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Recent Posts
- Tales from Lima, Stories from Peru
- 01 – 256 Shades of Grey – Contents
- I Arrive on Christmas Eve
- 001. The Road to 256 Shades
- 1aa – To begin at the beginning
- 1a – First Contact
- 4. Rock Art in Peru
- 5. Inca domination
- 6. Metalworking and war
- 7. A trip to the Zoo
- 8. The Zoo to Miraflores
- 9. Pilgrimage to Pachacamac
- 10. The Spring of Eternal Youth
- 11. Metalworking in Mala
- Short Stories Collection
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First contact
An hour up the valley from where the bus had dropped me, at La Capilla, walking up the gravel track, I approach a man standing at the roadside outside a small farm building. “You were here before” he tells me. … Continue reading
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04 – 256 Shades of Grey
Checta is one of the largest rock art sites in Peru, on a gentle hillside overlooking the valley of the river Chillon, a few hours from Lima. There is a small roadside sign, and you follow a steep rocky footpath … Continue reading
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05 – Rock Art in Peru
The rock art of South America extends over a vast geographical area and across a long period of time. The earliest paintings known were found in the North East of Brazil. Here in the cave of the Toca de Boquairoa … Continue reading
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07 – Llama trails past La Capilla
Chupe de camarones is a thick soup of river prawns with maize, poached egg, carrot, chard and celery, broad beans and soft cheese. Pink crustaceans as thick as your index finger are boiled whole in the pot, their claws poke … Continue reading
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09 – Tracks across the Atacama
In the northern-most area of Chile, stretching six hundred miles down the coast of South America and expanding into Bolivia, Peru and Argentina, lies the Atacama Desert. This barren landscape consists of coastal sand and stone, and low hills rising … Continue reading
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10 – How many llamas make a train?
If we are to attempt to understand the depiction of llamas or camelids on the Mala stones, we have to know more about how llamas and humans work together, or worked together. Fortunately, whilst many of the scenes on the … Continue reading
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20 The Hill of Gold
Seventy kilometres south of the Rio Mala lies the valley of Cañete. The river, one of the largest on the central coast, comes from Ticllacocha, a lake 220 kilometres inland in the land of the Yauyos, at 4600m metres above … Continue reading
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21 The sword and the cross
At the first full moon after the autumn equinox I returned to Lunahuana. The water was still too high to cross the Rio Mala, but in this neighbouring valley, I could take another look at the giant boulder in the … Continue reading
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22 The evolution of whales
“Museum of Palaeontology and Archaeology” said the card, written in green ink and taped to the lamp post. The arrows pointed to the left and I followed them, past the quad bikes and canoes, the carcases of pork, and round … Continue reading
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23 – Return to the Hill of Gold
Archaeologist Corey Hoover had invited me to visit a dig at Cerro D`Oro, close to Cañete, sixty kilometres south of Mala. I walk up a track as it contours above a farmstead where a woman is hanging washing beneath a … Continue reading
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24 – Where men become Gods
In January, I took a business trip to Mexico. On the second afternoon I escaped from the Commercial Gifts and Accessories Show to visit Mexico City’s Museum of Anthropology. Set in a woodland park with a name in Nauhatl, one of the original … Continue reading
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26 Huancor and Chincha
The buses to Huancor went from a road by the side of the market “a la izquierda a la esquinita”, on the left by the corner, and like many such descriptions it proved both maddeningly inprecise and entirely accurate. I … Continue reading
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27 Fish in the air
There is a smell of fish and salt in the air in Chincha. It is only 5 km from the sea. Huancor, the site with the stone carvings, is 33 km from the coast in a direct line, just two … Continue reading
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28 – The Huarochiri Manuscript
“These people, the ones who lived in that era, used to spend their lives warring on each other and conqering each other. For their leaders, they recognized only the strong and the rich. We speak of them as the Purum … Continue reading
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35 Keeping it in the family
El Comercio is Peru’s biggest daily. The group owns 80% of Peru media. Its president is Jose Antonio Garcia Miro Miro Quesada, in a town where the names of your parents matter. Jose Antonio has a father from the Garcia … Continue reading
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36 – Chasing phones in Huacho
On the corner of the market, two cars stood with their drivers by the side shouting “Vergueta”. I jumped in. Minutes later a cheerful round girl squeezed in beside me with a box of tinned condensed milk, a sack of … Continue reading
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38 – Life lessons for Lima
Each February in Puno, high in the Peruvian Andes, 100,000 dancers, men and women, celebrate the Festival of the Virgen of Candelaria. The people come from the town itself and from communities all around. And in Lima too they gather … Continue reading
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42 – A trip to the zoo
An understanding of the pre-colonial history of Lima and the surrounding valleys starts with a trip to the zoo in the San Miguel district of Lima. Until the 1940s this was rural farmland on the outskirts of Lima. But rising … Continue reading
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43 – from the zoo to Miraflores
We can see a thousand years of history in a walk through modern day Lima. The present day zoo houses not only exotic animals but constructions spanning 1500 years. From the truncated pyramids of the Lima people and the adobe … Continue reading
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53 – Antonio de Calancha and Rapprochement or Repression
“What is now the city of Lima never had a great population, but was inhabited by the indians who looked after the temples, which we now understand to have been very impressive, each with their own buildings, and the greatest … Continue reading
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