I Today´s poem, from Los heraldos negros, is a very good description of the Santiago de Chuco area. It is especially interesting now that we know May is the best time to be there – just after the rains end, when everything is in flower. If you do not read Spanish, skip to the next … More Mayo
Is there really something sinister about Santiago de Chuco, or am I merely too bourgeois to easily handle so many close encounters with the fourth world as I have been having lately? I could write a long narration about this expedition. Details would include: * riding slowly through Quiruvilca, where Vallejo worked for a while … More Ciliado arrecife
I am leaving in the morning, to the Vallejo birthplace and the nearby thermal baths at Cachicadán. I was about to say I was sure there would be Internet access, but not sure the electricity would be reliable enough to permit me to see the Internet. Then I erased the sentence because I realized that … More Junco y capulí
I have at last read The Grass is Singing which is brilliant and impactante, epoch making for many reasons. Of all books mentioned in this post, this is the one most worth discussing. I will therefore discuss it least. I have also been reading The Poisonwood Bible, which is a good book although Kingsolver is … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: Doris Lessing
Many Peruvian internet cafés are covert porn theatres, and others are de facto ones, because they are primarily used that way. You can tell some of the seriously pornographically oriented ones because they have curtains around each computer. I avoid such places, and here in beautiful Huamachuco, where I am (I walked to Markawamachuko today!) I … More Mais regardez
I My exact location is Trujillo, La Libertad. I am staying outside the historical centre in a hotel designed for businessmen on small budgets. This strategic choice is based on a hotel choosing technique I developed for Mexico. You have to put up with a boring modern building in a boring modern district, but on … More Your Tour Guide Re-Speaks
Now some long distance buses in Peru play videos. The choice of videos, however, is really shocking, they are so violent. I am wondering whether this is just my luck or whether it is a generalized phenomenon. Yesterday, while driving through for hours through some of the most depressing industrial slums I have ever seen, … More On Movies on Buses
Everyone knows not to be in Lima in winter, because of the weather. I would add to this that if you are traveling (as opposed to renting your own apartment), not to be in Miraflores in the month of July because it is inundated with “backpackers” and other people you left Europe and the United … More Your Travel Guide Speaks
If you have spent any time at all in Lima in winter – and I suspect the poverty of the early 20th century, although different from the current poverty, was about the same – you see why Vallejo was able to write such depressed poems about this city. The pollution, the traffic, the general deterioration, … More Esta tarde en Lima llueve
My original blogging plans for this Bastille day have been superseded by the need to help broadcast the call to HELP SAVE ZIMBABWE and to ask you, if it is possible for you, to DONATE to this important cause. I was to have blogged today for Derrick Ashong’s band SOULFEGE, a much better cause than … More De L’Afrique et des Amériques
coldhearted scientist وداد 