Lima, Peru, May 2011.
Last day in Peru and in Lima. We wanted to finish our trip with the visit of few colonial mansions: our walks in the center and Barranco showed us that there were indeed some absolutely magnificent houses in Lima and we were curious to see what they would look like from the inside. We had been walking around this block of buildings near the Zocalo twice already, looking for the entrance to the “casa aliaga” who was supposed to be one of these mansions, when I finally decided to press the button of the intercom that was guarding a massive closed door that did not indicate anything, just in case. After a few seconds, a voice picked up on the other side:
- Hello, is this the casa Aliaga? is it possible to visit it?
- Yes, it’s going to be 30 soles per person
- All right!
A few minutes later, a short man opens the heavy door and shows us in the patio of the building. The silence and coolness of the place are surprising and contrast so much with the hot dusty streets on the other side of the door. The 60 pesos quickly folded in his pockets, he starts “the tour”.
After climbing a few steps, we enter the main hall and the house starts progressively to reveal itself. Paintings, incredible pieces of furniture, sculptures, gorgeous carpets: treasures are everywhere. The house has very little direct windows on the surrounding streets and most of the light comes from windows in the high ceilings; light is very soft, draping all the house in a clear purple and blue light. This house was originally Jeronimo Aliaga‘s, who first came to Panama from Spain in 1529 and then a few year after to what would become Peru. Since then, the house was passed on through 16 generations and has been in the family for over 500 years.
We shyly proceed with our visit of the house and as we enter the dining room, our guide casually introduces us to the current master of the house, the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grand son of Jeronimo. In the entrance, one of the cupboards on the side contains the actual sword of Jeronimo and another one a copy of the declaration of independence of Peru, bearing Jeronimo’s signature along with many others. As I examined its details, a thought struck me: in these times, people had limits and frontiers to explore. The world was not this finite space we know nowadays and, for those who were crazy enough, there was something to go “beyond” if you fancied a little adventure.
Let’s just take a look at what actually this bunch of crazy, fame and money driven Spaniards accomplished. The most famous of them, Francisco Pizzaro decided to embark in his first expedition at the age of 53. He had been living in Panama for 20 years and had heard various rumors of a empire existing somewhere in the south where the streets were paved with gold. He was old. He had no idea what exactly he was looking for nor where exactly to look. There was a very high probability of just dying at sea or being killed by a very hostile nature wherever he would manage to land. But there was the lure of this reward in the end. And there was this frontier to go beyond.
Let’s fast forward a few years: 2 expeditions have failed horribly, he has been abandoned on an Island during the last one, he has lost hundreds of soldiers in each one of them, he had to go back to Spain to convince the king to fund his last trip and when he finally figures out where to land and where this famous empire is, Francisco Pizarro finds himself with 106 soldiers and 62 horsemen in Cajamarca at 3,000 meters altitude in the middle of the Andes and also in the middle of an empire of more than 10 million souls, surrounded by an army of 80,000 soldiers. The Inca (the king of this empire) is at the gates and there is a strong possibility that he will just decide to savagely murder all these strangers who just landed in his side of the world. Can you imagine yourself in that camp, on that night before the battle? Pizarro ends up defeating the Inca and conquering the Inca empire over a few years. What were the odds? Not very big.
So, which role did Jeronimo Aliaga have in all these battles? I don’t really know. But the thing is that he was there, he was “one of them”. He took part in the complete craziness that was the conquest of Peru by a bunch of mad Spaniards. These men were not afraid of anything or maybe they were just completely blinded by the possibility of becoming rich. Today, we don’t have any frontiers of that kind anymore.
Oh, by the way, did I mention that Francisco Pizarro was the cousing of Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of the Mexican Aztec empire? All this must have been a family thing…
