Peru quiere saber si alli se acunaron monedas encontradas en barco hundido

Peru wants to know origin of shipwrecked treasure
By CHRISTINE ARMARIO – 5 hours ago

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Peru's government wants to know if 17 tons of silver coins recovered from a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean last year were made there, complicating the legal quest to determine who rightfully owns the multimillion-dollar treasure.
Peru filed a claim Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Tampa to determine where the coins originated, entering the fray over the $500 million loot found on a sunken ship by Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration. Odyssey has been fighting the Spanish government for ownership of the ship and its contents.
Peruvian consumer rights advocates contend the coins were made with Peruvian metals and minted in Lima. When Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes y las Animas sank west of Portugal with more than 200 people on board in 1804, Peru was still a Spanish colony.
"Probably every colonial Spanish shipwreck that has ever been discovered has had coins that originated in Peru," Greg Stemm, Odyssey Marine Exploration's chief executive officer, wrote in an e-mail. "So it will be interesting to see how successful they are in getting other governments and shipwreck explorers to recognize their interest."
Peru's claim states that it is entitled to any property that originated there and was produced by its people. An official at the Peruvian embassy in Washington, D.C., declined to comment.
Charles M. Davis, a maritime lawyer and author in Washington, said he couldn't recall another salvage case involving a former colony. Because technology such as submersible robots used by deep-sea explorers to find treasure is still new, he said, "There's a surprising dearth of law on high seas salvage." The case has been closely watched because similar disputes could become more common as more treasures are found on the ocean floor.
Odyssey officials have argued they're entitled to the booty because they found it. Spain has argued it technically never abandoned any of its ships lost at sea. Officials there want any artifacts returned because of their historical and cultural significance, and some in Spain have portrayed Odyssey as 21st-century pirates.
A message left with an attorney representing Spain was not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.
Peru is not the only country seeking ownership of its antiquities. Greece is trying to reclaim illegally exported antiquities from museums and art dealers as part of an effort to recover the Parthenon sculptures from the British Museum in London.

Firma de Colorado compra empresa de Ingenieria Peruana

Broomfield engineering firm buys Peruvian company
By John Aguilar (Contact)Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Broomfield-based MWH, an environmental engineering firm, announced Wednesday that it has acquired Ground Water International S.A., a hydrogeological consulting firm headquartered in Lima, Peru.
GWI, one of the largest ground water consultancies in Peru, provides ground water and related environmental consulting services to mining clients across South America.
The transaction will allow MWH to increase its presence in South America and strengthen its array of water resources and mining services, according to a company press release.
MWH has 10 offices in South America that provide engineering services to the hydropower, mining, water management and industrial sectors.

Visitas a Machu Picchu continuan creciendo

Peru: Tourism to Machu Picchu to continue strong growth throughout the year

The influx of visitors to the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu will continue its strong growth throughout the year, as seen since its designation as one of the new seven wonders of the world on July 7 2007, said Peru's National Institute for Culture (INC).The deputy director of INC-Cusco, Jorge Prado, said there are no longer specific crowded days at Machu Picchu because several visitors arrive at this archaeological site almost all year long. He mentioned that between 1,100 and 1,800 tourists visited Machu Picchu everyday before being named among the seven wonders of the world and that the number of visitors had increased to some 2,500 daily after its election.When asked about media reports that state there are extended opening hours to visit Machu Picchu, Prado clarified that the sanctuary continues to be open from 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.Machu Picchu (Quechua: Machu Picchu, "Old mountain") is a pre-Columbian Inca site located 2,400 meters (7,875 ft) above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Cusco.

News source: ANDINA

Entrevista a Mario Testino

Mad for Marc and Mario
The Recap From Monday Night's Many Fêtes
SCOOP
For Love of Country"I wanted to do a book about Peru that wasn't about llamas and mountains," said Mario Testino at the V Man-hosted launch party for his new tome, Lima Peru. With bare-chested male models parading copies around the Bowery Hotel, guests like Mischa Barton, Demi Moore, and Margherita Missoni had trouble concentrating on its contents—the Testino-edited work of more than 100 Peruvian artists. "Isn't it great that [Visionaire founder] Stephen Gan got them to show off the book in their bathing suits?" said the super-snapper. "Actually, I'd prefer them with nothing on," interjected Vanity Fair's Elizabeth Saltzman Walker. Between Pisco Sour cocktails and a performance of the marinera, the traditional Peruvian courtship dance, the crowd, which doubled with late arrivals from the Marc Jacobs show, discussed the famous Testino touch. "Life is 90 percent perception and 10 percent reality," said Courtney Love. "And Mario gets that."

Ensalada de Papa Peruana

Recipe: Traditional Peruvian potato salad
August 16, 2008
Here's a Peruvian recipe you can make at home:Wash but do not peel 2 pounds of waxy potatoes. Place in saucepan of water and bring to boil for 5 minutes. Add salt and simmer until cooked. Strain potatoes and remove skin while still hot. Shell 2 hard-boiled eggs, add to potatoes and refrigerate for one hour. When cool, cut eggs and potatoes into large slices and place on plate. In a bowl, mix 1 chopped white medium onion and sprig of parsley. Add half-cup olive oil, 3 tablespoons of vinegar and pinch of salt. Mix well, then pour over potatoes and eggs. Add 2 cans of shredded tuna, 7 ounces of seedless black olives and mix well. Serve chilled.

SOURCE: UN International Year of the Potato

Turistas australianos hacen trekking en Cusco

August 16, 2008
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Lee Mylne leaves a little of her heart in the Andes after a high-altitude spell of work experience with a difference.
Under a clear blue sky, as we marvel at the fortune bestowed upon us by the weather gods, our trekking guide Javier imparts a piece of wisdom.
"There is an old Peruvian saying," he says solemnly but with a repressed twinkle in his eye. "Never trust a woman's tears, a dog who limps or an Andean sky."
We are optimists, however, and our second day's trek continues in brilliant sunshine, just like the first. It is a day later that we wake and find that the adage might have some foundation after all: our tents are cloaked in overnight snow.
It is just one of the many rewards on an Andean adventure that never fails to exceed my expectations.
Our trek has started in the ancient town of Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. I am part of a group of 15 undertaking this trip to provide the labour and finance to build a small footbridge and a pipeline to bring fresh water to some of the households in a remote Andean village inaccessible by road.
Part of the cost of our 14-day World Expeditions trip - which includes sightseeing in the historic city of Cusco and a visit to the fabled Machu Picchu - will buy the materials and we will work alongside the villagers to complete the projects.
The first day of trekking at higher altitudes than my body is used to proves harder than I'd anticipated. The pace is slow but my heart rate is increasing. I quickly learn that trekking is not for the unfit or the faint-hearted.
"If I stop puffing, turn around and check that I'm still behind you," I tell the trekker plodding in front of me. Despite a few days in Cusco to acclimatise to living at above 2500 metres, I'm finding the going tough.
Vincente, the 12-year-old son of one of the porters, keeps pace with me for a while, smiling shyly and silently, then trots ahead, well used to the conditions and the altitude. Vincente and the porters are from Qelqanqa, a village of about 80 families in Peru's Urubamba region and our ultimate destination.
Our three-day trek takes us over mountain passes up to 4670 metres and through sweeping valleys punctuated by lakes and scattered with tiny wildflowers. It is wild and barren, starkly beautiful and full of small surprises.
As we walk, we slowly get to know each other. It's a mixed group, mostly Australians with a few Britons and Americans. The youngest is Jenny, 15, from Oregon, who is travelling with her mother, Joan; the oldest is Evan from Pennsylvania who is "72 years and three months" and leaves some younger walkers - including me - far in his wake on the trail.

At our first camp, the tent flap opens to a view of the sun's last rays on the snow-capped tip of Mount Veronica, also known, says Javier, as "the holy teardrop".
Each day we rise at 6am and after breakfast and packing up we're soon overtaken by the porters and llama carrying our tents, the kitchen tent and its contents and all the other gear. I'm acutely conscious of how ridiculously small and light my day pack must seem to them.
I become used to looking out for the large kettle - carried by hand - passing by on its way to the designated lunch or camping spot. By the time we arrive, our camp cook, Enier, his kitchen tent adorned with a Peruvian flag, has already produced a midday meal.
Enier is a widower with three children. Each day, with the help of his assistant, Carlos, he creates meals for our trekking party, three guides and a team of 20 porters, all from a one-burner gas stove inside a small tent. The meals are, without exception, nutritious and delectable.
On the morning we wake in snow, we don wet-weather gear and gratefully down hot porridge and coffee, and are off again. The snow cover adds another dimension to the trail and we barely notice the cold. A ghostly herd of wild horses appears through the mist; we pause to shelter at a pass in a tiny stone chapel adorned with simple crosses. Some high-spirited snowball fights punctuate the walk.
As we approach Qelqanqa, we are greeted by the eerie blast of a conch shell and a party including the village head man, schoolchildren and their teachers welcomes us with flowers, confetti and unexpected hugs. I look at the others and see some eyes are moist with tears. There are speeches, music and dancing and an escort of villagers as we walk for the last hour to the village.
The houses, like others we have passed in these valleys, are stone with thatched roofs. Toddlers peek shyly from doorways, pigs snuffle behind stone fences and dogs race around in circles. Everyone wears colourful traditional dress and headgear but it's not for our benefit; this is everyday life.
On arrival, we camp on the school football field and explore the work sites. Split into two teams, we will spend two days working on our projects. I'm on the bridge, a river-stone-and-cement construction designed to allow some of the children to reach school safely when the river rises. The other group will work on replacing the water reservoir and extending the pipeline.
At the site for the bridge, the river has been diverted into another channel to allow us to build the rock ramparts and, over the course of the first day, it gradually and miraculously takes shape as we hand-haul rocks alongside the locals, including an 80-year-old grandfather who soon becomes a favourite with us.

We've donned disposable blue overalls, rubber gloves and woolly hats to keep out the cold. We're keen to get stuck in and get dirty and that wish is very soon fulfilled.
We work human-chain style, with pots or buckets of rocks or sizeable boulders, passing them along as a bridge takes shape before our eyes. In the afternoons, the mist swirls around us, streaming up the valley from the Cloud Forest.
The second phase of the bridge-building is the concreting. It is hand-mixed on the river bank, the cement relayed short distances to the bridge. The plastic bucket soon splits and is replaced by battered cooking pots brought by smiling children who gather on the banks to satisfy their curiosity about the strangers in their midst.
Communication with the locals is limited. There is lots of pointing and laughter. Freddie, the only one who speaks Spanish, English and the local dialect, is our go-between.
Our fellow trekkers have toiled to build a reservoir about three kilometres from the village, while the villagers dug trenches for the pipeline. By the time we leave, water has been delivered to the nearest house where a concrete "fountain" with a tap, decorated with streamers, is ceremonially turned on to delighted cheers.
On the last night, we celebrate with a feast; a traditional pacha manca, cooked in three stone and earth ovens built on the hillside behind our campsite during the afternoon. We dine on two alpacas and two sheep, marinated in garlic, lemon, salt and pepper, and several varieties of potato, one of Peru's staples. The whole village turns out for it and the women take the chance to sell some of their colourful woven work.
Replete, we sit around in lamplight and hear stories of the Andes from Javier and his assistants, Jairo and Admil.
It has been an unforgettable experience. As we prepare for the walk out of Qelqanqa, we all believe what Javier has told us as we started out: we are "trekkers, not tourists" and that, along with our names written in wet concrete, a little bit of us all will be left here under the Andean skies.

Comer un ceviche en Lima

Eat Ceviche in Lima

Grab a Cuzqueña and get comfortable. As Nicholas Gill explains, a trip to a Peruvian cevichería can be an all-day immersion in good conversation and raw seafood.
The situation: It’s Sunday, and after a night out in Lima, Peru, you’ve found yourself in a cevichería. It’s more, you discover, than a mere place to order ceviche. It’s a cultural institution where lime juice abounds, and the events and misadventures from the previous night are discussed, reenacted and celebrated. Here’s your primer.
When to go: While most cevicherías are open daily, Sunday is traditionally their busiest day and visiting one is a weekly ritual for many Limeños. After partying until dawn the night before in Lima’s discos, you might rest for a few hours but still feel like the bottom of your shoe. The act of going to a cevichería is something that can both refresh and revive; a combination of hair of the dog and raw seafood. The experience begins in the late morning and typically lasts all day; the overindulgence may, on a good day, eclipse that of the night before.
The basics: Early, crude forms of ceviche began to appear in pre-Colombian times in the coastal civilizations of South America where fish was “cooked” with a fruit called tumbo. Later the Incas ate salted fish marinated in chicha, a fermented corn drink, and when the Spanish arrived, they added limes and onions to the mix.
Ceviche preparations vary from place to place—in Mexico, finely diced fish in lemon juice is served with crackers and Tabasco; in Ecuador, ceviche includes tomatoes and is much soupier; in the Andes, chefs use trout—but it’s the Peruvian version that’s recently caught on outside Latin America.
In Peru, ceviche is eaten as a first course or appetizer. The dish requires fresh, quality ingredients; precise and lightning-fast execution; and a basic understanding of spices and acidity. The chef tosses fresh chunks of any firm white fish, such as flounder or sea bass, with onions, bits of Peruvian ají peppers, seasoning and—most importantly—lime juice only minutes before serving. Ceviche isn’t exactly raw like sashimi is raw, though. The acid in the lime actually cooks the fish just before you eat it, resulting in an explosion of taste and texture. In the same dish you’ll find a slice of sweet potato, a few sticks of boiled yucca and a small piece of corn on the cob.
Where to go: Pick up Lima’s restaurant guide, “Guia Gastronomica,” for suggestions, or head to the seaside districts of Barranco and Chorrillos, and look for the crowds spilling into the street from restaurants like Punta Arenas or La Canta Rana. For a step up in price and quality, check out dining options in the Miraflores district such as Caplina or the trendster hot spot La Mar, owned by Lima’s outspoken TV chef Gastón Acurio. At either you’ll find local celebrities and wealthy Limeños sipping on pisco-infused cocktails and noshing on Novo Andino (New Andean) foods, including a lineup of ceviches and tiraditos.
Still, the best cevicherías are a bit out of the way. Sonia, a ceviche shack near the Chorrillos fish market that has grown a fanatic following, is tucked away in a far corner of the city. Sankuay, aka Chez Wong, sits in an unpretentious part of Lima, but the loyal ensemble of BMWs and Mercedes outside give it away as a culinary gem. Inside, chef Javier Wong takes a look at you and decides what you are going to eat. If you don’t like it, then leave.
Order like an expert: To begin, pick at the toasted, salted corn kernels called cancha serrana already on the table, and make your first order. Start with something to drink, say, Leche de Tigre, aka Tiger’s Milk. It’s like a kick in the face. More clearly defined, it’s the tangy juice left over at the bottom of the ceviche bowl served in a tall shot glass. Sometimes it’s mixed with a shot of pisco, a white brandy that is Peru’s national spirit. Throw in a few 32-ounce beers (always Pilsen or Cuzqueña) for everyone to share. If dining after a rough night, opt for a pisco sour. Better yet, make it a double.
Next, move on to the goods: ceviche or tiradito. Ceviche comes in many forms: clásico (the traditional mix), mixto (with fish, squid, octopus and scallops), camarón (with crayfish), black conch (said to increase your sexual prowess), pato (with duck), and champiñones (with mushrooms). Tiradito is the modish, young cousin of ceviche. Created by Nikkei (Japanese) chefs in Lima, it relies on the tradition of dousing raw fish in lime juice, but the slices are paper thin and its makers add a spicy ají-based sauce.
Once you’ve finished your ceviche—another round of drinks, by the way, has likely been put on the table without your asking—you can order the rest of your meal. Your second course will be something hearty, and typically served with rice.
Need more starch? Try tacu-tacu de mariscos: day-old rice and beans refried and stuffed with seafood. Something more filling? Lenguado a la macho: flounder in a zesty sauce of onion, garlic, paprika, cilantro and rocoto peppers. Something unusual? Arroz negro: rice cooked in squid ink with sautéed squid, scallops and crayfish. Something multinational? Camarón saltado: a variation of Peru’s favorite Chinese fusion dish with shrimp instead of chicken.
Bask in the benefits: Die-hard connoisseurs will try to sell you the health attributes of ceviche like a can of snake oil—it will prevent sleepwalking, cure a hangover, and even increase your sex drive. While there may be some truth to their words, a visit to a cevicheria will at the very least guarantee good times and a full belly. Buon Provecho!