Costa, Sierra y Selva

Photo jaunts have become a favorite hobby for me. A photo jaunt is an excursion taken for the sole purpose of taking pictures. You can go alone, but it is much more fun to go with a friend. The difficult thing about going with a friend is that you have to find someone who is just as eager to stop and take pictures of things. A few Saturdays ago I put on good shoes and headed downtown with Sara Joy to photograph the city.

Our tour started with Casa Urquiaga, a casona on the Plaza de Armas which has served many purposes over the years, among them being a place of temporary residence for Simón Bolivar. The house’s walls are thick and the rooms are cool and quiet. In the front hall a dark wood table stands. There is a vase filled with wilting flowers and a guestbook that reads like an atlas. And there is a portrait on the left wall of Urqiuaga himself. He is standing with his son, his heir, his hope, and there is the slightest smile on his face. He seems sure of himself. I know he lived a long life, and saw his grandchildren grow up. But portraits can deceive, and there was much incentive for portraitures in the 18th century to flatter their models.

The hall leads to a light-filled courtyard surrounded by a shady porch. The bricks are old and worn and covered with three inches of red wax. Each gust of cool breeze seemed filled with the dust of the past. I could imagine the loud voices of men coming from the dining room off the courtyard. They were not laughing. The time to laugh was reserved for the future. Now it was war. Bolivar’s personality was nearly as thick in the air as the mingling smoke from the cigars and the gas lamps. These men, arguing over port wine and port cities, were defining a country’s history. For them, the 19th century stretched out like a grand and glorious sun-filled era.

We moved from Casa Urquiagua to Club Central. I’ve walked by the club millions of times. It lies three blocks down from the Plaza de Armas on Pizarro (Trujillo’s equivalent to the American main street, or the British high street) and, like many of the casonas, has massive wooden doors opening out onto a courtyard. There are three courtyards. The last of them has a reflecting pool quietly guarded by the romantics. It is a place for exploring. Every door opens into a new sitting room, or library, or dining room. There is a sense of nostalgia much stronger here than in other place I’ve been. Perhaps it’s because it is still used, a haunt for the aging patriarchs of the city, a sort of elephant graveyard. I lingered in the front room for a while, looking at the striped wallpaper and the gilded mirrors. I looked at the photographs of the founding members of the club. One of them certainly possessed walrus-like qualities. He had a German last name and his eyes were big and black and looked back at me. I wondered if the men in the photograph would have regarded a photograph of me with such interest.

Lastly, we wandered along Junín in search of the Santa Clara convent. There is a small patio leading into the convent where visitors wait to speak to the nuns. A wrought-iron gate, always locked, reveals white adobe walls and open doorways and tile roofs, but no people. There is a small electric box beside the gate with a button. There was a man standing there talking about his brother into the speaker, something about trust. I tried not to listen. When he left, I stepped up to the box and pressed the button. “Good morning,” I said. The calm voice on the other end of the wire came over the speaker. “Good morning. How can I help you?” I explained who we were and what we were doing in the city. “And a dear friend mentioned to me how beautiful this convent was. I wondered, sister, if…if there would be any parts of the convent open for visitors.” There was a pause and then the voice came back over the speaker. “No, my son. This is cloistered convent. We do not allow people in from the outside world.” “Ah,” I said. “Thank you.” And there was nothing left to say. I still think about the convent every once and a while. I would really like to know where the doorways lead. But perhaps some things are better left unseen and unphotographed.