Peruvian rum's winning run

April 16, 2009
Ybor City - A Peruvian rum can claim the title of world's best for at least the next year after winning the first best-in-show award at the 4th annual Polished Palate International Rum Competition held in this historic Tampa neighborhood.

Ron Millonario Solera 15 Reserva Especial received a score of 90 or better from each of the judges to win the first-ever designation.
Dori Bryant, president of The Polished Palate that organizes a variety of spirits competitions and events, says, "It is obvious that rum's star has already risen. The amazing quality and the significant number of new producers joining the competition including those from Peru, Mexico, Africa, Panama and the U.S. bodes well for the industry."

The competition featured an international panel of judges who sampled, evaluated and compared 53 (51 of them sugar-cane based) of the finest rums, rhums and other spirits to select this year's honor roll.
— William Dowd, Hearst Newspapers

Brazil's Petrobras Shifts Peru Operations To Europe Unit

SAO PAULO (Dow Jones)--Brazilian government-controlled energy giant Petrobras (PBR) on Wednesday effectively shifted control of its Peruvian operations from the company's Argentine subsidiary to a subsidiary located in Europe.
In a statement, the company said its European subsidiary, Petrobras International Braspetro, based in the Netherlands, was assuming control of the company's Peruvian unit from Petrobras Energia, the Petrobras subsidiary base in Argentina. The shift will be implemented via a payment of $619 million by the European subsidiary to the Argentine subsidiary.
The Peruvian operation, known as Petrobras Energia Peru, holds stakes in six Peruvian oil blocks.
The decision to shift control of the Peruvian assets to Europe comes two weeks after the Argentine government signaled its intention to name a member of the board of directors of Petrobras Energia.

Indians Block River Traffic in Peruvian Amazon

LIMA – Villagers from several communities in the Peruvian Amazon region blocked waterborne traffic along two important rivers to protest several laws they consider detrimental to the integrity of their lands.
Indians have been blocking traffic on the Napo and Corrientes Rivers since last Thursday, when community leaders called local residents out to a general strike to defend their rights, the spokesman for the Aidesep group representing indigenous peoples, Edson Rosales, told Efe on Monday.
In remarks to CNR radio, also on Monday, Aidesep president Alberto Pizango said that the strike is being adhered to by more than 1,000 Amazon Indian communities.

“We want a high-level dialogue that respects our human rights,” he said. “We’re going to keep insisting.”
The pressure tactic is being pursued by indigenous peoples in the regions of Amazonas, Loreto, Ucayali, Madre de Dios, Cuzco and Junin, said CNR.
During the protest a group of Indians last Friday took over an oil installation operated by Argentina’s Pluspetrol, though the protesters relented the following day.

The Amazon Indians are demanding that the new laws regarding water and forest resources be repealed, among other things.
Opposition to the water law also spurred road-blocking protests in the southern region of Cuzco that on Monday forced the suspension of train service to the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu.
Armed with clubs and stones, local residents began a 24-hour general strike called by community leaders to express their rejection of the legislation, RPP radio said.

Among the roads that are blocked is the one connecting Cuzco with the sacred Valley of the Incas and the one leading to the city of Abancay, RPP reported.

As a result of the strike, the firm PeruRail suspended its train service on Monday on all the routes between Cuzco and Machu Picchu – and those rail routes are tourists’ main access to the Inca citadel – as well as along the Cuzco-Puno link leading into the border region with Bolivia and the gateway to Lake Titicaca.
“We regret the setbacks and consequences arising as a result of this regional strike, which is not connected at all with PeruRail,” said the firm in a communique.

According to the latest report by the National Ombudsman’s Office, the number of social conflicts in Peru totaled 238 last month, most of them over environmental matters, a figure much in excess of the 93 such conflicts registered in March 2008.

Cuzco, Ancash, Ayacucho, Cajamarca and Lima were the regions experiencing the largest number of environmental conflicts in March. EFE

France, England & Germany are big consumers of Peruvian fashion

European countries, notably France, England and Germany have become the world’s biggest consumers of Peruvian fashion, reported the designer Jose Miguel Valdivia.

He said that efforts are being made at the moment to strengthen the presence of Peruvian designs in positioned markets, as well as entering new markets, particularly the United States.
Valdivia noted he will soon meet with representatives of recognized international fairs such as Magic Marketplace (Las Vegas) and Moda Manhattan (New York) to include the Peruvian designs in these fashion events.
"Both American fairs are well-respected and give us the possibility to showcase our products. We have carry our own brands, and promote more than just clothes", he said.

The Peruvian fashion is characterized the by its unique designs, and is becoming increasingly demanded because it uses the finest fabrics such as Pima cotton, alpaca and vicuna.

Exploring Incan archaeological sites in Peru

Sunday, April 5, 2009
NorthJersey.com

In June, four friends and family traveled to Machu Picchu, Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Puno, Lake Titicaca, Arequipa and Colca Canyon. Staying on Lake Titicaca's Amantani Island with a native family was an unforgettable experience.
We visited many well-preserved pre-Incan and Incan archaeological sites in Peru. Here, we are at Pikillaqta National Archaeological Park.
Tip: Be prepared for cold nights, steep climbs and thin air in the Andes.
Pictured from left are Anggela Vega of Paterson; Jackeline Mauricio of Callao, Peru; Marianne Reid-Brown; Melissa Madrid of Paterson; and Rosa Echevarria of Paterson.
Marianne Reid-Brown
New Milford

Partnership To Launch Hematology Program In Peru

Main Category: Medical Students / Training
Also Included In: Lymphoma / Leukemia | Primary Care / General Practice |
Following the success of a program established in Uganda last year, the American Society of Hematology (ASH) and Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO) have again partnered to launch a new hematology program together with the Peruvian Social Security Health System, Empresa De Seguros De Salud (EsSalud). The goal of this program is to improve the hematology training of clinicians, laboratory technicians, technologists, and students. This training will take place at hospitals located in Lima, Arequipa, and Cusco.

"We are enthusiastic to launch a new ASH/HVO hematology program in Peru," said Enrico M. Novelli, MD, director of the Peru program. "This is a great teaching and cultural exchange opportunity for ASH hematologist/oncologists, hematopathologists, and laboratory-based scientists with an expertise in areas such as bone marrow transplantation, coagulation disorders, lymphoproliferative disorders, or blood banking."

Volunteers will provide didactic and hands-on training in both the clinical and laboratory aspects of hematology to undergraduate medical and laboratory students, postgraduates, fellows, and staff. Volunteers will also assist in evaluating postgraduate fellow projects and aid in improving communication between the lab staff and clinicians.

Both pediatric or adult hematology/oncology clinicians and laboratory-based scientists are welcomed for assignments of one to four weeks. Volunteers must be board certified in hematology and/or blood banking. Individuals with a PhD must be certified in hematopathology or pathology with demonstrated experience in hematopathology. Applicants must be members of both ASH and HVO to be considered for this program, and volunteers from outside the United States are encouraged to apply. Although a working knowledge of Spanish is very helpful, it is not a requirement for this program. This site is not suitable for trainees.
To learn more about this program and how to volunteer, please visit ASH's HVO Program page.
The American Society of Hematology is the world's largest professional society concerned with the causes and treatment of blood disorders. Its mission is to further the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting blood, bone marrow, and the immunologic, hemostatic, and vascular systems, by promoting research, clinical care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology. In September 2008, ASH launched Blood: The Vital Connection (http://www.bloodthevitalconnection.org), a credible online resource addressing bleeding and clotting disorders, anemia, and cancer. It provides hematologist-approved information about these common blood conditions including risk factors, preventive measures, and treatment options.
A private, nonprofit membership organization, Health Volunteers Overseas was founded in 1986 to improve global health through education. HVO designs and implements clinical education programs in child health, primary care, trauma and rehabilitation, essential surgical care, oral health, hematology, infectious disease, nursing education, burn management, and wound care. In more than 25 resource-poor nations, volunteers train, mentor, and provide critical professional support to health-care providers who care for the neediest populations in the most difficult of circumstances. HVO's hematology training programs are sponsored by the American Society of Hematology.

An Adventurous Trip to Peru

I have quite a few memorable travel experiences, but my latest trip to Peru last March surpassed all my expectations. I planned the itinerary myself through the Internet and books, so that I can talk widely about this adventurous trip.
I landed in Lima which is the capital city and which was the centre of Spanish power in the "new world" for three centuries after Francesco Pizarro's conquest of Peru. On the following day, I took a city tour and visited the Gold Museum which contains numerous artifacts of gold, silver and precious stones. The capital also boasts of beautiful churches, including La Merced, San Pedro, Santo Domingo and the 16th century San Francisco church, famous for its catacombs.
The next day I took a bus from Lima to Pisco, about three hours, where I visited the Paracas Wildlife Reserve. Then by yacht, I sailed to the nearby Ballestas Islands, which are best known for their bird and marine sanctuaries along Peru's desert coast with colonies of sea-lions, pelicans and flamingos.
After Pisco I traveled by bus to Nazca, where early next morning I took a forty minute flight on a small plane to see the world famous Nazca lines. The Nazca lines are gigantic geometric drawings made on hard sand, mostly of animals and birds that are only visible from an aeroplane.
The next stop was Arequipa, a ten hour trip by bus. Arequipa is located in the South of Peru, at 2,300 metres above sea level and is surrounded by spectacular mountains, including the snow-capped El Misti Volcano. Arequipa is known as the "White City", since it is built from white volcanic stone.
In the White City is the convent of Santa Catalina, the most fascinating colonial religious building in Peru, a building complex that once sheltered a community of 450 nuns.
From Arequipa, together with other backpackers, I took a three-day excursion to the Colea-Canyon, the world's deepest canyon 3,000 metres, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in Colorado. During our drive we saw huge herds of llamas and alpacas and also some vicunas. We were all made to drink a lot of coca leaf tea strongly recommended for high altitude acclimatization.

Peru’s Ex-President Convicted of Rights Abuses

Karel Navarro/Associated Press
Opponents of Alberto K. Fujimori, president of Peru from 1990 to 2000, celebrated the verdict that was announced Tuesday.

By SIMON ROMERO

Published: April 7, 2009
CARACAS, Venezuela — A three-judge panel of Peru’s Supreme Court on Tuesday convicted former President Alberto K. Fujimori of human rights abuses and sentenced him to 25 years in prison. The abuses included the killing of 25 people by a military death squad created by Mr. Fujimori in the early 1990s as the country was locked in a bloody conflict with Maoist rebels.
Francisco Medina/Justice Palace, via Reuters
Alberto K. Fujimori, former president of Peru, listened to a judge read his sentence at the special police headquarters in Lima on Tuesday.
The case has stirred old tensions in Peru, where Mr. Fujimori, 70, remains a popular figure after subduing two rebel groups during his years in power, from 1990 to 2000. Almost 70,000 people were killed in the war with the Maoist guerrillas, known as the Shining Path, and the smaller Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.
“We feel completely satisfied,” said Gisela Ortiz, 36, whose brother, a student, was one of the death squad’s victims in 1992. “The criminal apparatus that was used to commit these crimes has been exposed.”
Specialists in international human rights law closely followed the case because of its implications for other former or current heads of state who might face charges of war crimes and other abuses. Mr. Fujimori was convicted of murder, aggravated kidnapping and battery, as well as crimes against humanity.
The verdict, which he said he would appeal, follows a long saga. Mr. Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 and arrived in Chile in 2005 with a plan to return to power in Peru, only to be extradited by Chile in 2007 to stand trial.
“The charges have been proved beyond all reasonable doubt,” César San Martín, the chief judge of the panel, said Tuesday in the courtroom at a base for special forces on the outskirts of Lima.
In a previous case, Mr. Fujimori had already been sentenced to six years in prison for ordering an illegal search, while his government was collapsing in 2000, of the residence of the wife of Vladimiro Montesinos, his former intelligence chief. With that sentence to run concurrently with the 25-year sentence handed down on Tuesday, less the time Mr. Fujimori has served since his extradition two years ago, he could remain in prison until 2032.
The verdict came after a trial that lasted more than a year and was broadcast on television in Peru. Among other things, the judges found Mr. Fujimori guilty of the murder of 15 people, including an 8-year-old boy, at a barbecue in the Barrios Altos area of Lima, and of 10 people who were abducted in 1992; their burned bodies were found a year later outside Lima.
The killings were carried out by a shadowy squad of military intelligence officers, known as the Colina Group. In testimony last week, Mr. Fujimori said he had not authorized the murders or kidnappings.
“I had to govern from hell,” he said. “That is why I am being judged.”
The panel of judges also found him guilty of overseeing the kidnappings of Gustavo Gorriti, a prominent journalist, and Samuel Dyer, a businessman, in 1992. Both men were later freed.
Mr. Fujimori still faces two additional trials on corruption charges. The Supreme Court could take four to six months to rule on his appeal of the conviction on Tuesday, Peruvian legal experts said.
As the verdict was read, Mr. Fujimori, wearing a dark suit and a black necktie, sat alone and silent in the courtroom, writing on a notepad.
Outside the building, hundreds of his supporters faced off in shouting matches with people who had turned out to demonstrate against Mr. Fujimori, who is known in Peru as Chino, although his ancestry is Japanese. Riot police officers tried to separate the two groups, but some clashes took place.
Some of Mr. Fujimori’s followers brandished signs reading “Fuerza 2011,” or “Force 2011,” a reference to Peru’s presidential election in two years; his daughter, Keiko Fujimori, 34, a congresswoman, is a candidate for president. Ms. Fujimori has said that if she is elected, she will pardon her father.
“My indignation is immense to listen to this judgment full of hate and vengeance,” Ms. Fujimori said of the verdict, in televised comments.
Others disagreed with that assessment, pointing to detailed testimony during the trial, the report of Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and documents declassified by the United States government.
A State Department cable on Aug. 23, 1990, for example, described information from a Peruvian intelligence source, a former naval officer, who said that the plan to carry out extra-judicial assassinations of suspected terrorists had “the tacit approval of President Fujimori.” Ernesto de la Jara, director of the Legal Defense Institute, a human rights organization in Lima, described the judges’ verdict as “an impeccable sentence.”
“It is so well made that it would be difficult to dismantle it,” he said.
On Lima’s streets, reactions ranged from redemption to dismay. “Injustice has been committed,” said Jorge García, 42, a motorcycle mechanic who admires Mr. Fujimori. “Now we must take to the streets to make ourselves heard, peacefully.”
Others had a more simple analysis. “If he is guilty,” said Tomasa Sánchez, 35, a cellphone saleswoman, “then he should pay.”
Andrea Zarate and Lucy Conger contributed reporting from Lima, Peru.

Riding the Waves of Peru

IT was high tide on a scorching Tuesday, and the choppy beaches around Lima, Peru, were crawling with surfers. There were teenagers in ratty flip-flops carrying short boards patched with duct tape, and bronzed women in wet suits paddling out into the shimmering blue waves. There was even a businessman in his 30s, who climbed out of a black-tinted S.U.V. in nothing but shorts, as a muscular chauffeur handed him a freshly waxed board, a bottle of water and a dab of sunscreen.
The only thing missing, it seemed, were tourists. Despite having monster swells on par with those that hit Hawaii’s legendary northern shores, Peru isn’t known as a surfing destination, except perhaps by a small band of jet-setting surfers for whom no wave is beyond reach.
That is, unless you happen to be one of the approximately 28 million inhabitants of Peru, South America’s third-largest country in area. Then you know very well that surfing has swept the nation recently in a pop cultural frenzy. On the wide boulevards of Lima, billboards are covered with the fresh-faced ranks of Peruvian surfers endorsing cellphones, beer and soft drinks. Surfing contests are all the rage. And to the south, where the waves are even bigger, physical attributes like pumped-up lungs, buff shoulders and sun-bleached hair seem to be bred into the local DNA.
And now, as Peru rides a tourism wave propelled by a strong economy and favorable exchange rates for bargain-minded Americans, it is poised to become the new “it” spot on the international surfing circuit. After all, Peru has 1,500 miles of rugged coastline dotted with countless breakers, from pristine beaches tucked around Lima to unexplored pockets up north where some waves are said to last more than a mile. And unlike Malibu, Hawaii’s northern shores and other well-known places, many of Peru’s best surfing spots are often nearly empty.
With so much to explore, surfing has muscled in on soccer and the culinary arts to become an unlikely symbol of national hope. Much of the current craze can be traced back to 24-year-old Sofía Mulanovich, a Peruvian who won the World Surfing Championship title in Hawaii in 2004 — a contest dominated by Australians and Americans. And if the ranks of teenagers who frolic their spare hours away in the swell have any say, surfing in Peru will only get bigger.
That’s true up and down Peru’s coast, whether it’s a small town like Chicama in the country’s north, famous for its super-long waves, or around the busy capital of Lima, where the sometimes polluted breaks are teeming with surfers from dusk till dawn. But the epicenter of the neo-surf scene is undoubtedly in Punta Hermosa, a summer beach community about 30 miles south of Lima, where surfing is virtually a religion.
The hourlong drive to Punta Hermosa provides a sobering look at the arid and impoverished landscape in this part of the country: brown hills devoid of vegetation and pocked with sad clusters of wooden shanties. The town itself doesn’t look like much — dusty concrete houses painted in bright greens, blues and reds in the hills below the four-lane Pan-American Highway. But the fuss is clear when you finally arrive at the beach: curling waves fan out in all directions like Neptune’s block party.
Each break point presents a different challenge. There’s Kon Tiki, which offers untamed waves so massive that it takes a strong arm even to paddle out to it; La Isla, where homegrown pros like Ms. Mulanovich and Gabriel Villarán can often be found; and Pico Alto, a brawny break with swells that can range up to 25 feet high.
ON a recent Saturday afternoon, the Copa Barena Professional Circuit surf competition was taking place in Punta Rocas, one of the most popular beaches in the area. The scene at the amateur competition resembled a South American version of Malibu, but wilder. Barena, a Honduran beer being introduced in Peru, had erected giant inflatable bottles that were flapping like Michelin men in the wind. A stoner reggae band drowned out the announcers. And waiters in baseball hats weaved through an obstacle course of sun chairs with plates of calamari and cans of Inca Kola, a yellow soda spiked with caffeine-laden guaraná fruit.
The surf champ Ms. Mulanovich, who is known as “la gringa” because of her fair skin and blond streaked hair, sat with an entourage near the judge’s perch as she watched her younger brother, Matias, whiz over the lip and down the face of a meaty charging barrel.
“Peru is the best preparation for a pro surfer because there are so many different varieties of breaks and conditions,” said Ms. Mulanovich, who grew up in Punta Hermosa and recently bought a rock-star grade condo nearby with panoramic views of five surf breaks. “It’s much less crowded than in Hawaii and California, and even on the smallest day of the year it’s never flat.”
When her brother paddled in, the group piled into a caravan of S.U.V.’s and drove five minutes down the highway to San Bartolo for a teenage girl competition. It was sponsored by the cellphone company Movistar. “It’s like this all summer,” Ms. Mulanovich said. “Everybody wants to be a surf star now.”

But despite the surf fever, Punta Hermosa remains off the radar for most tourists, probably because there’s little reason to come unless you’re really into surfing. There are no surf shops — boards and gear must be rented or bought in Lima — and only a handful of hotels like Luisfer’s, a no-frills hostel where surfers bunk up, five to a room. Between sessions, guests can be seen doing yoga atop their board bags in the courtyard.
Surf Fever in Peru
Dining options are limited, too. The sidewalks are lined with cheerful stands that serve ceviche and seafood carpaccios that look amazing, but are far from stomach friendly. Ms. Mulanovich’s boyfriend, a surfer named Scott from Los Angeles, had been holed up in her condo for weeks after getting salmonella poisoning from bad mayonnaise.
The enterprising and friendly locals, however, make up for the lack of infrastructure. The town’s surf museum, for example, is actually the private home of an old-school surfer, José A. Schiaffino. I stumbled upon the 1950s surf shack one afternoon while walking back from the beach. Mr. Schiaffino wasn’t home, which was too bad because I had heard he mixes a mean pisco sour, but his caretaker let me look around.
The living room wall was plastered with archival photos of the Waikiki Surf Club and the ceiling was covered with colorful boards donated by big name riders like Nat Young, Mark Foo and Ms. Mulanovich — a makeshift hall of fame.
Peru’s love affair with surfing actually dates back to the 1940s, when the playboy socialite Carlos Dogny returned from Hawaii with a shiny wooden board given to him by Duke Kahanamoku, considered the godfather of modern surfing. In 1942, Mr. Dogny founded the elite Waikiki Surf Club in Miraflores, a ritzy suburb on the southern outskirts of Lima, where Peru’s ruling families rode the swells and got tipsy in the clubhouse on pisco sours. (The club still employs “board boys” who rush to the water’s edge to carry and wax members’ boards when they’re done with a session.)
The club placed Peru firmly on the international surf map and played host to the World Surfing Championships, which was won by a local big-wave rider, Felipe Pomar, in the 1960s. But by the 1970s, the sport’s reputation sagged as it became associated with dropouts and druggies, and surfing largely lost it cachet.
About the same time, the country became marred by economic woes, political repression and terrorism. Between 1980 and the early ’90s, the Maoist guerrilla group Shining Path waged war against Peruvian society, killing tens of thousands of peasants and small-town leaders, and turning Lima into a fiery battleground.
“Back then there was a curfew at 1 a.m.,” said José de Col, a pro surfer who quit the sport in the ’80s to become an architect because there was little sponsorship money in Peru. “We couldn’t have parties. Blackouts and bombs were part of daily life.”
Things began turning around and, in the last few years, Peru seems to have planted a 180-degree aerial. The country has stabilized politically under the new president, Alan García, though soaring food prices have driven his popularity down. Despite high rates of poverty (almost half the nation lives below the poverty line), Peru’s economy has grown steadily, providing a much-needed morale booster and, for surfers, an excuse to get back into the water.
After spending a day playing sand bunny in Punta Hermosa, and watching the competitions from the safety of my towel, I was itching for my own adrenaline rush. So the next morning, I hired a taxi and set out on an hourlong journey to Cerro Azul, a mellow break immortalized in a line from the Beach Boys’ 1962 anthem, “Surfin’ Safari.”
After maneuvering through four police checkpoints (shakedowns are common along the Pan-American Highway), we pulled up on a dirt road to the port town. Cerro Azul felt abandoned, like a Western ghost town, except for a few shiny condos and the lazy sounds of salsa lulling through the hot dusty air. The shoreline, however, buzzed with anticipation. True to its reputation, the break had a mellow but perky wave that rippled around a jagged point as though made in a water-park wave pool. I paddled out, staked my spot among the teens, moms and old timers, and caught a few rides before moving on to the next break down the coast.
As much as I liked paddling along southern Peru, the word on the shore was that any surf safari must also include a visit to Máncora, a small fishing village in northern Peru near Ecuador. It enjoys an almost mythic reputation among surfers for its balmy water, endless sunshine and crowd-free breaks. “Una paradiso!” my new friends would say between sets.
But it didn’t seem that way at first. I flew on Aerocondor, onboard a clunky plane that still had ashtrays in the arm rests, and landed in Talara, an industrial port city whose airport is now temporarily closed. The region, with a brown dirt terrain as monotonous as a broken record, is the center of Peru’s oil industry. Giant rigs scar the landscape like mechanical mosquitoes and perfume the air with the fetid scent of raw petroleum.
After an hourlong taxi ride, I arrived in Máncora, which looked like a blink-of-an-eye frontier town until I wandered out to the beach. Nubile surfers in string bikinis lounged under palm trees sipping coconuts, taking turns paddling out into the crystal blue ocean. It felt like that secret spot in “The Beach,” the 2000 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, except it was not quite a secret.
Máncora has been transformed in recent years from a sleepy fishing village into a busy, international backpacker hub. After dark, the town’s sole street turns into a total party, with flotillas of surfers, weekenders from Ecuador and girls in slinky tank tops getting tipsy at bars like Iguanas and Chill Out. There are also several amazing restaurants in town, serving the nouvelle Asian-Peruvian fusion known as novoandia. La Sirena, run by Juan Seminario Garay, a 28-year-old local surfer who studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Lima, serves dishes like causa maki, dollops of mashed potatoes filled with scallops mixed in a red and yellow pepper sauce.
In the morning, the action moved to the beach, especially at the main surf break in front of the Hotel del Wawa, a small hotel and restaurant owned by the hunky surf pro Fernando Paraud, who is known simply as Wawa. “Every day is like a weekend,” said Wawa, who was holding court at his usual table. “Except weekends are more crowded.”
STILL, the restaurant was packed wall-to-wall on a recent Thursday afternoon with surfers waiting out the high-noon sun and low tides. Over delicate plates of smoked carpaccio and seared tuna steaks, they traded gossip on the day’s best swells and near collisions in the lineup. Then, when the tide finally broke around 4 p.m., everyone put down their forks, grabbed their surfboards and headed back to the water in choreographed unison.
It felt like a scene from a Broadway musical, especially when cheers of “Oy!” “Va!” “Ey!” would wash over the crowd like the chorus of a reggaetón song.
I followed them in. The waves were as gentle and as well-formed as the famously friendly breaks at San Onofre or Waikiki. And almost as jammed. Luckily there was a chain of hidden beaches just a hop away.
After bumming around Wawa for a couple of days, I hired a local surf guide nicknamed Pulpo to show me around. He drove me 10 miles in his teal-blue van to Los Organos, an abandoned oil town with a couple of new beachside hostels.
There were no more than a dozen other riders on the surf. I took my board into the water and waited for my wave. It didn’t take long before I caught one that was head high with a defined peak that tapered off to the right into a long shoulder — perfect for cutting and carving long arcs.
Pulpo seemed impressed because he took me 45 minutes farther south to Lobitos, a hard-to-find break tucked at the end of a ragged dirt road. There were oil pumps, rusty pipelines and crumbling military barracks, some of which had been taken over by squatters and turned into surfing hostels decorated with bumper stickers. I poked my head inside one: several blond French girls were having lunch with their dreadlocked Chilean boyfriends.
Eating would have to wait. We pulled up over the dirt and parked alongside the deserted beach. I pulled out my chunky 7-foot-6-inch rental board with trepidation. The beach looked like a small swatch of an industrial wasteland: a couple of oil barrels with flames flickering on top, and a few giant rigs on the horizon. But the waves, it turned out, had a perky, fun shape. Really fun, in fact. And the water was a seductive clear blue. Pulpo smiled. He had promised me a crowd-free break that was off the grid, and here it was.
I rode the swells for several hours, forgetting about the ominous oil barrels and, apparently, the time. Pulpo called me in. There was another spot up the road that was even better.

In Peru, Making the Invisible Visible

In documentary cinema, the distance between empathy and exploitation is sometimes nowhere more visible than in the face of the weeping subject. Television news tends to err on one side of this continuum (think of the reporter who asks a mother how she feels about her child’s murder), though plenty of documentaries mistake misery for entertainment. And then there’s “Oblivion,” a movie so suffused with feeling for its human subjects that when a man starts weeping, you don’t feel dirty about watching his tears fall. You see what I think the filmmaker Heddy Honigmann wants you to see: a man holding onto his dignity despite everything.

The everything in this case is the catastrophic hyperinflation that was one legacy from the first term (1985-90) of the Peruvian president Alan García and that left the weeping man, a shopkeeper and leather worker named Mauro Gómez, almost broken. (Mr. García was re-elected in 2006.) But as she makes clear during this lucid, quietly moving and quietly angry movie, Ms. Honigmann isn’t blaming Mr. García specifically: his first term is just one in a series of man-made disasters visited on Peru, in part by its leaders, including the former president Alberto K. Fujimori, who was convicted of human rights abuses last week and sentenced to 25 years in prison. (Born in Peru, Ms. Honigmann became a Dutch citizen in the 1970s and now lives in the Netherlands.)
Mr. García and Mr. Fujimori are two of the most recognizable figures in “Oblivion,” though by no means the most important. Rather, what interests Ms. Honigmann are the men, women and children who usually play invisible roles in Great Men histories. Shooting in Lima, she makes the invisible visible. She doesn’t just point her camera at two young sisters who turn cartwheels for spare change in a crosswalk, seeking tips from idling drivers waiting for the light to turn green. She also talks to the girls and their mother, who in one breath insists that she doesn’t force her children to imperil their lives, while in the next describes how another daughter died after being hit by a driver running a red light.
Ms. Honigmann refuses to judge this woman, who in any event has already been condemned by poverty. Instead she asks the girls about their dreams. Though one fidgets wordlessly, the other says she hopes to become an Olympian. Dreams are particularly precious for those with so little else. That, among other things, is the lesson of a crushing exchange between the filmmaker and a 14-year-old shoeshine boy, Henry, whose face looks more emptied out than empty and, who, when asked if he has any nice memories, flatly answers no. And does he dream? “I hardly ever dream,” says the unsmiling boy, who then shoots a furtive, sidelong look at the camera. There’s pain in those eyes, but perhaps also the hard glint of rage.
Ms. Honigmann infuses her scenes with an intimacy that brings you close to her subjects without making you feel as if you’d crossed some line. Working with the cinematographer Adri Schover and shooting in high-definition digital that allows her to capture the night in eerie, spectral detail — and with mercifully steady and attentive framing — she comes across more like a deeply engaged visitor than like an interloper. Though her audible, off-screen questions can be pointed, her images tend to speak far more forcefully, as when the camera lingers on two sleek dolphins swimming in a tank in an expensive bar frequented by Peruvian presidents. Like the child street performers of Lima, the dolphins do fanciful tricks. The difference is that the dolphins look well fed.
OBLIVION
Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.
Written and directed by Heddy Honigmann; director of photography, Adri Schover; edited by Danniel Danniel and Jessica De Koning; produced by Carmen Cobos; released by Icarus Films. At Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. In Spanish, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. This film is not rated.