Out and About in Peru

Fish murals fighting gang warfare

The Plaza del Matrix is a tidy little paved square with benches in front of the cathedral church in wedding  cake pink and white. The square is flanked by colonial buildings with freshly painted yellow plaster walls, colonnades and upper balconies. Behind is a cluster of coimg_3608ncrete cylinders 11 stories high, and beyond that, stacked containers and loading cranes on the docks. Across the Plaza is a mural showing a brown man and a pink
man, with arms round each other’s shoulders. They could be holding each other up, or pulling each other down. Welcome to Callao, Lima’s historic port.
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Clock ticking

for lead fuelled crime wave

Crime levels in Lima will start to fall in six to eighteen months – whoever wins next the upcoming elections.

img_4718Between end June 2016 and end June 2017, the wave of shootings, street attacks, house robbery and murder will decline. Whether or not the new president sends armed soldiers to patrol the streets.

It will happen because 20 years ago, lead poisoning on the streets of Lima started to reduce. It will follow a pattern seen all over the world, but apparent a little later in Peru. So buy cheap property in Callao today.

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Cusco heritage protest snares tourists

20,000 people marched through the streets of Cusco last week to protest a new law enabling private enterprises to take over the management of archaeological sites in Peru. Thousands of tourists were left stranded as PeruRail closed the railway to Macchu Picchu “as a security measure”.

Tourists arriving in Cusco by bus had to walk from blockades in the suburbs. “We are not asking for the law to be modified, we want it repealed” said General Secretary of the Cusco Workers Federation Wilfredo Alvarez.

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