January 2008

Esto es Brena - Lima 11 January

The populous and traditional neighbourhood of Brena is proud to host in one of its streets, a small corner of criollismo, the Brena Cultural Centre, where on Friday nights people gather united by their love of the Peruvian folk song. Singers, guitarists, cajoneros and folkloristas share their joys, their sorrows and other experiences throughout life, in a Peruvian cultural event that never dies. The Centre has been a meeting place for fans of Criollo music since 1974. Friends spend time singing, dancing and having a good time to the beat of the sound of the guitar and cajon. We spent a wonderful evening at the Centre listening and dancing to the music, witnessing a musical tradition that has remained effectively unchanged for about 50 years.
Links for the Centre YouTube - PERU - "Vuelve Pronto" - Augusto Polo Campos YouTube - Victor Reyes y Alberto Urquizo - Idolatrí

Assessment of CIP's Genebank
The end-point of David's project in Peru was the assessment of his work in introducing a quality system to the world potato and sweetpotato genebank. The assessment was carried out by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service. The visit took place in the week of the 14 January with two assessors inspecting CIP's systems of working. The visit went very well and the assessment team were extremely positive about work of the genebank.

The Central Sierra 18-20 January
One of the assessors, Dr Colin Jeffries, has been working with potato diseases for about 30 years and has for a long time wanted to visit CIP Lima, as well as the field station in Huancayo. After the assessment visit, some of the staff from CIP took Colin and David to Huancayo for some potato tourism.
Getting to Huancayo Travelling from Lima to the Central Highlands is made by the Carreterra Central road. The road journey from Lima to Huancayo is spectacular and full of interest giving glimpses of llamas and Peru's indigenous Indian mountain culture. It takes about four to five hours to get to the grim mining town of La Oroya over the high pass of Ticlio ( 4800m). The road is steep, windy and very dangerous due to the number of lorries using it. At La Oroya, we turned south to Huancayo travelling for a further two hours, through the astonishing Jauja Valley, which has beautiful scenery, striped by fabulous coloured furls of mountain.
Huancayo A large commercial city, Hauncayo lies at over 3000m above sea level. It is an important market centre thriving on agricultural produce and dealing in vast quantities of food ready to be shipped to Lima. The field station is on the outskirts of the town and is a very pleasant and peaceful place to stay. Time was spent at the station as well as climbing through the different agricultural zones from the fertile valley floor through to the steeper hillsides and then finally to the flatter alto-plana where the llamas and alpacas graze. Carlos and Giovanna from CIP took great delight in showing Colin the different ways of potato production in the area and pointing out the variety of diseases that afflict the humble spud. A visit was made to the small village of Concepcion and the Convento de Santa Rosa de Ocopa. The monastery was founded in 1724 and was the centre of the Franciscan mission into the Amazon until the War of Independence in 1819 after which the mission villages in the jungle disintegrated and most of the natives returned to the forest. The library contains the earliest descriptions of the lives of the native Indians who lived in the jungle.

Central Lima - 27 January 2008
David and Cathy have got to know the suburbs such as Miraflores and Baranco very well but we hadn't ventured much into the centre of Lima. Our friend Rosa took us on a trip to the centre to sample down-town life. The main axis of the centre of the City is formed by the grand squares of the Plaza San Martin and Plaza Major ( also called the Plaza de Armas), Here the roads are narrow and busy and the buildings are mostly of the colonial or Republican era.
The heart of the old town in around the Plaza Major. The square includes a number of impressive buildings including the Palacio de Gobiero and the Cathedral. Nearby the Plaza stands one of Limas most attractive churches - San Francisco. It is a large seventeen century building with an impressive stone facade and towers. The church ceilings and columns are decorated with Moorish style plaster relief. A tour of the building showed us the amazing decaying library as well as paintings by Rubens and Van Dyck. Underneath the church lies the crypt containing the skulls and bones of over 70000 people.