on a day trip to the Lurín Valley, which lies just over the hill from the bulk of the Lima metropolitan area. In fact, the valley's Cieneguilla area is the only district in the metro area that is not completely urbanized, and some farming and open areas are still to be found there.

Cieneguilla is a favored weekend get-away destination for limeños -such as our party- wishing to get away from the city's hustle-and-bustle and in search for a bit of country atmosphere.  Though our destination was further up the valley, in the nearby province of Huarichirí, we decided to make a stop in Cieneguilla for lunch.

We chose to eat at a restaurant called Mesa de Piedra, which means "stone table", in reference to the tables being made from large stone slabs gathered from the surrounding hillsides.

Mesa de Piedra holds some memories for us, as it was the locale for one our first large family gatherings, one of our last while Mama Pali was still alive, and one of the few that pulled in even some our more geographically remote cousins.

Fried crayfish, with toasted corn

Grilled guinea pig

Grilled rabbit

Our meal was quite good, and very pleasant in the country quiet, surrounded by birdsong (mercifully, the restaurant staff had not turned on any music).

 

Thus fortified, we were ready to continue on our journey....

The Cats of Parque Kennedy

A fixture in Miraflores' main park, Parque Kennedy (all of it is usually called that, even though only the westernmost portion of it is dedicated to John F. Kennedy - the rest of it is actually the Parque Central), besides the nightly antiques and craft market, traditional dessert vendors, and local characters, is the ubiquitous presence of numerous cats.

Some years ago people stared abandoning their unwanted cats in the park. Kindhearted souls in Miraflores started feeding the animals, and they multiplied. People, even in other districts, saw this and started viewing the park as a safe place to deposit unwanted kittens and to relocate captured strays.   Thus the park's feline population expanded.

 The Miraflores municipal administration,  A group of neighbors (see comment below) meanwhile, started capturing the strays, giving them check-ups, immunizing them, and sterilizing them, before returning them to the park.   However, as more kept appearing, it has been made illegal to abandon house cats in the park.

Nonetheless, there seem to be more cats than ever, and they are everywhere -even in the trees- and are themselves one of the district's attractions for many people.