September and October in Peru!

It's spring here, because Peru is South of the equator, yet it is really cold here. To be fair, the above photo was taken of me in Quiruvilca, Peru, about 4000 meters (13,000) feet in altitude. I am all bundled up in assorted woolens and a coat that various kind people have loaned me. 

So much has happened since I first arrived on the airplane from Santo Domingo to Lima it is hard to know where to start. I am a real expert on Lima, having been here for over a month. I hope my dear hosts are not getting too weary of me! Below I am shown with Yoli, my hostesss:

And below is Yoli's husband, Dimas, at the beachfront with me in Miraflores. 

I am a proud owner of several maps. I know my way around the city pretty well by this time, and really enjoy Lima's public transportation system. Below are photographs taken in buses.

I've been to the various tourist attractions of Miraflores and Barranco, yet have spent most of my time in the working class neighborhoods of Lince and Jesús María. Lima has parks and universities and people throw their trash in garbage receptacles. Life in this country is infinitely more civilized than the Dominican Republic, at least the part I lived in, which was not the best part. I love the restaurants here! Food served in restaurants is varied and it is inexpensive. There is so much I am enjoying about Peru. Below is a photo of the many varieties of potatoes for sale at the local grocery:

After a few weeks in Lima I took the Cruz del Sur bus to Trujillo, where I stayed for a glorious week. Trujillo is a gorgeous city and it is sunny, too. I love Trujillo. I could never live in Lima, with it's enormous population and overcast skies,  but could easily live in Trujillo. I stayed at the beautiful Residencial Vanini, which I would recommend to all visitors.

Trujillo's Plaza de Armas is breathtakingly beautiful. Trujillo has very fine Universities. The people are educationally minded and cultured. The week was among the best of my life.

The weekend I was in Trujillo, the city was hosting its annual Primavera (Spring) Celebration. Youth were giving exhibitions of archeological history, which is extensive in the surrounding areas.

Some of the most famous archeological sites in Peru are located near Trujillo, and I took tours visiting ruins at locations including Chan Chan, and "Huaca del Sol" (Sun Temple) and "Huaca de la Luna" (Moon Temple). These sites reveal the peak and decline of one of the most surprising societies of pre-Incan Peru.

I took so many photos of the archeological sites and cannot do them justice in this blog. I must add that I loved Trujillo's Museum of Archeology and would recommend a visit there to anyone:

I had lunch with a group of others the day of my tour at a restaurant featuring entertainment by an exuberant couple enacting the joyous courtship dance of the Marinera, which originated in Trujillo: 

The above photo was taken at Huanchaco, a beach town 20 minutes from Trujillo known for its fishing boats made out of reeds, or Caballitos. Below are two German women I befriended on our group tour. They were in Trujillo to visit a special exhibit about the life of Maria Reiche, a German woman from the same town as they came from. I saw the exhibit as well. Maria Reiche was a famed archeologist and her work centered on the Nazca Lines in Nazsca, Peru (south of Lima).

Trujillo has wonderful, inexpensive restaurants! I enjoyed ceviche in Trujillo at one of the best     restaurants in town, as far as I was concerned:

I also enjoyed  Trujillo's Central Market. I loved the florists there.

I thought so much about my mother during the week I was while I was in this beautiful city. She always loved Trujillo. What made the experience of Trujillo all the more remarkable is that I visited the mine at Quiruvilca, about 4 hours into the Andes from Trujillo, where my father worked as a Mining Engineer when I was a child. I spent a night in Shorey, right next to the house I lived in with my parents for 3 years over 60 years ago! What a dream come true.  

I was extremely fortunate that the CEO of Southern Peaks Mining, the company that recently bought the mine, was so supportive of my wish to visit Quiruvilca, and provided the services of his company chauffer for the steep ascent up the Andes to the mine. For really fine photos of the drive from Trujillo, as well as the Quiruvilca Mine and Shorey, I recommend the blog posted by Ray McDougall, http://www.mcdougallminerals.com/blog/into-the-andes-quiruvilca-peru/

I took a few good photos of the Andes on the way to Quiruvilca myself. Here are some of them.

 Below is the company Chauffer, Anterio, without whom I might never have made it!

Below are crosses by the side of the road to commemorate the deaths of sixty passengers, who died last year when their bus careened off the road and fell into the valley below.  We kept seeing stalled out and broken trucks and buses on the drive to Quiruvilca. And I am told recent repairs to the road have made it much better than it was in the past.

 Below I am seen with the nurses at the infirmary, who checked my blood pressure and oxygen level upon arrival at the mining headquarters, 3800 meters altitude. I passed the tests with flying colors.

 This photo was taken at the entrance of the mine headquarters in Shorey, just below Quiruvilca.

Alonso Cordoba, Mining Engineer and Chief of Mining Operations at the Mine is seen below. Mr. Cordoba pulled files of some of the old veins of ore that were being excavated during the 1950's. He was able to locate actual reports filed by my father, a Mining Engineer at Quiruvilca, from April, 1953. He was delighted to read these reports from the Quiruvilca Mine during the 1950's, and seemed impressed with the high levels of silver and copper that were mined at this earlier time.

I am told that Mr. Cordoba is a very well known Mining Engineer in Peru. He sure was wonderful to me. He really listened to what I had to say, and complimented me on my Spanish. He said my Spanish was much better than most Americans he had contact with. I felt great, as though my 2 years investment learning Spanish in the Dominican Republic really made a difference and I was doing well, after all!

Above is Luis Castillo, who rescued me the evening I had trouble with the lock on the door of the house in which I was spending the night. Below are photos of the psychologist and social workers at the company offices in Shorey.

Marina Sanchez prepared my room and made scrambled eggs for me in the morning. I stayed in the home of Mr. Adolfo Vera, Southern Peaks Mining Company's CEO. His home is right next to the one in which I lived  with my family as a child!

My one regret over the trip to Quiruvilca and Shorey is that I did not take photos of the houses in the circle of homes in which I had lived with my family. Southern Peaks Mining CEO Adolfo Vera kindly promised me he would have photos taken and sent to me!

The next 3 photos are of the recreation rooms at Shorey. Many Quiruvilca Mine Employees work schedules in which they are at the mine 14 days and then have 7 days off, when they return to their families. I can only imagine how lonely those 14 days at the mine might be for some.

The next photo is of the company cafeteria, where I had several meals along with mine employees.

 The photo above is taken of Quruvilca, and the following is a photo of the mine itself. For more photos I suggest you open http://www.mcdougallminerals.com/blog/into-the-andes-quiruvilca-peru/

The following photos are taken of myself with Adolfo Vera, CEO of Southern Peaks Mining, and his Assistant, Claudia Arbe, who made the whole trip to visit the Quiruvilca Mine possible!

I'll always feel grateful to Adolfo Vera for his generosity in allowing a visit to the mine, and to Ray McDougall for publishing a post on his blog that introduced me to Mr. Vera in the first place. Of course I agonized over the poverty suffered by many Peruvian Miners, and the terrible contamination caused by the mines. My own father died of lung cancer just 7 years after returning to the United States from his work as a Mining Engineer in Peru. Many others besides him have died young, at least partly due to the ill effects of the mines. I have no solution to offer for the problems involved, only appreciation for being able to visit the Quiruvilca Mine again, finally, at the age of 65 years.

I came away with a new found respect for the adventurous spirit of my parents. Families no longer live at the mine and haven't lived there for many years. Mining life is lonely and the Andes are particularly isolating. The road conditions my parents endured were much worse than they are now. How did my parents do it?  I also wonder how they came to terms with moving from Peru to middle class life in Tucson, Arizona having undertaken such an heroic venture. How could other people possibly understand? My elementary school memories have to do with my Spanish accent and trying to sound "normal" like other children so I would "fit in." It seems like such a tragedy that I lost my fluency in Spanish, and now am struggling so hard to regain Spanish speaking skills.

I remember writing school reports about having spent my early childhood "high in the Andes," yet no one in the United States I was around had any idea!  I didn't even realize what an amazing childhood I'd had, until my recent visit to the Quiruvilca Mine. I've never felt like I really fit into a middle class American lifestyle. No wonder!

The day after our tour of Quiruvilca and Shorey, Southern Peaks Mining Chauffer Arterio took me to visit Samne, a beautiful residential area below the mine. I remember my mother talking about Samne, and it seems to me that we lived there during my mother's pregnancy with my younger sister, who was born in Lima. Right now the houses at Samne are empty, and the grounds have been allowed to grow somewhat wild. The area is still resplendent with lush lawns, beautiful flowers and a swimming pool. I don't know what the Mining Company is planning to do with the properties in the future.

Since coming back to Lima (kind of a letdown, I admit) from Trujillo, I've done many things around the city, besides visiting the corporate offices of Southern Peaks Mining on Manuel Olgúin, near Lima University. I went to the Larco Museum, in nearby Pueblo Libre, which houses a varied collection of 3,000 years of ceramic, textile and precious metal artifacts. There are many public and private museums in Lima, but none as unique or pleasing as the Larco Museum, housed in a former mansion, itself built on the site of a pre-Columbian temple.

Sometimes, when I am having difficulty finding words to describe something, someone else has already eloquently put them on paper. Such is the case with Lima. Lucien Chauvin in "Lima: 10 Things to Do" for TIME Travel summarizes this museum best:

Two things set this museum apart. First, visitors are allowed into the museum's store rooms to see what's not on display: a vast array of ceramic objects crafted by ancient Peruvians; there are tens of thousands of pots in the shapes of animals, plants and people. Second, there's a special room devoted to erotic archaeological treasures. Many such erotic pots were destroyed by Spanish conquerors, who were mortified by the explicit depictions, which makes this collection all the more important. I regret that space on this blog does not permit me to include more of the photos I took inside this museum.

The Museo de la Nación is an altogether different type of museum. If there is a single reason to visit this museum, it is to view a permanent installation on the 6th floor called Yuyanapaq. The exhibit, named after the Quechua word meaning ‘to remember,’ is a moving and beautifully installed photographic tribute to the Internal Conflict (1980–2000) created by Peru’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission in 2003. Below is the museum and a few photos from that exhibit.

Next, these journalists were killed in Uchuraccay, Ayacucho during the internal conflict. Below, University Students and Professors become embroiled, with the idea of bringing about social justice for indigenous and disenfranchised peoples. Even indigenous women took up arms! It seemed to me that indigenous people were the ones to suffer most, even though much of the troubles were started supposedly on their behalf. I can't begin to understand what the conflict was all about, yet I was deeply moved by the exhibit.

I spent several days at Lima's Plaza de las Armas and the surrounding area downtown,

The Church of San Francisco is one of the best preserved Convents in Lima. Built in the baroque-style of the late 1600s, San Francisco has several gilded side altars and an impressive lattice dome. The adjoining monastery has a superb collection of ancient religious texts, some of which were brought over by the first wave of Spanish priests after the conquest of the Incas.

Most people go to San Francisco, however, for its catacombs. The catacombs were actually part of Lima's original cemeteries, which were built under churches. Tour guides say an estimated 75,000 bodies are buried under San Francisco alone. Many of the remains are exposed, stacked in patterns in circular stone pits. A catacomb tour is not for the claustrophobic! I was glad when the tour was over. No photos are allowed in the catacombs.

I especially enjoyed the changing of the guards in front of Lima's Government Palace. The Governmental Palace is the official residence and office of Peru's president, and sits on the banks of the Rimac River, Lima's principal waterway, and faces San Cristobal Hill (I took a bus to the top of this hill for just 5 soles)), the city's highest point. Back in the time of the Incas, the site had strategic and spiritual meaning, which is why the last Inca chief in Lima also lived here. You don't need tickets to see the changing of the palace guards, which takes place each day precisely at noon.

 The Plaza San Martin is only a short walk south on Jirón de la Unión.

 And I loved the stately Gran Hotel Bolivar, which once welcomed the rich and famous.

One day I went to Huaca Pucllana in Miraflores. I took a tour for just 12 soles (about $4.00). It was definitely worth it. Below are the ruins juxtaposed with buildings of modern Lima.

I am ready to leave Lima again. I hardly expected to be here this long, yet had a banking issue to take care of (my bank changed names and canceled my debit card so I ordered a new bank card and had it FedExed to Lima), among other things. Luckily, everything has turned out really well. My friend in California has been a great help, and the employee at FedEx was terrific.

By the way, I spent a whole day trying to figure out how I can update my blogger profile yet so far haven't had any luck doing so. Google is tricky sometimes. I hope I've solved the issue by the time I publish an update on my new blog. After two years, I'm not living in the Dominican Republic anymore (my outdated profile says I am moving there). Now I'm traveling in South America with the idea of deciding on a new locale in which to settle.

October 20 I'm flying to Arequipa for a week then will go to Puno and Lake Titicaca a few days. I'll stay most of November in Cuzco, and will fly to Ecuador, December 3. I'll spend December in Cotacachi and then go to Canoa (on the beach) for the month of January. Thank you for reading my bog and viewing the photos! I'll be posting an update at the end of November.