…en Perú - Travel Culture History News

The Panetón is a cake of Italian origin that became popular in South America through Italian immigration. It is eaten in across the continent all year round, but more so in the festive season. It looks like a giant cup-cake, is very soft and airy and contains a number of pieces of dried fruit.

Panetón (or Panettone in Italian) has many legends regarding its origin, here are a few listed on Wikipedia.

One 15th century legend from Milan credits the invention to the nobleman falconer Ughetto Atellani. According to legend, he fell in love with Adalgisa, the daughter of a poor baker named Toni. To win her over, the nobleman disguised himself as a baker and invented a rich bread in which he added to the flour and yeast, butter, eggs, dried raisins and candied lemon and orange peel. The duke of Milan, Ludovico il Moro Sforza (1452-1508), agreed to the marriage, which was held in the presence of Leonardo da Vinci, and encouraged the launch of the new cake-like bread: Pan del Ton (or Toni’s bread).

It was Christmas and the court cook had no dessert to offer. So the guests were given a sweet bread baked by a mere kitchen boy, called Toni, which won general praise. Rather than steal the praise for himself, the cook congratulated his assistant and named it after him.

Other historians claim to have found references to “pan del ton” as far back as the 1300s. In those days some families made a thick bread with wheat flour called “pan del ton”, which meant “luxury bread” in Milanese dialect.

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Following my report on the new threat by the Shining Path, ilse_cp emailed me asking for more information about this terrorist group, who were they, what did they do and what did they want?

* * *

Through following the Marxist “shining path to revolution” their aim was to overthrow the bourgeois Government and its institutions - police, army, courts. They would replace these with a communist peasant-revolutionary system based on anarchy.

They were formed in the 60’s by Abimael Guzmán, a university teacher, and began spreading their message through universities and various school councils, before forming militias in the late 1970’s, starting in Ayacucho.

The militias were trained in military tactics and weaponry. When the first democratic elections were held in 1980 after a period of military rule, the communists declined to take part and instead embarked on spree of violence, attacking polling stations. The army brought this under control quickly enough, by the ideology was spreading, and the peasantry began to support the communists when hated figures and criminals in the provinces were murdered by them.

As their support and numbers grew, so did the territory that became off-limits to the Peruvian state and non-supporters. However, the Peruvian state did not immediately respond to this with any noticeable action and mostly ignored the Shining Path, perhaps hoping they’d go away. The new civilian government was also reluctant to give the military the authority to do anything that might re-energize or empower it.

Soon the Shining Path controlled Ayacucho, Apurimac and a number of towns throughout the Andes. The government woke up and sent in the army to these “Emergency Zones”. The army was extremely heavy handed, arresting hundreds of people and committing human rights abuses and killings that Ollanta Humala is avoiding taking responsibility for to this day.

It was then that the violence spread to the cities, Lima in particular. It began with attacks on power stations and industrial areas, dozens of civilians being killed in the process. Then bombs began to be detonated in densely populated areas, as well as burning down shopping malls full of people. The people of cities were gripped with fear of terrorist bombings, hundreds were being killed. The people of the provinces were fearful of the army looking for terrorists and the Shining Path killing those peasants that did not shelter them.

The Shining Path began eliminating non-maoist movements, killing politicians, members of trade unions, and other communists who were against murder. It also began killing priests who shielded those who they wanted dead.

By 1991 the Shining Path had carved themselves out a defendable territory, inside of which the Government had no access. The elected politicians in those areas long since murdered. Guzman now saw himself as an equal to Marx, and Guzmanism was revered more than Marxism and Moaism.

The Peruvian Government was still battling hard to deal with the terrorists. The army had swelled in size, and whole provinces were filled with armed peasants fighting the Shining Path who were murdering poor farmers and destroying communities in the hundreds. The Shining Path, under attack by all (including those who once supported them), for their barbaric practices and murders, publicly denounced the various conventions on human rights. Human rights were for the bourgeois anti-revolutionaries. The very idea of human rights was “counterrevolutionary” and “a weapon of revisionists and imperialists, principally Yankee imperialists”.

The Shining Path had lost all support among those in the areas it had conquered. The peasantry had been banned from performing any traditional practices, anyone who committed a minor crime was murdered, all forms of commerce were outlawed and all markets closed. People were poor, repressed and starving. Hundreds of thousands were fleeing the mountains with their families for refuge in the coastal and jungle regions, living a squalid existence. The Shining Path meanwhile had expanded so far it was struggling to battle for control.

The peasantry had formed patrol groups to defend themselves against the Shining Path, which sometimes lead to the slaughtering of the entire village or to victory and freedom. Fujimori saw that local uprisings were to be more effective than army intervention and gave these peasant militias legal status and fed them supplies.

In 1992, with the Shining Path collapsing, Guzman and some supporters were found hiding in an apartment in Lima, where he was arrested and is now serving a life-term in jail.

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The world over, where people don’t have the money to buy shoes, they do one of two things

• walk barefoot and not know any better
• make their own shoes from what they have

These ojotas, or rubber sandals, are constructed from used tyres that have been cut to shape, bent to shape or even woven from fine strips. Lasting many many years, even decades longer than other shoes and costing next to nothing, you will see them in markets in small towns across South America.

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The remnants of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), the maoist group who terrorised the Peruvian people in the 80’s and early 90’s, have demanded that the Peruvian Government initiate peace talks in which the group will be disbanded and it’s members given amnesty. If their demands for a peace deal are not met they have vowed to resume an armed conflicted with the Peruvian state. “If the government doesn’t address our demands for a political solution, then we will be forced to re-initiate armed actions in three months,” Comrade Artemio annouced to journalists in his San Martín jungle hide-out.

The group currently concentrates its efforts in helping cocaine drug-lords grow and smuggle drugs out of Peru, killing police and army patrols that try to intervene. President Alan Garcia, who has recently proposed the idea of a death penalty for terrorists, is yet to respond to the Shining Path’s demands.

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I was lucky enough to see Eva Ayllón perform once, on one of her quite rare visits home to Peru from the United States where she now lives.
Eva is a famous singer of Musica Criolla - a genre of blended African, Spanish and Andean influences. Marinera, a type of criolla music and dance, can be seen in the video below.

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You may remember I mentioned the advertising spree by numerous honourable and competent politicians. Well the time has finally arrived for the elections to take place. As a non-Peruvian this would have normally meant a boring wait for 5 family members to vote at 3 different polling stations, but I decided to make the best of it and take photos.

Ley Seca
In the days leading up to polling day, “Dry Law” comes into effect. Since last Friday it has been illegal for any bar, restaurant or shop to sell any form of alcohol. Despite this always being the case for each and every election period, it often takes Peruvians by surprise. Those who remember about it stock up with more alcohol than they would otherwise have drank that weekend and have more alcohol in the blood for election day than any normal day. Such is the Peruvian will to disobey each and every law made, you can see the extremes some shops have to go to keep people from trying to buy alcoholic drinks. The two photos in the Plaza Vea supermarket show drinks cabinets wrapped in thick plastic to stop people prying open the doors and a spirits aisle completely blocked off.

Polling Stations
People vote in the area in which they received their DNI identity card, not where the closest is to where they may now live. This causes the most unbelievable amounts of traffic on the roads on what would normally be a quiet Sunday. Considering Limeño traffic is insane as it is, this is quite a statement. Some unfortunate people have to travel to other parts of the country to vote in the correct polling station. In the weekend of the elections there are mass exoduses. Technically, there is no choice about whether to make the journey or not - voting in mandatory here. If you don’t vote, you pay a fine.

We dropped Annett, her mother and grandmother off at one school-turned-polling station while Annett’s father, sister and her daughter, accompanied by me, went off to another. Annett’s retired Air Force commander father had a word with the police and Airmen that guarded the gate at the school to let me in. Annett’s sister voted, and had purple dye on her finger to prove it, and off we went to collect the others and go to the third and final polling station for Annett’s father.
Read the rest of this entry »

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The largest archaeological site and pre-Columbian city in the Americas, Chan Chan, has been placed under an emergency declaration.

The ruins lay in La Libertad, in the north of Perú, and formed the central administrative center for the Chimú culture, which developed from the remnants of the collapsed Moche civilisation.
This spectacular site is constructed entirely of adobe, making excavated parts extremely fragile to wind and rain. It costs tremendous amounts of time and money to keep it in good order (95% of all entrance fees to towards restoration, INC take note).

However, only so much can be done to keep these fragile structures safe - and with the eminent onslaught of El Niño in December, bringing heavy rains and destruction, the Government have declared and emergency period of 120 days in which to formulate and implement a new and more effective plan.

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You may have read my previous criticisms (1, 2) of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura Cusco (INC), and if those were not enough I have yet more to add. I think this reflects poorly on the work they do, or rather don’t do.

Where oh where do we begin…

INC destroys Machu Picchu’s star attraction and unique artefact (CNN, BBC)
In September 2000 the greedy INC accepted a large payment to allow a company to enter the sacred ruins of Machu Picchu to film a beer commercial. The fact this might ruin the day of thousands of tourists who paid through their teeth to be there for this one and only day didn’t bother them, why would it, they had already taken their money.
The money paid for the permit to film didn’t completely blind the INC, with bare minimum respect to the ruins they ordered the company not to use any heavy equipment. But a few bribes most likely cleared the way, as when the day came to film, heavy cranes turned up at the gates and were let straight through. Filming began, but was soon brought to a halt when a crane collapsed smashing a part off of the Intihuatana. The American company, J. Walter Thompson who were filming for Cervesur/Backus cheerfully declared they they did not feel responsible, but where willing to offer help to repair it.
Neither did the INC feel responsible it seems, as they lied their way out of trouble. Gustavo Manrique, Cuzco’s INC director, assured people that only “light equipment” was mentioned on the permit and that the film crew had somehow sneaked the large crane into the sanctuary at dawn after the INC had explicitly told them not to. How they got through the heavily guarded and quite small gate at opening time was not admitted. ($).

Scientific Advice is flat-out wrong if it gets in the way of INC revenue
(Article A, Article B)
A team of Japanese geologists travelled to Machu Picchu to carry out tests on the peak. They were worried to find movement in the ground below. Not slight movement, but extreme movement. So much so that they say the famous ruins could slip off the side of the mountain within a decade or so.
The Inca walls of the city are perfectly tight fitting - so much so that you couldn’t even slide a sheet of paper between the bricks. This is not the case with some walls now. The Japanese found the earth to be moving so fast, 1cm each month, that large gaps have begun to appear in the once-perfect Inca walls.
The scientists needed to carry out further studies to give a closer estimate as to when any landslide might happen, but on hearing their findings the INC promptly kicked them off the site.
You can see from Article B, that in the coming weeks this created quite a storm. Dr Frederico Kauffmann demanded the INC set up an inquiry to look into the Japanese expert’s results. But the INC refused, branding geologists like Kauffmann and the Japanese “alarmist”. “As of now, we have no report that there is an imminent danger,” they decreed, concerned only with the short term. They then attempted to explain geology to the qualified geologist, “The geological process takes a very long time, and Dr Kauffmann knows this.”

A plan to build a cable car sparks anger among those with brains (BBC)
Looking for ever more ways to increase tourist numbers and revenue back in 1999, a policy that almost lead to the UN heritage body Unesco removing Machu Picchu from the world heritage sites list, a plan was born to build a cable car up to the ruins.
This insane idea was drawn up after the INC were forced to ban low-flying helicopter flights over the citadel (which of course you had to pay the INC to be able to do) due to public outrage.
Ignoring the potential damage to the environment, and the massive damage construction work on the mountain could do to the ruins, the INC pressed ahead with the plans. Thankfully they fell through due to protests and UN threats.

INC restorations damage the character of the ruins they are charged to protect
This image is what constitutes restoration to the INC, a few tacky stones to fill in the blanks. I think this is very disrespectful to the Inca’s who spent hundreds of years building what they built, striving for perfection. For the INC to come along a put such crappy stones in the holes, even trying to imitate the Inca blocks, is laughable. Why not let the ruins be ruins, instead of trying to rebuild everything - poorly?
I am not alone in thinking this. Our guide at Sacsayhuamán even apologised to us while walking along side these walls. Numerous other tourists pointed spots like this out. Its just silly.

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Telefonica, the Spanish telephony giant, has a near monopoly in Peru. It was some years ago that they were enlisted by the Peruvian Government to improve/recreate the country’s phone network and later to create high speed broadband internet capability throughout the country.

Telefonica invested in the infrastructure and were allowed to keep it, privately owned. Telefonica charges high fixed-rates of line rental to all phone owners, making most of the population unable to afford a phone in their homes. The Peruvian Government continues to try to force down these costs to stem the flow of millions of dollars of the the country - stupidly, perhaps because of poorly negotiated contracts, they do not try to introduce competition that would force Telefonica to stop providing a low-quality service at a high price.

Telefonica regularly over-charge and miss appointments amoung other problems. To pay your phone bill means going to a Telefonica office and queuing for an hour, or until they feel they have enough time to accept your money.

Which brings me to today’s story. While in Cuzco, Beto, Annett’s father, received a phone call from a Telefonica salesperson offering an upgrade in internet speed of 50% for S./35 per month more. Considering how much he pays anyway (US$35 - S./112) for a relatively poor service and poor speed that just about manage suit his needs, he politely turned down the high-priced offer.

On using the internet a few hours later he noticed it to be significantly slower than before.

A quick test with http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ shows speed has been cut by 75%. Beto is currently deciding what tone of voice to take with the Spanish company over their apparent black-mailing.

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For $86 each we flew home to Lima (entrance to Machu Picchu will soon cost more). Normally such extravagant expense is out of our budget, but faced with a 27 hour bus ride and potentially spending another night in the most expensive rip-off of a city in Peru, we opted for the quick one hour journey home. We had only booked the ticket the day before, but it was no problem, the plane was nowhere near full.
We arrived in Lima before even realising we took off, and we were met at the airport by Annett’s father, who drove us home.

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