The Huaca Centinela and the Chincha culture

The Huaca Centinela was one of the principle centres of the Chincha people, a group of farmers, fishers and merchants that lived in the fertile valley that is now named for them. The Chincha nation existed in the area between the years 900 and 1495 when they were folded into the Inca Empire.

June 28, 2007 | Archaeology, Ica, Pisco, Nazca Guide

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Haciendas of Ica

Haciendas are something characteristic of Peru’s countryside. Haciendas were not only the residence of the owner, but an administrative centres and deposits. Haciendas were always built in grand style, they were large but functional. They had chapels with gold-leaf alters, and galleries of arcs and patios that looked over the countryside.

June 27, 2007 | Ica, Pisco, Nazca Guide

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El Carmen

The town of El Carmen, in the Chincha region of the department of Ica, is in the center of an area that is home to the majority of Peru’s African descendents. It is here in Ica that the majority of slave-owning haciendas were located and when the slaves were finally freed they set up small towns like this one. Their descendents continued to work at the haciendas until their decline and some still work the land to this day, but now its for their own benefit not anyone else’s.

June 26, 2007 | Ica, Pisco, Nazca Guide

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Perros Abandonados

Lima, like many of South America’s cities, is one that you can’t help but notice has streets full of stray dogs. Some are born on the streets, but the vast majority are dumped by their owners after being bought as puppies, as if toys, from Lima’s many pet shops. Some are lucky and end up being taken in by people who want their allotments of land guarded, some are less lucky and end up starving, being beaten to death by passers-by or poisoned.

June 25, 2007 | Opinion

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Earliest Gun Shot Victim in the New World

Puruchuco, the site in Ate I visited not so long ago, has turned up yet more spectacular finds. In the Inca cemetery not far from the ruins in which 2500 mummies have been excavated, archaeologists uncovered what appeared to be a skeleton with a Spanish musket ball hole in the back of its skull. The traces of iron in the skull, from which Spanish muskets balls were made, seems to confirm this.

Dating of artefacts buried alongside the bodies allowed them to date the burials to an extraordinary time – about one year after the Spanish had founded the city of Lima.

June 22, 2007 | Archaeology, Culture & History, News

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Lima Cuisine: You Don’t Know What You’re Missing

In recent years, Jorge Chavez International Airporthas been so spectacularly rejuvenated that it inadvertently reinforces an old cliche about the city it serves: Lima — the City of Kings, the capital of Peru, home to 9 million people — is merely a way station for travelers en route to Cuzco, Machu Picchu, Iquitos, Lake Titicaca and Peru’s other celebrated attractions.

June 21, 2007 | Peruvian Food

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Miners strike in Lima

Miners from the Lima province of Huarochiri blocked the Panamerican Highway for the second day running today. Hundreds of Casapalca workers continued their protests against the Government who are not meeting their demands of forcing the mine operators to improve salaries and reinstate 300 workers made redundant.

June 15, 2007 | News

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Telmex destroys 2000 year old burial ground

Mexican telephone giant Telmex has been accused of destroying part of a 2000 year old necropolis belonging to the Paracas pre-Inca civilisation. According to Alfredo Gonzalez, Ica regional director of the INC, the telephone company cut straight through the protected heritage site in order to lay new fiber optic cable.

June 15, 2007 | News

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Colan’s wildlife

I wouldn’t have thought there would exist such a large natural eco-system in a part of the coast that has effectively been turned into a beach resort, albeit in Colan’s case a very traditional one. It turns out that the most fascinating thing in Colán is the nature. The beach was swarming with sand crabs, the skies with various types of gulls, the sand by the water with muymuyes and various tiny shellfish, the rocks with yet another species of crab, and there were some vultures too.

June 12, 2007 | Nature, Piura Guide

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Colán

Colán is a beach town popular for its picturesque seafront lined with beach houses on stilts. It has a burning sun and refreshing waters year round and is said to have the best sunsets on the Peruvian coast.

June 12, 2007 | Piura Guide

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Catacaos

Located south of Piura, the town of Catacaos is a significant tourist attraction. It can be reached from Piura by taking a colectivo. These can be found by walking the streets until someone shouts “Ca’acauuuus” at you. A private taxi would cost about 7-8 soles.

June 11, 2007 | Piura Guide

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Los Tallanes and the city of Narihualá

The Tallán nation was perhaps the first civilisation in the northern Peruvian region of Piura and controlled the area of the Piura and Chira rivers, and the coast. Their society was matriarchal, where the men would do the work and the women would make the decisions. They had their own gods and their own distinct language and customs. They had an economy based on fishing, farming and artisan making and monumental temples of adobe and a system of aqueducts to create fertile farm land.

June 10, 2007 | Archaeology, Piura Guide

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