Day 19

Today the class as a group went to Callao. Which is a port city and we went to see the Forteliza de Real Felipe.  A fort built around 1771 or so.  It is still used for military exercises.  They had a platoon marching and practicing drills in camouflage.  But they had a few in the nice dress uniforms for photo ops.   

There is a small replicate of the, Casa de la Repuesta ( house of the answer)..  Peru was fighting with Chile and Chile said lets call a meeting asked Peru if the wanted to keep fighting or end it.  They waited at this house for the response.  Hence the name.  Peru said keep fighting and Peru lost.

The fort has a King's tower and a Queen's tower.  In the tower is a room for prisoners.  They had a very small room, smaller then my bedroom for up to 80 prisoners.  There is something I would call a crawl space between two walls.  We were herded in each shoulder would touch each wall and when the leader came it the end the lights were extinguished.  So we stood crammed in like sardines without a shred of light except the occasional cell phone.  

The prisoners were put in this space without light, (no cell phones then) and fed only bread and water.  I was thinking if I am crammed into this space I'm hoping every one is only driving water and eating bread.  I mean say they added a little frijoles to the dinner and there is no where to run!    After much longer then I liked they turned the lights on and let us back out.  If the US jails were run this way we may have a lot fewer repeat offenders.

There are parts of Callao considered dangerous.  We were four to a taxi and I was in the front with the window half down.  At a light the driver warned me to put my camera away.  Apparently people have been know to just reach into the car and grab whatever they like.  Again walking back to a taxi stand I was warned to guard my possessions.  We were a group of 12 including one of the students brought her 2 year old daughter with her.  So I felt relatively safe.  We had to ask three taxi's before we found one willing to fight the afternoon traffic and take us back to Miraflores.

Dropped off at Kennedy Park, which by the way is the central Plaza for Miraflores.  The artisan craft fair was going on.  I bought a couple of gifts because they had some unusual things I had not seen in the other shops.  Then headed home for dinner.