(LIP-jl) — Standing before an audience made up of Peruvian and Brazilian business representatives, Peruvian President Alan Garcia made a call to members from both groups to strengthen their commercial activities and economic ties so that both countries can aim at entering various Asisan markets.

President Garcia kicked off the Peru-Brazil Business Forum yesterday by stressing the importance that the Asian continent represents for both countries.

“The future belongs to those who can dominate trade with Asia. Because of this, we have begun conversations with the leaders of Chile, Colombia, Panama, and Mexico to build a unified trade front in the Asian-Pacific region,” said Garcia.

Garcia emphasized Brazil’s important role in such a possible organization by highlighting its enormous investment capabilities.

“The timing could not be better for Brazil, a supplier of large scale investments, to ally itself with Peru -a land of great possibilities and opportunities,” Garcia added.

“We now have the opportunity to tap into those vast investment supplies by land, and Brazil has the chance to partner up with a country that can provide stability in future endeavors,” stated the president who referred to the mega-Inter-Oceanic Highway project that will connect South America’s Atlantic coast (Brazil) and Pacific Coast (Peru).

Original Source: Peru’s Garcia calls for strengthened ties with Brazil

Football’s governing body, Fifa, has banned international matches from being played at more than 2,500m (8,200ft) above sea level.

Fifa said the decision was made because of concerns over players’ health and possible distortion of competition.

The ruling was greeted with dismay in Latin America, notably in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, where games in La Paz are played at 3,600m (11,811ft).

Bolivia’s President, Evo Morales, vowed to lead a campaign against the ban.

Speaking after an emergency cabinet meeting, Mr Morales said the ruling amounted to discrimination.

“This is not only a ban on Bolivia, it’s a ban on the universality of sports,” he told reporters.

To play at above that altitude is not healthy or fair
Sepp Blatter
Fifa president

Mr Morales also said he would send a high-level delegation to Fifa’s headquarters in Zurich and called on other countries to join his campaign.

“We cannot allow discrimination in soccer, we cannot allow… exclusion in the world of sports,” he added.

Many of Bolivia’s major cities, including Sucre and Potosi, are at high altitude.

‘Discrimination’

Local commentators in Peru, which was hoping to stage upcoming World Cup qualifiers in Cuzco at 3,400m (11,154ft), suggested Fifa made the decision after pressure from South America’s two major football powers, Brazil and Argentina.

Both nations have struggled in recent years while playing at altitude, where the thin air hands an advantage to those acclimatised to the conditions.

Playing sport in conditions of high altitude places heavy demands on the body, forcing the heart to work harder.

CITIES AT ALTITUDE
Bolivia: La Paz - 3,600m (11,811ft)
Ecuador: Quito - 2,800m (9,186ft)
Colombia: Bogota: 2640m (8,661ft)

Earlier in 2007, Brazilian club Flamengo said they would not play again at altitude after several of their players needed oxygen during a game against Bolivian team Real Potosi, held at nearly 4,000m (13,120ft).

The ban will also affect Ecuador whose national side has qualified for the last two World Cups, winning through on the basis of strong performances in Quito, at 2,800m.

Mexico City, where the 1970 and 1986 World Cup Final was played, just beats the Fifa limit, having an altitude of 2,240m (7349ft).

Fifa’s president, Sepp Blatter, said the organisation had expected protests from Latin America.

“The executive committee have listened to a proposal from the medical committee and have decided to act because to play at above that altitude is not healthy or fair,” he said.

Original Source: Fifa bans high-altitude football

NewScientist.com news service
Kelly Young

The first solar observatory in the Americas may have been uncovered in coastal Peru. The ceremonial site provides evidence of sophisticated ‘cults of the Sun’ operating in South America as early as 2300 years ago.

Other ancient structures around the world – such as Stonehenge, which is estimated to be 5000 years old – are aligned with the rising and setting of the Sun on certain days called the solstices. These occur twice a year, around 21 June and 22 December, when the Sun appears to reach its highest point above or below the equator.

Previously, archaeologists had uncovered 4000-year-old gourd fragments in Peru showing images of a “staff god” with rays emanating from its head, perhaps like the Sun (see America’s oldest religious icon revealed).

Historical records also describe “Sun pillars” suggesting that South America’s Incan civilisation was observing the Sun – possibly to help mark when to plant crops – around 1500 AD, though those pillars have since been destroyed. The Incas also held public rituals to observe the Sun rise or set at marked positions on the horizon, and Incan leaders claimed authority to rule through kinship to the Sun.

Now, Ivan Ghezzi of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura in Lima, Peru, and Clive Ruggles of the University of Leicester, UK, say earlier civilisations in Peru may also have been observing the Sun as early as the fourth century BC.
Tower ridge

They base their conclusion on ruins at a walled coastal Peruvian site known as Chankillo. Once thought to be part of a fort, ceremonial centre or fortified temple, the researchers now argue the ruin’s central complex may have actually been used as a solar observatory.

Within Chankillo, 13 regularly spaced rectangular towers run the length of a 300-metre ridge like a spine, creating an artificial horizon from some vantage points.

On either side of the ridge are the remains of a western observatory and, lesser so, an eastern observatory, which scientists say were used to watch the Sun rise or set between those towers. On the summer solstice, the Sun rose between Tower 1 and a nearby mountain, Cerro Mucho Malo, and on the winter solstice, the Sun rose around Tower 13.

The Sun appeared for only one or two days in each gap between towers, taking six months to go from one end of the structure to the other. So it is possible the different towers were meant to divide the year into regular intervals lasting about 10 days – the time it takes for sunrises to occur between adjacent towers in the central part of the structure.
Seasonal feasts

The site may have been a place for public rituals and feasts associated with the seasons and the Sun. Excavations have revealed offerings of pottery, shells and other artifacts near an opening at the western observing point.

Researchers say the inhabitants of this site may have been involved in ritualistic practices of passing through a 40-metre-long exterior corridor and standing at the opening to observe the towers.

The specialists who actually tracked the Sun’s motions likely did their work in private while watching the Sun’s light fall onto a wall or through a window, however. “Entry to the observing points themselves appears to have been highly restricted,” the authors write.
Elite class

“Individuals with the status to access them and conduct ceremonies would have had the power to regulate time, ideology, and the rituals that bound this society together,” they continue. “Thus, Sun worship and related cosmological beliefs at Chankillo could have helped to legitimise the authority of an elite class, just as they did within the Inca empire two millennia later.”

David Dearborn, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, US, says the study is very interesting.

“With this abundant evidence for Inca interest in astronomy, and for its use in social organisation, archaeologists have long suspected that earlier cultures also may have engaged in such activities,” he told New Scientist. “Finally, in this work, material evidence is presented that strongly supports such suspicions.”

Journal reference: Science (vol 315, p 1239)

Original Source: Ancient solar observatory discovered in Peru

A Magellanic penguin is reported to have travelled thousands of kilometres from its natural habitat of southern Chile, all the way to Peru.

The penguin, native to the Magellan islands in southern Chile, travelled an estimated 5000 kilometres to reach Peru’s Paracas national reserve.

Scientists at the Paracas national reserve believe the penguin made the journey alone.

Biologist David Orosco told Channel 7 Peru that the bird had been kept in its “natural habitat.”

“It has not been kept in a cage or anything like that. It has been kept where it can live naturally,” said Orosco.

Scientists fear the solitary penguin may be rejected by the Humboldt penguins living at the Paracas national reserve.

Officials at the reserve say they are attempting to contact their colleagues in Chile to return the bird to its natural habitat.

Original Source: Penguin travels 5000km alone to find a new home

Shimmering beneath the scorching sun of the Peruvian desert is an extraordinary sight - a tiny settlement, complete with lagoon, lush palm groves, carob trees, cafes, neatly clipped lawns, 100-strong population and even the odd swimming pool.

For thousands of years, Huacachina, otherwise known as the ‘oasis of Americas’ - there is only one - has been a beacon of green, hidden deep amid hundreds of miles of barren desert. Over the centuries, its glimmering waters have saved the lives of hundreds of sun-addled travellers, staggering in from the heat with their mules.

Huacachina: The oasis of the Americas

More recently, however, visitors have been flying in from all over the world to relax in the shade of the palm trees, sandboard on the dunes and, most importantly, take the waters. Because this tiny handkerchief of green is the Lourdes of Peru.

Its gleaming waters - which spring from a river source deep underground - reportedly contain medicinal properties, particularly effective for the cure of skin and rheumatic illnesses. Today, however, the tiny community in the south of the country is under threat. The oasis is running low because, with global warming causing ever-worsening water shortages, the nearby city of Ica (population 200,000) is plundering its underground river for drinking water.

When water levels recently reached a record five metres below average, local authorities declared a state of emergency.

Water wasn’t always so scarce - despite being more than 600m above sea level, the surrounding dunes are scattered with whale fossils and dusty sharks’ teeth, left over from prehistoric times.

The lagoon also boasts its own legend. As the story goes, it was created when a beautiful princess was surprised in her bath by an over-zealous suitor.

Appalled, she fled. Her dirty water became the lagoon and the folds of her mantle, streaming behind her, became the surrounding sand dunes.

Today, she is said to be happy again, living deep in the lagoon as a mermaid. Not such an appealing prospect if the water runs dry.

Original Source: Last gasp for the Lourdes of the Americas

It was 12:00pm, midday, not 12:05 or 12:30. Nor was it close to 1pm. The Peruvian custom of being late, the Government hopes, is now banished forever.

Poor punctuality is commonplace in Peru. It’s not unusual for someone to be as much as an hour late for a social gathering or even a business appointment. Are you meeting a Peruvian at 1pm? Don’t expect them any time before 1:30pm. La Hora Peruana as it is called in Spanish, or Peruvian Time in English is a throwback to colonial times, from which this bad custom has continued. The Peruvian Hour exists across Latin America and Mediterranean Europe where the word Peruvian is replaced by the given nationality.

All this is now set to change in Peru - at least that is the hope of ever-punctual President Alan Garcia. He insists it’s time to change and has launched a campaign that culminated today called La Hour Sin Demora - Time Without Delay. “Tardiness shows a lack of respect”, he stated. Continuing, he argued that the benefits of being on time extend beyond mere common courtesy, that punctuality can improve business performance and economic productivity. So it was in Lima’s Plaza de Armas today, at midday - not a second later - Peruvians watched the President ring-in La Hora Inglesa, English Time, and urged Peruvians across the country to set their watches according to the clock of the Peruvian Navy.

Shortly after ringing the bell at 12, three clowns walked through the press area, in which I was located directly in front of the President, carrying a coffin. The coffin was symbolically carrying The Hora Cabana - Cabana time, a joke at the expense of Ex-President Alejandro Toledo who is from a small town called Cabana. Toledo was always late for everything. He often kept foreign dignitaries waiting for hours and always turned up late to all his appointments and press conferences. Alan loved the joke targeting his predecessor and pointed it out to others, laughing.

Later, the plaza was filled with traditional dancers from across the country. I also caught up with the Hora Cabana coffin carriers and took a few photos.

Will Peruvians manage abandon tardiness forever?

Original Source: La Hora Sin Demora

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Carmen Gonzalez plucks one of the 50 frogs from the aquarium at her bus stop restaurant, bangs it against tiles to kill it and then makes two incisions along its belly and peels off the skin as if husking corn.

She’s preparing frog juice, a beverage revered by some Andean cultures for having the power to cure asthma, bronchitis, sluggishness and a low sex drive. A drink of so-called “Peruvian Viagra” sells for about 90 cents.

Gonzalez adds three ladles of hot, white bean broth, two generous spoonfuls of honey, raw aloe vera plant and several tablespoons of maca — an Andean root also believed to boost stamina and sex drive — into a household blender.

Then she drops the frog in.

Once strained, the result is a starchy, milkshake-like liquid that stings the throat.

At least 50 customers a day ask for steaming beer mugs of frog juice at Gonzalez’s countertop-only restaurant in eastern Lima, and many treat the concoction as their morning — and afternoon — cup of coffee.

Rebeca Borja, a 53-year-old housewife and mother of five, originally from Lima’s central highland city of Huancayo, where the beverage is common, said simply: “It gives you power.”

Original Source: Frog juice dubbed ‘Peruvian Viagra’

(LIP-jl) — United States Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice will visit Peru on June 8 to personally return over 400 stolen archaeological artifacts that have been seized in the United States from private collectors and black market traffickers.

Cecilia Bakula, Director of Peru’s National Institute of Culture (Instituto Nacional de Cultura -INC), informed that the US’s top diplomat will also renew a Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Peru that currently protects Peru’s archaeological treasures.

The agreement, which was originally signed and adopted in 1997, is set to expire in the coming weeks.

Bakula also mentioned that in the coming weeks, the Andean nation will also recover important historical artifacts from various international locations.

The INC claims that a shipment of 553 Peruvian archaeological artifacts from Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Germany, Uruguay, New Zealand, and from the United States will be returned to Peruvian custody after private collectors and black market traffickers took from Peru without authorization.

Bakula stated that Peru is on the verge of reattaining items from its glorious historical past thanks to several lengthy international litigation processes that have taken years to complete.

Original Source: Condoleeza Rice announces visit to Peru, will return stolen archaeological artifacts.

They were excavating at Buena Vista, an ancient settlement in the foothills of the Andes an hour’s drive north of Lima, Peru. A dozen archaeology students hauled rocks out of a sunken temple and lobbed them to each other in a human chain. Suddenly, Bernardino Ojeda, a Peruvian archaeologist, called for the students to stop. He had spotted bits of tan rope poking out of the rubble in the temple’s central room. Ojeda handed his protégés small paintbrushes and showed them how to whisk away centuries of dirt. From the sickeningly sweet odor, he suspected that the rope wasn’t the only thing buried beneath the rocks: most likely, it was wrapped around a corpse.

Neil A. Duncan

“Burials here have a distinctive smell,” says Neil Duncan, an anthropologist at the University of Missouri, “even after 4,000 years.”

The crew spent the rest of the day uncovering the remains, those of a woman in her late 40s, her body mummified by the dry desert climate. Two intertwined ropes, one of braided llama wool and the other of twisted cotton, bound her straw shroud, bundling the skeleton in the fetal position typical of ancient Peruvian burials. Nearby, the researchers found a metal pendant that they believe she wore.

The mummy—the only complete set of human remains yet recovered from Buena Vista—may play a role in a crucial debate about the origin of civilization in Peru. The excavation’s leader, Robert Benfer, also of the University of Missouri, is analyzing bones from the site for signs of what people ate or the sort of work they did. He hopes the analyses will shed light on a controversial theory: that these ancient Peruvians established a complex, sedentary society relying not just on agriculture—long viewed as the catalyst for the first permanent settlements worldwide—but also on fishing. If so, Benfer says, “Peru is the only exception to how civilizations developed 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.”

As it happens, one of his liveliest foils in this debate is Neil Duncan, his collaborator and Missouri colleague. Both agree that some farming and some fishing took place here. But the two disagree about how important each was to the ancient Peruvians’ diet and way of life. Duncan says these people must have grown many plants for food, given evidence that they also grew cotton (for fishing nets) and gourds (for floats). Benfer counters that a few useful plants do not an agriculturalist make: “Only when plants become a prominent part of your diet do you become a farmer.”

Benfer and his team began excavating at Buena Vista in 2002. Two years later they uncovered the site’s most notable feature, a ceremonial temple complex about 55 feet long. At the heart of the temple was an offering chamber about six feet deep and six feet wide. It was brimming with layers of partially burned grass; pieces of squash, guava and another native fruit called lucuma; guinea pig; a few mussel shells; and scraps of cotton fabric—all capped by river rocks. Carbon-dated burned twigs from the pit suggest the temple was completed more than 4,200 years ago. It was used until about 3,500 years ago, when these occupants apparently abandoned the settlement.

A few weeks before the end of the excavation season, the archaeologists cleared away rocks from an entrance to the temple and found themselves staring at a mural. It was staring back. A catlike eye was the first thing they saw, and when they exposed the rest of the mural they found that the eye belonged to a fox nestled inside the womb of a llama.

Within days, Duncan spied a prominent rock on a ridge to the east. It lined up with the center of the offering chamber, midway between its front and back openings. The rock appeared to have been shaped into the profile of a face and placed on the ridge. It occurred to Benfer that the temple may have been built to track the movements of the sun and stars.

He and his colleagues consulted astronomer Larry Adkins of Cerritos College in Norwalk, California. Adkins calculated that 4,200 years ago, on the summer solstice, the sun would have risen over the rock when viewed from the temple. And in the hours before dawn on the summer solstice, a starry fox constellation would have risen between two other large rocks that were placed on the same ridge.
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Because the fox has been a potent symbol among many indigenous South Americans, representing water and cultivation, Benfer speculates that the temple’s fox mural and apparent orientation to the fox constellation are clues to the structure’s significance. He proposes that the “Temple of the Fox” functioned as a calendar, and that the people of Buena Vista used the temple to honor the deities and ask for good harvests—or good fishing—on the summer solstice, the beginning of the flooding season of the nearby Chillón River.

The idea of a stone calendar is further supported, the researchers say, by their 2005 discovery near the main temple of a mud plaster sculpture, three feet in diameter, of a frowning face. It resembles the sun, or maybe the moon, and is flanked by two animals, perhaps foxes. The face looks westward, oriented to the location of sunset on the winter solstice.

Other archaeologists are still evaluating the research, which has not yet been published in a scientific journal. But if Benfer is right, the Temple of the Fox is the oldest known structure in the New World used as a calendar.

For his part, Duncan says he maintains “a bit of scientific skepticism” about the temple’s function as a calendar, even though, he says, that view supports his side in the debate about early Peruvian civilization. Calendars, after all, “coincide with agricultural societies.” And referring to the vegetable-stuffed offering pit, he asks, “Why else would you build such a ceremonial temple and make offerings that were mostly plants?”

But Benfer hasn’t given up on the theory that ancient Peruvians sustained themselves in large part from the sea. How else to explain all the fish bones and shells found at the site? And, he says, crops would fail if the fickle Chillón River did not overflow its banks and saturate the desert nearby, or if it flooded too much. “It’s difficult to make it just on plants,” he says.
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So even after several seasons’ worth of discoveries, Benfer and Duncan are still debating—collegially. As Benfer puts it, “I like it that his biases are different than mine.”

Anne Bolen, a former staff member, is now managing editor of Geotimes.

Original Source: The New World’s Oldest Calendar

Can a chef be a vehicle for social change? Can the explosion of Peruvian food worldwide transform a nation? For young Peruvians, is their future in Peru or abroad?

Last March, renowned Peruvian chef Gastón Acurio was the featured speaker at the opening of Lima’s University of the Pacific 2006-2007 academic year.

His speech was published on countless websites and numerous blogs, such as Apuntes de Cocina. Not only did he speak about his own personal philosophy in the creation of his brands, but also how Peruvian cuisine can become a key to fundamentally change Peru.

I’ve had this speech for a long time in my drafts folder, and I’ve finally had the time to translate it into English. It doesn’t matter that this speech was given over a year ago. As I re-read it, it still has resonance. It is lengthy, but any serious student of Peruvian cuisine will be fascinated to read one man’s vision for his craft and ultimately, his country.

Speech given by Gastón Acurio at the opening ceremony for the 2006-07 academic year at the University of the Pacific, March 2006 in Lima.

“While we may believe Peru’s natural resources have been a blessing, history has shown us otherwise.

At one time we had a rubber boom, then it was guano, and now it is minerals. But, when resources run out, the boom times end. Then, we have uncertainty and a weakened democracy, which give rise to leaders of dubious merits.

Clearly, a country’s growth, stability, and wealth are not due solely to its natural resources.

More important is what a country produces with those resources. For example, Switzerland purchases cacao and gold to make chocolate, jewelry, and watches. Japan and Korea buy minerals and transform them into automobiles and appliances.

Those countries, in fact all the industrialized countries, also understand that great wealth is not obtained solely by generic products, but by quality brands which are then exported globally.

From cacao, Switzerland produces Nestlé; from gold, Rolex. Japan turns minerals into Toyota and Nissan; Korea into Samsung. On an individual level, Howard Shultz buys coffee worldwide and brews us Starbucks.

Until recently, Peruvian food was simply a resource. Beloved by all Peruvians, a source of pride for us, and appreciated by foreigners on trips to Peru.

But, Peruvian cuisine has great potential be exported worldwide. However, to do so, the different types of Peruvian cuisines and culinary concepts need to be valued, and then framed conceptually.

There are immense opportunities to take concepts from our local environment and transform them into global brands.

In Peru, we have cocina criolla (coastal traditional cuisine), pollerías (roast chicken), chifas (Peruvian Chinese restaurants), novoandina cuisine (nouvelle Andean), Arequipa-style picanterías (traditional eateries in the style of Arequipa), anticucherías (Peruvian brochettes), Peruvian sandwiches, Nikkei (Peruvian Japanese), and cebicherías (ceviche and seafood).

If Peru exported these products, they wouldn’t simply compete against other long-established culinary concepts, such as pizzerias, hamburger stands, sushi bars, and Mexican restaurants. They would also create a national brand for Peru; and consequently, provide great economic benefits for the country.

I believe we do understand that this resource so full of potential, our Peruvian cuisine, is ready to expand globally.

So, what’s missing? Why aren’t we taking off as we should?

All the international market research conducted outside Peru indicates that Peruvian is the culinary concept with the greatest growth potential. Internationally, the demand for Peruvian restaurants far surpasses the offer. In fact, right now, investing in a Peruvian restaurant in a city in Europe or North America carries almost zero risk.

In Peru, we have experienced a publishing and educational revolution with regards to our food. In the last ten years, more books have been published about Peruvian cuisine than in Peru’s entire publishing history. In the last five years, 22 officially-recognized cooking schools have opened in Lima, making it the city with more cooking schools than any other in the world.

In 2006, 30% of tourists who came to Peru to visit Cuzco decided to stay in Lima a couple of extra days because of what they’d read or heard about our food. Journalists are constantly sent here to cover the Peruvian food revolution. Their articles and TV programs all predict an imminent global Peruvian food invasion.

So, if we have all these indicators, why aren’t there Peruvian restaurants in every corner of the world?

I think the answer is quite clear.

We may have the resources. We may have the products. But, we lack the brands.

We lack globally known Peruvian food brands. That’s the key.

Some say we also lack capital or infrastructure. But, almost daily I get offers from Saudi Arabia to Australia from people who want to invest in Peruvian restaurants. We reject most of these offers because I believe everything has its opportune time and place.

What Peruvian chefs and businesspeople have to do is to create a Peruvian brand. And we need to provide investors with not just one concept, but many different investment options.

To create a brand, you first have to develop it. You have to take a small great idea, a small great dream, and transform it into a powerful philosophy so it grows incrementally until it becomes a model to study, emulate, admire, and in which to invest.

With regards to my organization, from the start we began developing culinary concepts that were not just focused on becoming international, but also segmenting into different products. From the onset, we understood restaurants are not just generic places, but spaces that vary for different audiences, for different times, and for different pocketbooks.

Original Source: Gastón Acurio: A Philosophy For Conquering The World With Peruvian Food