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.
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.
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.
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