7/26? We walked past the American ambassador‘s residence, one couldn’t call the imposing colonial structure painted Naples yellow, a house. More like a fortress. A soldier at his kiosk stands guard. This place was mortared by the Tupac Amaru liberation front.
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| Tupaq Amaru, last Inca King, prisoner, 1572 (Guaman Poma de Ayala) |
The first Túpac Amaru was the last Inca king, from Vilcabamba in the 1570s. His name means royal, or shining plus mythical snake, kind of like Quetzalcoatl. Some 40 years after the Spanish conquest, he rebelled against the Spanish and lost. Then the second Tupac Amaru, 1780, also a count of royal Incan descendent, whose likeness is on the $500 inti, led another rebellion and lost.
And then there’s the current rebellion led by the Sendero Luminoso, the shining path, they seem to be winning. All car chassis and undercarriages are checked with mirrors before they are allowed to park. There is so much unrest here, the air is seething like cicadas.
Soldiers armed with Uzis in a country the size of California and Texas combined, with a total population of 19 million, some 6 million people live in this city where it never rains. There are buildings covered with 2 to 4 1/2 centuries’ worth of grime. Quechua Lima was founded by Francisco Pizarro in 1535 after the conquest of 1533-34. From Colombia to Chile, there were many organized wars led by the Incas in the late 1500s.
Soldiers armed with Uzis in a country the size of California and Texas combined, with a total population of 19 million, some 6 million people live in this city where it never rains. There are buildings covered with 2 to 4 1/2 centuries’ worth of grime. Quechua Lima was founded by Francisco Pizarro in 1535 after the conquest of 1533-34. From Colombia to Chile, there were many organized wars led by the Incas in the late 1500s.
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