PERU

                      Lots of History to Learn

     The elevations of Peru and Bolivia are the highest in the Americas, as well as home to the most advanced pre-Columbian civilization.

      Peru is South America’s third largest country, and is five times the size of Great Britain. Ecuador and Columbia border Peru on the north, Brazil and Bolivia on the east, Chili on the south, and the Pacific Ocean borders the west. The country has three distinct geographical regions: a narrow coastal belt, the Andean Mountain Range, and the Amazon Basin and rain forest. The Amazon River, east of the Andean Range, and the world’s widest river, serves as a jungle basin housing sixty percent of the country’s landscape, but only 5% of the population.

The Andes with its green valleys, snow-capped peaks, rivers, and hidden ruins run through the country like a spine separating the desert from the jungle.  One half of Peru’s population live in the Andes

Indian (Quechua, pronounced ketch-u-wa) makes up 54% of the population, Mestizo (Indian and European mix) makes up 32% of the population, Spanish 12% and 2% are Black or Asian. Ninety percent of the population professes to be Catholic. Agriculture employs 33% of the population, another 27% are in the service industry, and the rest work in mining, and manufacturing.

     The country has a bi-cultural society, with one sector being the rich white folk, and the other the poor peasant, translated Indian or indigenous people (campesinos). However, with the increasing tourist industry Peru is beginning to have a middle class.

HISTORY       

      After Columbus’s landfall in 1492, the Spanish led a rapid expansion and conquered the Caribbean Islands and the Aztec and Mayan cultures of Mexico and Central America. By 1520 the Spanish were ready for South America.

       In 1532 the Spanish invaded Peru collapsing the Inca Empire. The Spanish horses and guns were no match for Incas on foot. The first Spanish stronghold in Peru, established by Francisco Pizarro, was called San Miguel de Piura, and then the Spanish moved into the heart of the Inca Empire. By destroying buildings and looting the gold and other treasures, the Spaniards in effect destroyed all historical records. However, there were no written records at that time, as the Incas had no written language.     

       After the Spanish invasion, churches replaced the destroyed Inca temples in Cuzco. By 1700 the Spanish colonial system was well established. In the 16^th and 17^th centuries the Spanish resettled many Andeans in towns where they were forced to work for Spanish landowners. They were converted to Catholicism, and churches were built over sacred Inca sites. In spite of centuries of repression ayni survived and the Reformation Act of 1975 returned much land to the indigenous people.

       By the 19^th century the Latin American colonies were dissatisfied with their lack of freedom and the high taxation imposed by Spain, and in 1824 Peru became independent.

        In 1866 a brief war broke out between Peru and Spain which Peru won. A bit longer war with Chili over the nitrate rich fields of the northern Atacama Desert took place 1879-83. Chili won that one. There was a brief border dispute with Ecuador in 1941. The last 60 years the government has been military dictatorships with occasional coups. The biggest problem in recent years has been inflation.

CUBA

                                                   The Nation

       This island nation, jewel of the Caribbean, at 750 miles long is the largest island in the Caribbean. About the size of Pennsylvania, it covers 42,804 square miles and has a population of 11 million. The country is home to 6000 plant species and many bird species, half of both are indigenous to Cuba. More than 300 bird species use the island as a fly-over.

       The landscape includes a combination of mountain ranges, plains, valleys, marshland, the northern coast, and has 200 bays and 250 beaches. On the east the Sierra Maestra Mountain range towers 6500-feet, while on the west sits the Cordillaro de los Organos range. In central Cuba we stopped at an overlook to soak up the beauty of the Sierra de Escambray. Even a panoramic camera had difficulty capturing the vastness and beauty of the area.

      This country of great diversity and natural beauty has four main ports with the Port of Havana being the largest.  With a temperate climate, the sub-tropical country boasts an amazing literacy rate of 98%.
 The flag has three horizontal blue stripes divided by two white stripes; on the left is a red triangle with a white star in the middle of it. The country’s crest is in the shape of a shield. Across the top of the shield is half sun rising behind a mountain. The left half of the bottom is the blue and white of the flag in vertical stripes, the right side represents the landscape of mountains and palm trees.

      In the 19^th century, Cuba was Spain’s colonial jewel and the vibrant crossroads to the New World. Ships laden with treasures passed through the Port of Havana. Havana grew up around the harbor evolving as a protectorate of the ships and their crews, developing a service society. Four forts were built to protect the harbor.

       After the Spanish-American War, business interests made the island a virtual U.S. colony, and it remained such until the Revolution. The many mansions and architectural treasures throughout the country, although numerous but decaying from over 40 years of neglect, are evidence of the amount of wealth that flowed into the small Caribbean nation.
    The Spanish built cities where they settled while the British just allowed cities to grow. By the mid 18^th century Havana was the 3^rd largest city in Latin and South America (after Mexico City and Lima, Peru).  
      The Treaty of Paris traded Cuba for Florida in 1763.  In 1898 the US military initiated reform to eradicate yellow fever.

A rich diversity in arts and music reflect the blending of cultures brought to the island by Spanish and African immigrants. Sugar and tobacco became king and the greatest influence on the economy.

To understand Cuba one needs to review a bit of its history. Christopher Columbus discovered the island in 1492 believing he had found China, India or a new continent. For some reason, he did not circumnavigate Cuba, so was unaware that it was an island. He described Cuba as the most beautiful land human eyes had ever seen. The native people of that day were called Tainos, meaning big land.  

The island’s location, 110 miles from the Yucatan with its Spanish influence, 90 miles from the Florida coast and its Spanish influence at that time, 35 miles from Haiti and French influence and 50 miles from Jamaica and the British influence, made it the key to the Americas during the colonial era, in the 18^th century. However, the proximity to these cultural differences also meant decades of conflicts.

The British took Cuba with 10,000 men and ruled it for eleven months in 1762. At that time the population of Cuba was 4000-5000, so the British troops outnumbered the population by 2:1.  The Cubans were used to conflicts with pirates, but this was the first time that they had to defend themselves from a foreign power.

In 1792 African slaves from Haiti were kidnapped and taken to Cuba to work on the plantations. The French rebelled at this point and left, going home to fight the French Revolution. Between 1800-1830 Cuba’s sugar industry exploded creating rich sugar barons and the country switched from a service economy to a plantation economy.

One million African slaves expanded the sugar industry and by 1830 fifty percent of Cuba’s population was black, which changed the religion, culture and society.

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