Category Archives: Uncategorized

For all that it is late December, the sun is beating down and the streets are hot. I have flown in on a Christmas eve, from a European winter. Flying down the Andes from Bogota I look out on grey-red … Continue reading →

  In March 1990 two bodies were found at a rock shelter over the left margin of Matanza river, 15 km from Cusi-Cusi, a small village in Santa Catalina department of north west Argentina. The bodies had been buried with blankets … Continue reading →

In the high clear skies of the Andes, people see a great stream of brightness crossing the heavens. Within this are areas of darkness which appear to have the form of earthly creatures, llamas, toads, serpents and foxes. There is … Continue reading →

It has been eighteen months since I left Peru with Mayra and Amy. We still have not taken a ride on a red London bus, because things happened. I am all for making plans. I spent years following a vague … Continue reading →

After three months in Lima, looking for a reason to get out of the noisy grey city, I read on a blog that “Calango houses an enormous stone with magico-religious symbols … that performs miracles for women that wish to … Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

  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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

It is clear from Antonio de la Calancha’s account that there are, or were, three marked stones close to Calango. The community had a consistent story of how the marks had been made by a mythical Christian preacher “…a tall … Continue reading →

After searching for, but failing to find, the stone marked with St Thomas’ sleeping body described by the seventeenth century sources, I had resolved to return the next day and seek a guide who could get me access across the … Continue reading →

When he woke that morning he looked at his left foot, sticking out from under the quilt. Was that soreness, or just stiffness? It looked the same. The two feet, side by side, they looked identical. He found himself walking … Continue reading →