Vist to Huaral and Chancay

Over the weekend we went to Huaral and the neighbouring town, Chancay, to see Olga's godmother. She is 83 and lives with her son, Luis. Luis is a lawyer. His sister lives nearby and she and her husband have a company called Agrobiotico. Anything "biotico" in Peru is associated with "natural". So his business is to attack any crop pests using non-chemical, natural techniques. The business seems to be growing. They now have 3 offices in agricultural areas of Peru.

Soon after we arrived we went out to lunch. Hector,  Olga'sister's husband, wanted to eat cuy. Cuy is guinea pig. It is a real treat for Peruvians.

Olga assures us that this is indeed a guinea pig and not a rat. She says she knows this because "rats have much smaller heads". I am afraid to ask how she knows this!! In any event, this animal certainly has a large head compared to the est of its body.

This is picture of Olga's godmother and her son, Luis. Luis lost his hands when he picked up a live wire as a young child. In his home there is a picture of himself on a bicycle, holding onto the handlebars with both hands. Very poignant. Luis drives a car. His compromise is that he drives an automatic and not a standard.

He manages a smartphone with ease. Ester brought him a stylus so it would be easier to type on his phone. Currently he uses the end of his arm to tap the screen so he doesn't send many text mesages from his phone.

  We stayed overnight at a local hostal. Clean, hot water and cable tv for $22. But no breakfast so we went to a chicheronia. Chicheron is deep fried pieces of prok. Pork belly is best. You are given some pork, fried sweet potato and an onion salsa and then make your own sandwich.

The restaurant did all its cooking right as you come into the restaurant. You can see this in the background. The best way to advertise your food is to let people see you cooking it. This picture is of Olga, her sister, Ester, and her husband, Hector.

Later on Sunday we drove to a nearby coastal town called Chancay. It is a nice beach town but getting to the beach involves a bit of a climb; first down and then back up.

It is a long way down so we just stayed up top and looked on. You don't need a net to play beach volleyball it seems.

We went to a bar that looks out on the beach and they played two songs about different women called Olga. Everyone likes to dance.

This is Olga dancing with her godmother's younger sister and in the background, her godmother dancing with her son.



La madrina with her grandson.

Ester and Hector.

Go to the first beach picture and along the top of the precipice you will see a large awning and someone standing under it. his was our final destination. Peru is known for its food and there are many food shows in tv including a few that go out into the country looking for the next great restaurant. Under that awning is a family restaurant with no sign that was showcased by one of these programs. The owner is a fisherman who then comes home and cooks for his guests.

The "road" to the restaurant is not much of a road. There is no sign. This makes this restaurant what Peruvians call a huarique - an informal restaurant.

The awning I talked about early is actually covering public land which will one day become a promenade.

Here is a better shot of the beach below.

The meal was delicious. We had a fish stew, ceviche, arroz con mariscos and lots of beer. The foto is one of six servings of the stew.

We were invited back into the kitchento see the food prepared.

Dig in.

Tha man in the blue hat - El Gringo -  is the owner. He also caught all of the fish personally. This was a great afternoon.

In Lima

We had Aiko and Patrick with us for a couple of days before they headed for Machu Picchu. We took Andre to a bunch of kids rides.

This post is a collection of odds and ends. We spent New Years Eve in Lima at a friend's house. The dinner, eaten after midnight, was the same as our Christmas meal - turkey and an entire pig.
  

 People in Peru don't normally have large ovens. Even if they do, they often take their turkeys and other large cuts of meat to a bakery where bread is baked daily and have the things like turkey and the pig below cooked there.

This particular pig, as it cooked, secreted juices from its eyeballs. This liquid congealed on its cheeks so from where I was sitting, just where I am taking this picture, the pig had tears running down its cheeks. It took away whatever appetite I had for any of its meat.

We also went to a nice restaurant while in Lima. It is called La Rosa Nautica. It is at the end of the peer in the photo below.

 

You approach the restaurant along the boardwalk. It is a beautiful setting.

Inside  it is obviously a place where the wealthy feel comfortable.

We did our best as well. This was our big meal together. It felt like a nice family dinner.

Near our apartment is a water park. It consists of a number of fountains and ponds, many of them welcome people. Aiden got caught in one when the water was turned on. he was not happy, I am told.

This piece of sculpture is made with water.

Andres  with his mother.

I stayed dry.

There was a nice park near the apartment we rented in Lima. This is where Patrick and Aiko took the kids to get them outside.

After the kids left we have stayed in Lima until this weekend. Olga's sister arrived a week ago and we went a couple of hours outside of Lima to visit Olga and Ester's godmother. That is for another post.

Hacienda San Jose, Chincha

Many years ago Olga and I visited this hacienda just after a big earthquake. It wasn't open to the public, it wasn't even a hotel yet, but the man on guard gave us a little tour and we promised ourselves to come back some day.

We needed a place to go to relax after 9 days in Lima so we took a 3 hour bus ride to Chincha, south of Lima and then another 10 miles out into the country by taxi. Hacienda San Jose is now a really nice boutique hotel with about 30 rooms. I have a few pictures of the hotel but by googling "hacienda san jose chincha images" you'll see much better shots of the hotel.


They are used to having families come by so they set up their hammocks in a circle.

We brought back from Brasil over 30 years ago, a couple of hammocks like these.

This mahogany tree is over 400 years old. That makes it as old as the hacienda itself. The original hacienda was 200,000 acres - the entire Chincha Valley.  Crops were sugar and cotton. Slaves were Africans. Indigenous people didn't make good slaves. They could run away and know where to hide. The Africans were at a loss if they tried to escape so easier to recapture. The Spaniards tried to convert the indigenous people to Christianity but it was forbidden to "bring the Word" to the Africans.

There are catacombs beneath the hacienda and tunnels leading miles into the country-side to other locations. The first owners of the hacienda were Jesuits and they were into trafficking in people and contraband. The tunnels were there to keep all thisout of the site of the military rulers. There were various degrees of "punishment" meted out to slaves - lashes, placed in a cell in the catacombs in total darkness for several days, and being put in irons.

This device was used with some cruelty. After receiving lashes you threaded both wrists and one ankle through the cuffs and over the top of the bar. You were left standing on one foot and if you did not remain so your wrists or ankle would be broken by the weight of your body as you collapsed to the floor. They did not put too many people together so they couldn't hold each other up. Slaves were not expected to survive this paricular punishment.

As you might expect, Chincha has many residents who are desendants of slaves. The Criole and Negroide musical traditions of Peru come from here. The cajon is from here.

Soon after we arrived we ate.

This is one side of a large courtyard with a nice tree in the middle.

It was great for the kids. Andre and Aiden found a new friend.

Everyone just relaxed.

I'm not sure where Patrick was for this picture.

Josh has had a bad stomach for some days so he had dieta de pollo.  This is a soup where all the chicken fat removed.

After dinner, once the sun went down, we headed for the pool. Everyone was happy except Aiden. As it turns out his bum was sore and the water of the pool didn't help. He got better when we kept him out of the pool.

The hacienda is really idyllic. The first view is from outside the door of our suite. You can't see it well in this picture but there is a 17th century pool table in the distance. It is a large table with "pockets" every couple of feet all the way around the table. The table top is wooden and the balls were leather.

The parking lot. Love those bougainvillea.

Aiko and her family as well as Ali and Josh were here.

The "drinks" area, looking out towards the pool.

This is a shot of the pool area from the hacienda.

There were a couple of real winners in conming to the hacienda. The kids had a great place to play while we ate. We were at the hacienda between Christmas and New Years and for most of the time we had it to oursleves.

Another winner was Andres. Although I don't have a picture of this, his "bedroom" in the Lima apartment was the room normally set aside for the servant to sleep. It only had a couple of feet of floor space around two sides of the bed. Here Andres had a room to himself, easily 15' by 15', and the shower stall was, I kid you not, over twice the size of his bedroom in the Lima apartment. When taking a shower you stood in the middle of the stall and the hot/cold water controls  were well out of reach.

This is an original piece of furniture.

Not much to do except hang out all day.

Hacienda San Jose has its own chapel. It makes the hacienda a nice place for small private weddings. It only has 30 rooms.

The first photo is a statue o San Martin de Porras. Peru's first saint and an ex-slave. There is a school in Poughkeepsie named after him.

This is the alter of the chapel.  If you look carefully you will notice that the figures at the very top are horizontal and not vertical. Someone made a mistake and the intended alter wouldn't fit under the roof of the chapel.

Peru is famous for a drink called pisco sour. Pisco is distilled from wine like cognac or brandy. Locally an even more popular cocktail is chilcano.  Chilcano is made with pisco, ginger ale, simple syrup and bitters, nothing surprising. However, it is not plain pisco but macerated pisco. I'm sure bars in the US could become famous if only the health dept people would let them. So in making chilcano you pick your flavour of pisco - raw ginger, raisins, chili peppers (aji amarillo), eucalyptus leaves, coca leaves, cinnamon bark, sugar cane, lemon grass, hierba buena (a kind of mint).

Of course, you have to try them all.


I've said the kids had lots of facilities. Their playground was all home-made but it had horses and everything.

Aiko and Patrick posing in the garden.

It gives you a certain Mohonk-like feeling to walk through the hacienda.

Back to Lima and reality.

The following pictuce is taken on the afternoon of December 31. In Lima  people head for the beach for New Years Eve if they can.