The Charm of Latin America by Vito Tanzi

Author:Vito Tanzi [Tanzi, Vito]
Format: epub
Publisher: iUniverse Inc.
Published: 2010-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

PERU: A Visit to Machu Picchu

In October 1995, I returned to Peru. The International Fiscal Association (IFA), SUNAT, and the Association of Entrepreneurs of Peru had invited me to be the first speaker at a conference at the Universidad de Lima. I took my first son, Vito Luigi, with me, and we had a difficult time getting to Lima. We were supposed to fly from Washington (Dulles Airport) to Lima via New York. However, there was a big storm in New York, and when we checked in with American Airlines at Dulles, we were told that it was going to be two hours late and that we would miss our connection to Lima. We then rushed to the other Washington Airport (then National now Reagan Airport) and arrived just in time for a TWA flight to New York. But by the time we arrived to check-in with Lan Chile in New York, it was too late. We then changed to a United Airlines flight to Miami, but we could not find our suitcases. We flew from Miami to Lima where we arrived at 5:00 am without the suitcases. They would arrive two days later. I managed to sleep for a couple of hours and then called Carlos Gallegos, a Fund fiscal expert who was working in Lima. We spent a good part of the day with him, trying to buy a shirt and a decent slack so that I could have some half-decent attire for my conference presentation the next day.

We also managed to visit the Gold Museum and the New National Art Museum. The building where the New National Art Museum was housed was originally built by the Ministry of Fishing in the 1960s and 1970s, when Peru was earning a lot of foreign exchange from the high demand for fishmeal. When fishing lost its importance, because of overexploitation of the fishing areas, the building became a museum. During those heydays of the fishing industry, a Peruvian of Italian origin, Luis Banchero, had made a vast fortune as the king of fishmeal. He was one of a small group of Italians who had been very successful in activities related to jewelry, ice cream, and chocolates, among other things. The building is enormous, with bats that fly freely and scare the visitors, and fantastic pieces of terracotta from all leading Peruvian cultures. At that time it also contained a recently discovered tomb of an Incan prince who had been buried with lots of gold and beautiful ceramics. He was referred to as the Peruvian Tutankhamen. The Gold Museum is a smaller building; it is very crowded and enormously rich. Its collection includes gold, silver, antique textiles, and huacos, which are old, terracotta figures and objects. It also has a lot of erotic potteries that leave little to the imagination. Some of these even depicted group sex scenes. Some depict obviously homosexual encounters and some even scenes of sex with animals.

The objects in both museums show the tremendous artistic ability of these peoples.

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