Cebiche de Pato and 52 Weeks in Peru.

This past week we noted the anniversary of our arrival to "Peru" at the MTC in Provo. Our grandson CP, three years old at the time, knew we were leaving home for our mission to Peru.  As we exited the freeway, his dad Kyle driving, he asked, "Are we in Peru yet?" Without a doubt the most difficult part of being a missionary this past year is missing our grandkids. They are growing, learning, and developing so quickly and we are so far away. The best I can do is order Thomas the Tank Engine components from Amazon and send them to Indiana or other things to Salt Lake and Centerville. We miss our friends in Utah, California, the NCAC of 2011, and our house of course, tucked away in the redwood forest.

CP and his grandparents at the Provo MTC, September 2010

When we can we like to visit a number of Peru's fascinating archaeological sites.
This photo is from the Cechin Bajo site near Casma on one of our trips where we
first experienced cebiche de pato with our friend C.

In honor of our one year anniversary we enjoyed several events. First of all, our friend C. came over last Monday and cooked us cebiche de pollo. He originally intended to prepare cebiche de pato, but C. was unsure about the age of any ducks in the market, therefore he substituted chicken. Pato is duck in Spanish. Unlike traditional cebiche with fish, the pato or pollo dishes are cooked thoroughly. The common denominator being the use of lemon in the marinade.

Preparing the red onions for the cebiche marinade

The washed papas ready for cooking. Once cooked some of the skin or eyes 

were removed. 

In addition to the pollo, he prepared yucca and a new variety of papa or potatoes that we had not tried before. It is similar to huayro papas, but a little different. They are sold in La Parada and we agreed we will go back there again with him to shop for several more varieties of potatoes.

Mixing the marinade in with the pollo. 

After several hours of preparation and cooking the plates are being loaded.

Cebiche de Pollo, papas, and yucca. It was very very good as C. is a great cook.

Next, we enjoyed a very surprising football game between the Utes and Cougars. Who would have thought the game would be so completely lopsided and dominated by Utah? It was in their house too.  A local BYU diehard even gave me six points on the game so we are planning an evening out at our favorite restaurant. We'll likely go to El Hornero as their steaks are very good. Somehow eating "dead meat" is appropriate to honor Coach Bronco and his team's failure to execute.

QB Jake Heaps coughing up one of numerous fumbles against Utah last week.

This weekend we are flying to Trujillo where the new Temple groundbreaking occurred last week. The Lima Temple is closed for the Women's Conference.  We would like to visit the construction site, learn if bicycles can be ridden in that part of Peru, and tour several archaeological sites close by.

Artist's drawing of the new Trujillo Temple. Likely, it will be 9700 square feet

with two endowment rooms making it a little larger the Lima Temple

The largest pre-Colombian city in the Americas is close to Trujillo. It is known as Chan Chan and was built by a pre-Inca people known as the Chimor. Estimates range upwards of 30,000 inhabitants. Marine motifs and engravings of reed boats suggest a seafaring ability.  The Chimor were the descendents of an earlier seafaring culture known as the Moche.  Somewhere among the time period of these two cultures the spread of the Peruvian sweet potato or camote to Polynesia occurred.

The Chimor prospered in their city of Chan Chan for nearly 600 years prior

to the arrival of conquering Incan arnies.

We will have photos and another post from our visit to Chan Chan, Trujillo, and several nearby sites.  We have recommendations for a couple restaurants in the area and the food, according to most travel guides and our Peruvian friends, is better than what we find in Lima, except for our friend C. and Brother and Sister Ramos. The weather is more agreeable too. Among Peruvians Trujillo is recognized as having a perpetual spring or 'primavera eterna' in Spanish.

***Update/Flash:  While we were in Trujillo we received an email from Alice with the news that CP, our four year old grandson, had scored his first goal as a soccer player.  He has grown a lot in a year and has benefited from older brothers teaching him his sweet soccer skills. A parent of a player on the other team observed, "That little red headed boy is the best player on their team."  We will be on the sidelines for 5 year old soccer next season.

CP in the "zone" racing with the ball toward the goal.

Potato Tales from Peru, with Love...

This week has been very enjoyable for us as we were able to meet and work with the new missionaries  assigned to the Lima Temple from the USA.  We shared a little time in training and then had a pleasant lunch and conversation on Sunday. RA and I contributed a dish served cold or at room temperature called 'papas a la huancaina.' Literally it means 'potatoes from Huancayo,' which is a city and district in Peru to the east of Lima in the central highlands.  The original inhabitants, or Huancas as they were known, aside from developing this wonderful recipe for cheesy potatoes supported the Spanish Conquistadores against the Inca. They assumed the Europeans would be better overlords than the Inca.  In hindsight, three hundred years of slavery, and working the Spanish silver mines proved that decision to have been uninformed.

Papas a la Huancaina, courtesy of Wiki.  We did not take any

photos. 

The potato or papas section in our local grocery store, increíble 

We have found this dish is not often served in Peruvian restaurants as it is easily made at home.  I have included the link to the recipe we used.  The ingredients would not be the same stateside as in Peru but some improvising and substituting is possible.

Huayro potatoes are maybe mi favorita. They have purple skins and streaks
within making them popular with local chip manufacturers. Too good to
waste in chips in my opinion.

Since coming to Peru we have experienced several varieties of potatoes or 'papas' as they are known in the Quechua language. We are coming to appreciate the subtleties of their flavor and texture. Potatoes will never ever be the same again for us as they are so superior to anything from Idaho or east of the Cascades in Washington or Oregon.

Cuy with Can Chan Papas. This type absorbs the flavor of meat or

stews in which they are cooked, excellent.  This dish was prepared by

our friends the Ramos. 

The Andean camote or sweet potato from which Polynesian potatoes are
genetically linked.

Potatoes, like other things we enjoy, originated in the Andean region of South America including, beans, peppers, ground cherries, tomatoes, cotton, several varieties of corn, and peanuts. The earliest potatoes according to several accounts were first cultivated 7 to 10,000 years ago. The first Peruanos or human inhabitants arrived here some 12,000 years ago. One of their first habitations is known as Guitarrero Cave. A human mandible was found there along with remnants of many meals of corn, beans, and peppers. A fire stick, as seen on reruns of TV's Survivorman, was also recovered from the site. I was never successful making fires with one of these as a Boy Scout.

Guitarrero Cave not far from Casma.  These people were likely the ancestors 

of the Chavin long before the Inca but possessed sweet metal working and 

soldering skills. 

The fire stick recovered from Guiterrero Cave

Of potatoes, there are more than 3500 varieties in Peru. Genetically, the Polynesian sweet potato's home was in the Andean altiplano to the south of Peru near Lake Titicacca. The oldest sweet potato discovered, so far in Peru, was found in another cave called the Tres Ventanillas and carbon dated 10,000 years ago in the Chilca Canyon of Huancayo Region.  I wonder how long the Huancas have been cooking papas and with their cheesy pepper potato sauce.  So far, I have not found any information on radio carbon dated Huancaina sauce.

One theory for the spread of the Andean sweet potato discounts the seafaring ability of either early Peruvians or Polynesians and suggests the non European transmission of the sweet potato from Peru to Hawaii and the other islands of the Pacific was accomplished by seeds floating on the surf or carried aloft in the guts of the plover birds.  The problem with this theory of diffusion is  the Peruvian and Polynesian sweet potato must be started from cuttings from a vine.

Sweet Potato vines of Polynesia and Peru

The Nazca culture of early Peru have been suggested as the sailors responsible for these trans Pacific crossings. These are the people who created the giant and strange geoglyphs or Nazca Lines of Southern Peru. They flourished from approximately 300 BCE to 800 CE. A number of marine animals have been caricatured in their pottery and art, giving rise to the belief they were familiar with the sea and were possibly a seagoing people.  Another mysterious geoglyph is above the entrance to Pisco Bay in Paracas. It can be seen about 12 miles out to sea. No one presently knows why it was constructed or what it symblizes. Theories range from it being a symbol for the Andean God Viracocha to a Masonic symbol.  Carbon dating of pottery shards found near it place it during the era of the Paracas Culture of 200 BCE, predating that of the Nazca.

The Candelabra as it is called, taken from the boat on our way to the

Ballestas Islands during our August vacation.

Radio Carbon Dating and DNA studies on residues from the Cook Islands and other island locations disclose the Andean sweet potato arrived there between 1000 and 1100 CE and in Hawaii by 1290-1430 CE. Furthermore, Quechua and Maori I have been told by several of my educated Peruvian friends, share a few language cognates. This information may have come from work in the 1920's by an Italian/Argentine linguist. For example, the word for 'water' in Cusco Quechua is 'unu' while in Maori and Easter Island "unu" is to drink water. A fighting platform in Maori is called a 'puuhara' while in Quechua a 'pukhara' is a fortress.

The Candelabra with better shadowing taken from the Web

Very early on in the expansion of the Inca Empire a technique was developed to freeze dry several varieties of potatoes and fully preserve their nutritional value for extended periods of time.  The process took all of five days from start to finish. This was accomplished without vacuum chambers and liquid nitrogen cryogenic temperatures. This type of dried potatoes is called 'chuño' or 'papas secas.' We are wanting to try them too at some point. The potatoes are laid out at night in the subzero temperatures of the Andes and then exposed to direct sunlight during the day.  They were also flattened several times in the process by the feet of the indigenous Quechua. Once freeze dried they could be stored indefinitely. Carried on the backs of Inca warriors they provided the energy and fueled the expansion of the greatest empire in pre-Colombian Americas.

An Inca mummy in the fetal position.  This type 

of preservation was reserved for the the nobles 

and ruling elites. It was accomplished in the same

manner of freeze drying potatoes. Internal organs 

were first removed and then the drying and freezing 

could begin. 

This extensive variety of Peruvian potatoes has made it possible to keep crops safe worldwide in our era. This potato diversity has been necessary in preventing anything like The Great Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1852. It was the narrowness of so few cultivars or species brought back by the Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries that allowed a blight to infect and destroy harvests in Ireland.  More than a million Irish died of starvation and another million migrated.  The entire population of Ireland was reduced by 25%. Among the emigres were Patrick and Bridget Murphy Kennedy whose grandson Joseph P. would be appointed and return to the British Isles as the Ambassador to the Court of St. James by FDR. He was the founder and Patriarch of the Kennedy dynasty in America.

Patriarch and Ambassador Joe Kennedy Sr. 

The rest, as they say, is history. Among Irishmen the saying goes that "God sent the blight, but the British caused the famine."  Ireland's pastoral countryside was highly desired and taken over by the English because of their taste for beef following the spread of wealth of the industrial revolution.  Reduced to smaller and smaller parcels of growable land, the Irish poor turned to the potato and it became their main food source. Without diversity and with no resistance to blight the Irish potato crops were destroyed. Nowhere else in Europe were the consequences so dire or a people more dependent on the potato for survival than in Ireland.

The face of Irish famine, a mother and her children.

The lowly Peruvian potato or papa has played a much larger role in the story of things, more than being a food source for ten thousand some odd years here in Peru. Life for the potato farmer in Peru is probably not a lot better than his Irish counterparts were in the mid 19th Century. The potato growing regions are among the poorest in the country and local residents struggle to buy their daily bread due to the increases in cost of wheat and transportation.  The government is encouraging its residents to eat more of their own product and also bread made with potato flour. All the while they search for markets abroad for the almost infinite variety and subtlety of colors, textures, shapes and flavors of the Peruvian potato.

Steep slopes and lack of available capital insure traditional back breaking

planting of la papas del Peru

We will continue shopping and cooking this most edible and wonderful tuber. We have had only a half dozen varieties to date, a few thousand more to savor and enjoy. Time will limit this endeavor and also our diets from over indulging. The next time you order fries with your burger consider the potato and appreciate a little more of its history and the influence it has had in these many millennia throughout the world. And yes, lest anyone forget, "La Papa es Peruana."

Further reading and photos of Peruvian papas can be found on a site hosted by Limaeasy.com.

Our Missionary Friends in Peru

We were very sad to learn that our friends the Brashers had to return home to Salt Lake City.  We had planned on calling them last week for an evening of pleasant conversation and the delivery of a pint of strawberry jam RA had made. They had been away traveling in Colombia doing what they do, helping missionaries. There was and is a significant need for the work they did and the good they accomplished. I am sure the mission presidents are feeling the loss of this great couple and servants of the Lord.

They have had the responsibility for the mental health and psychological wellbeing of maybe 2,000 missionaries in the Northwest South America Area. They traveled throughout Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia , Peru, and Venezuela. This has been a challenging and rewarding assignment for them. It was not an easy one as the language presented some challenges in traveling. Both of them have worked harder than anyone I know to stay in the missionfield battling ailments and health related issues. We admire them so much for their service and desire to fulfill their missions. They have been examples to us all for their faith, dedication, and endurance.

We miss them as our friends.  They wanted to meet our kids who were traveling to Peru early in August but they needed to be in Colombia.  We look forward to that evening of conversation and dinner when we return home.

Here's to you our friends and fellow missionaries! We miss you and our prayers remain with you.

With them at the Larco Museum here in Lima

The Lima Temple closes for two weeks -- Vacation time

The Lima Temple was closed for the first two weeks of August. This occurs every six months to allow for maintenance and upkeep.  We used the vacation time to travel to several destinations in Peru.  Not bad for a full time mission. Where else can you have four weeks of vacation plus Christmas and New Years? Several of our family including a grandson came to visit for a week. We made our second visit to Cusco and Machu Picchu. This time we were a little better prepared having had six months to brush up on Inca history, lore, and astronomical alignments.

The Angel Moroni is getting cleaned and additional gold leaf

Our first trip was to the Casma valley, about three hours north of Lima, where we visited the oldest solar observatory in the Americas. It is known as Chanquillo. A currently unknown culture built the observatory and fortress about 400 BC. It has been determined the fortress was not for defensive purposes but ceremonial in nature.

Thirteen stone towers line the hilltop as seen from the fortress.
This solar observatory allowed the local inhabitants to tell
within a day or so the date of the year. 

We next traveled south of Lima to a coastal location called Paracas. It is home to the Islas de Ballestas or the Ballestas Islands.  They are known as the little Galapagos Islands of Peru and were not a long boat ride from the Hotel Libertador where we stayed. We circled the islands with our daughter and grandson and saw thousands of birds, sea  lions, dolphins, and even a few penguins. We toured the National Reserve of Paracas, which is one of the dryest regions on the planet and yet its western boundary is the Pacific Ocean.  The Humboldt Current keeps any rain from falling. Our guide explained that in a year not more than a centimeter of rain falls.

The hotel pool and reflection pond at the Libertador in Paracas

Fabulous food, even Josh enjoyed it

A penguin and sea lions on the Ballestas Islands

In addition to the Andes Mountain chain, the largest in the world, the cliffs along the seacoast just south of Paracas and the Islas de Ballestas were formed from the upthrust of the Pacific Plate subducting under the South American Plate. This thrust, including some volcanic activity, has brought both basalt and porphyry granite to the surface.  This distinctive red granite is some several billion years old and among the oldest rocks on the planet.  A red beach exists because of the action of water and wind on the red granite cliffs.

Playa Rojo or the Red Beach at Paracas

Josh enjoyed the deserts in Peru including lucuma ice cream

Next we journeyed, six of us, to Cusco and a return trip to Machu Picchu for RA and I. Our flight was delayed four hours, so our time to tour the great fortress Sacsayhuaman above Cusco was limited. We wanted to see the cathedral where the painting hangs done by Quechua native artists showing Christ and the Twelve enjoying cuy or guinea pig on a platter for the Last Supper. Time did not permit a visit but we found a photo on the web to share. Among other things a number of holidays observed by the Inca/Quechua people were taken over by the Spanish and became Christian traditions and observances. The practice of melding together distinct cultures is known as syncretism.  The cuy for the Last Supper is a wonderful example of this.

It is a guinea pig or cuy on the platter. Unlikely that one average sized cuy even miraculously could feed the Lord and the Twelve. They are small, though efforts are underway here in Lima to breed larger cuy.

This was the most important temple in the Incan Empire. Known as Inti Qancha,  Qori Qancha or the Temple of the Sun. It was lined with solid sheets of gold both floors and walls. The gold was removed to pay for the ransom of the last Emperor Atahualpa. Mostly, it was destroyed to build the Dominican Monastery that occupies the site presently.

All of us at Sacsayhuaman. The stone work was classical Inca and beautiful.

The Inca understood seismic loadings better than anyone for more than 500 years to the present day.
This lintel has withstood massive earthquakes through the centuries and even the Spanish conquistadores.

We made several stops along the way in the Sacred Valley between Cusco and Machu Picchu including the fascinating Incan ruins of Ollantaytambo. Locals in the village still live in stone houses and structures dating to the mid 15th Century. They have the claim of being the oldest continuous lived in dwellings in the western hemisphere, or the world for that matter. Ollantaytambo was built by the Incan Emperor Pachacuti.  There are interestings carvings in stone on a mountain side including the Incan God Viracocha and an Incan Emperor, presumably Pachacuti.

The Winter Solstice at sunrise would illuminate the carved face of the Sapa Inca

bringing the promise of longer days and another growing season to the Andes.

Viracocha carved in the face of the cliff.  Universally worshiped in

pre Spanish Peru as the great creator god.  During the reign of Pachacuti the

Sun God became preeminent in the theology of the Inca as an effort to bring 

unity and consolidate control by this emperor of the Incas. His claim was that

he descended from the sun. 

Mary with a baby llama in the Sacred Valley near Cusco

Celestial alignments for solar and star gazing were essential parts of the religious life of the Inca and the earlier people of the Andes. Fortunately, for Peru and the world, the conquistadores never came to Machu Picchu or it would have been destroyed, as was nearly every other location where they visited. Buildings were literally ripped apart as the conquistadores were looking for hidden stashes of gold between the stones. Machu Picchu remains a place that in every way is as breathtaking as its 8,000 feet of elevation.  In the words of National Geographic explorer and archaeologist Johann Reinhard, it is one place where "reality exceeds expectation."

Adam and Natalie with Huayna Picchu in the background

Looking toward the Temple of the Sun and the Intihuatana Stone

We climbed to the Sun Gate above Machu Picchu, about a two hour roundtrip hike on Inca Trail. Over this mountain peak the rising solstice sun would illuminate the Intihuatana Stone and most importantly the Torreon or The Temple of the Sun.

The Sun Gate in the distance and the trail on the right leading to it.

From the Sun Gate looking toward the Intihuatana Stone

Mary at the Sun Gate

Some tired tourists at Machu Picchu

Our favorite restaurant in Lima on our last night with the family.  It is owned and operated by a family from Arequipa Peru. The ribs, chicken, cuy and papas fritas are the best. It is called "A La Leña.:

Tree ripened bananas and temples older than the pyramids of Egypt

We returned from two days of touring archaeological sites in the Casma/Sechin Valley, which is about four hours north of Lima along the Pan American Highway. We visited several sites. The oldest of the structures datse to about 3500 BCE. These constructions predate the pyramids of Egypt by a thousand years, making them the oldest in the Americas as well.  Sorry, George Potter, but they predate the Jaredites also. We have been studying and reading about these fascinating sites including several journal articles. Very good information comes from professionals trained in the field such as Peru's well known archaeologist Ivan Ghezzi. He is a Yale PhD, and has extensively studied these sites in the Casma/Sechin Valley and others from Peru's past. 

Seen from the air, the oldest of three different Sechin Complexes

We also hiked about the oldest solar observatory in the Americas and to a hilltop fortress overlooking the valley or pampas. The complex is named Chankillo. It dates to the 4th century BC. We hoped to observe the setting sun in the solar observatory but clouds prevented us. Though Casma Peru is known as the city of eternal sun, the included photo required some 'photoshopping' to illustrate the rising sun between one of the 13 stone towers on the hill.

The residents of Chankillo could determine the month of the year by 

observing the rising or setting sun from either side of this hill which

had 13 stone towers or torres piedras. Their year like the Inca, 2,000 

years after them, started with the Winter Solstice of June 21. 

The fortress on the hilltop overlooking the valley. Two wooden towers once 

stood in the center.  The fortress was likely used for ceremonial functions
more than as a defensive structure. This conclusion was reached  for a variety of reasons
 according to Dr. Ghezzi. 

The fortress walls were 12-15 tall in places but all had suffered serious damage

from the 1970 earthquake.

Three distinct constructions of the wall are evident in this outer wall of the fortress

The fortress overlooking the valley is three walled, but a serious earthquake in 1970 damaged this site and much of Northern Peru. The earthquake ranged from 7.9 to 8.1 on the Richter Scale and lasted only for 45 seconds. Over a million people were left homeless and estimates are that 80,000 Peruvians perished in the disaster. Relief efforts were slow in coming as the Pan American Highway was too severely damaged to allow passage. Many archaeological sites were damaged including this fortress at Chankillo whose walls before 1970 had been much taller. Many of the structures destroyed were adobe, not designed for any seismic loadings. No tsunami was created by this quake where the Nazca Plate subducts under the South American Plate. Peru is no stranger to serious earthquakes and is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. This area stretches from Japan through the Aleutians and down the West Coast of the US and through western South America.  90% of the world's earthquakes and 80% of the largest earthquakes in the world occur along this Ring of Fire. Volcanos too, dot the map along this horseshoe shaped ring.

This photo from the news archives of Peru needs no caption

In Casma we enjoyed incredible food including a speciality of the area, called Ceviche de Pato con Frejoles. I would not have ordered duck as there was cuy de pica (pepper spiced guinea pig) on the menu. It is also one of the local favorites. I have not had duck before in Peru but our friend C ordered it, so I tried it and was very pleased. This restaurant had a photo of Peru's last president on the wall with the owners.  If Alan Garcia ate there you know it had to be good.

I had thought all cebiche was uncooked fish or seafood but 

this was wonderfully cooked duck with beans and rice

Coming and going through the valley we passed orchards of mango, papaya trees, bananas, asparagus and cotton fields. Peru is world famous for many things including its Algodon Pima Cotton.  The cotton plants were much taller than anything I have seen in the Southern US or Arizona.  Shirts made from this Peruvian cotton have a shine and softness almost like silk.

The cotton plants were easily six feet tall. 

Oranges and bananas in your yard, imagine 

We love the archaeological sites and certainly nothing compares to Machu Picchu. We are returning there next week with family. The high point of this trip was the encounter we had with the 81 year old patriarch.  We walked through his farm and orchards to get to this oldest ruin in the Casma Valley, called Sechin Bajo. Sr. Silva offered us fresh bananas picked from one of his trees. We had eaten his oranges and we stopped on our return from the ruins to pay him. There were six of us plundering his orange tree and maracuya vines. He was very happy to receive payment and asked if I liked "platinos frescas?" "Claro" or "of course," I responded.  He was very happy to share his fruit with us. We had a pleasant conversation about how good the bananas and oranges were and how much better the food in Peru is than the USA. He seemed very pleased that I liked so many Peruvian dishes including cebiche. Anyone who knows the difference between store bought tomatoes and something you grow yourself in your garden can understand what it could be like to have tree ripened bananas and oranges too.

Our new friend Señor Silva looks better at 81 than I do at 63. He attributed it

to his diet of organic fruits and vegetables that he grows on his farm. That is

his house to the left. Part of it is made from adobe the other from dried sticks

bound  and woven together and covered with clay and other earthen materials. 

We have observed this same type of composite waddle and daub construction in

the earliest structures we have visited. It is once again becoming popular as a 

sustainable form of home construction.

We visited longer and he told us of the site and how many people had come to it.  He is hoping the archaeologists will get the funding to continue to work at Sechin Bajo.  Scientists believe further excavation could result in older ruins, pushing back even further civilization in Peru. Our new friend Sr. Silva asked that we return. I would like to do that again one day. We wish we were more fluent in his language.  He has undoubtedly seen many things and has many stories to tell. There are more ruins in
the complex to be visited and hopefully on a clear morning watch the rise of the sun over Chankillo.

The stairs to the Sechin Cerro or 3rd period construction are divided in two

as is the entire temple complex.  Scientists theorize this was symbolic of the

duality of life. It was about opposites for the Sechin people. 

A Sechin warrior carved in relief at this third period temple

mural. He is carrying a war club. The mural, larger than life,
included many depictions of decapitations, severed limbs,
and eyeless victims expressing pain. Some question has
been raised whether they should be interpreted as mythical
characters, or as part of ritualized warfare, rather than actual
battle or combat.