Customers And Bearings

This is the last installment of my series on my latest Peru trip.  Here, I show some of our customers (in Cajamarca and Lima) and show some photos and comments on what it is like to receive 21 pallets of bearings...

This first picture of Gilmer Correa, who sells auto parts in Cajamarca, Peru to the public.  "C & C Repuestos" is currently our only customer in Cajamarca, but we hope to land more.  A city of 250,000 people!  And, while the fleet is fairly different than Lima's (more below), we need our bearings to be more available there.  I just dropped by to visit, without notice, and yet he talked with me about the bearing market in his city.  The most prominent piece I saw while there was our Chinese hub & bearing assembely number 54KWH02, the front wheel piece for the newer Toyota HiAce (Toyota's van).  GRACIAS por su tiempo, Gilmer, muy amable!

I had some time to wander about downtown Cajamarca when my wife and her toured the area.  I was most interested in seeing the differences between what vehicles are in Cajamarca vs. Lima.  It turns out that Toyota is more popular there in Cajamarca, as the vehicles are considered very sturdy, and the locals will often pay up for a stronger vehicle...  Also, there are LOTS of mototaxis (tri-wheel vehicles based on motorcycles, these are all made in India, mostly by India's Bajaj).

Here are three mototaxis (the last one is way back there...) along a minor street near downtown Cajamarca (click on any image for a better view):

The below picture (downtown, at the Plaza de Armas) is either ALL Toyota or nearly so.  In the center is a white Toyota Probox, it is noticeably different than the Toyota Corolla Station Wagon (bery popular as a taxi all over Peru).  The Probox can haul more volume and more weight than the the Corolla, and so has become very popular.

Other Toyotas of note (hey, I took this photo for a reason...), are the two Toyota HiLux pickup trucks parked at the left, the small blue car "in front of the Probox" is a Toyota Yaris (smaller than the Corolla, they DO sell the Yaris here in the USA, and it is failry popular), and the van in front is the Toyota HiAce van (I do not know if it is the "new" one (using the hub & bearingt assembly) or the older version (using two tapered roller bearings).

My trip to Cajamarca was wonderful and very informative.  I will always remember the people and how nice they were to us.  Not to mention the scenic beauty...

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Soon enough we were back in Lima, this time the bus trip only took 16 hours as it was not attacked this time...

Monday evening we invited some of our customers to dinner, a "US-Style" business dinner.  Here is a picture I took of our customers and three of Ameru's employees:

Seated, left to right: customers Julio Flores, Carlos Alcantara (Roma Bearing), Ameru salesman Raul Quispe (our expert in Toyota Probox...), and customer Gino Ñaupari (Repuestos Ñaupari SRL).  Standing are Roberto Arce (Ameru's Sales Manager) and Cesar Rodriguez (General Manager).

Our dinner was enjoyable and informative, just the kind of meeting I like!  I would like to thank Messrs. Flores, Alcantara and Ñaupari (as well as our own Ameru guys) for a great dinner.

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Yet another high point of our trip was the arrival of 21 pallets of bearings (Delfu brand from China, double-row wheel bearings and hub & bearing assemblies).  This was by far our largest order (by weight and volume) ever.  It took TWO trucks (a VW Brazil truck in front of the forklift (yellow) and a Ford Brazil in the back (closer to the camera, note that you partly make out "Ameru Trading" on our building above the second truck) to make the delivery.  The first truck was just opened and the forklift is about start working...:

Ameru now is at the point that when we get a large order, we hire (by the hour) a forklift ("pato" in Peruvian slang ("duck", because a forklift looks a little bit like a duck..) or more formally: "montacarga") to do the heavy lifting (rather than breaking down the pallets by hand in the back of the truck and moving boxes to the edge by hand).

This picture shows the very little clearance we have for a forklift at our entrance as well as two of Ameru's team (Roberto Arce and Gonzalo Rodriguez), as a local señorita (not ours) also looks on):

This next photo has kind of a lot going on, at least for those who have not worked in a warehouse or similar. In the back of the truck is our newest employee (Erick Cerrato) who might also be our strongest guy...  He was helping the forklift driver pull that pallet that was near the front of the truck (beyond the reach of the forklift's prongs.  They use the olive-colored cloth straps, wrapped around the pallet of bearings and dragged toward the back by the forklift.  The pallet is now in position to be picked up by the forklift and brought into Ameru.  Note also under the rear of the truck are two hollow steel prongs, these, when put on the forklift's own prongs give about one foot further reach, but they had already gotten the easy-to-reach pallets.  Also in the picture are Roberto Arce and Nestor Cardenas (Warehouse Manager, at the far right).

The below picture shows some "pallet tags".  If you click on the image, you will see at left-center our popular piece 54KWH02 for Toyota HiAce, mentioned above (customer in Cajamarca):

12 of the pallets (actually 13, you can see one at the far left further back):

Ameru team members breaking down pallets.  From left: Erick, Nestor and Cesar.  I put some of the tools we use for this picture.  Note size of the crowbar...

My wife's dad had visitor by chance come by when Ameru was unloading: his brother Zacarias.  I asked them to pose for a picture while "working".  Left is Zacarias (about 85 years old) and right is "Super Lolo" (Eleodoro, 92 years young).  Super Lolo is the right nickname for him though.  He spent about four hours doing the equivalent of construction clean-up work (with no gloves...).  Some of you may remember him from the front page of that Peruvian newspaper demanding their pensions.

Labor laws?  "Que son esas, señor?"

Review Of Panorama Cajamarquino

This is the second article covering our trip to Cajamarca, and for me, the highlight of an excellent trip.

The Department (roughly equals a US state) of Cajamarca has but one big city one real newspaper (circulation: 10,000 copies, published daily, roughly 32 pages or so); Panorama Cajamarquino (The Cajamarca Panorama).  For a few reasons, I thought I would like to have an interview with someone at their paper.  Our hotel kindly called them up, and I soon got an email from Mr. Jaime Abanta Padilla, their editor, inviting me over Thursday morning.  I brought along my camera, as any budding reporter would (remember my interview in Italy with the big gold buyer...), the walk was just 6 blocks or so from my hotel.  Here is the entrance to their building:

Rather than fob me off with some junior reporter, Mr. Abante was kind enough to give me over two hours of his time.  Here is a picture of him next to a publicity sign of theirs:

Also on the first floor was an old printing press they keep "just in case" I would guess.  He told me it was about 40 years old, and that given a fair of maintenance and some spare parts that it would still work.  Keeping machinery around "just in case" is perfectly valid in Peru and many other countries.

Here is one the two more modern presses that they use, the other has about the same capacity, they use both each day.  They print each edition in the afternoon, and distribute it so readers can buy them early in the morning.  The printing press is from Germany, but I do not know which company.  He told me that they have locals who can do some maintenance, more complicated work is done by bringing in experts from Trujillo (a few hours away, and Peru´s second largest city).  He told me that a machine like this (used) would run some $20,000.

***

We then went upstairs to talk.  After the pleasantries ("How do you like Cajamarca?", "How many children do you have?", etc.) we got down to business.  He told me that Cajamarca was not only the capital of the Department, but also a "regional capital" that served border areas of other Departments, their newspaper circulated throughout various parts interior parts of northern Peru.

The city has some 250,000 inhabitants, that has grown a LOT since about 1990 (50,000), most of the growth is due to the mining industry, Peru´s largest economic sector.  The mining is done well away from the city.  There has been a COST to all of this revenue and people moving there: a higher crime rate, but tourists are not molested.

The city itself and the surrounding area possess remarkable beauty (see my last article), and this brings in a lot of tourists too.  He estimated that tourism brings in 10% - 15% of the money to Cajamarca.  Tourism is DOWN somewhat due to social strife (see comments later below), but it is slowly coming back.  Our hotel, for example, was not at all empty nor their restaurant...

We briefly covered a little bit of the city´s history, most of which is in my last article.  But one important fact I did not know until he told me: the Spanish first found gold and silver in 1772 (while Peru was still a colony), and gold mining has been continuosly mined ever since, and has always been a very important part of their economy.

***

Because of my personal interest in gold (shared by many of you, dear readers), I asked  lot of questions about that whole industry there.  Almost all of this information came from him, Mr. Abante knows his turf...  The biggest mine in the Department is the famous Yanacocha gold mine, it is the largest gold mine in South America.  Yanacocha is a joint-venture project of Canada´s Newmont and Peru´s Buenaventura (by far Peru´s largest mining company).  There is another large gold mine run by Canada´s Goldfields, but is not as big as Yanacocha.

But, the BIG news in the gold mining business in Cajamarca is the HUGE new discovery named "Conga".  Conga´s gold lies underground, and unfortunately also lies under between 3 and 6 (depends on who is counting and how -- Mr. Abante said four) Andean lakes.  Conga is such a large deposit that if developed it would be one of the very largest in the WORLD.  The problem is that those lakes would be destroyed in the mining process, and there are many locals who depend on those lakes for water...  And they have always lived there...  When (not if, the deposit is so big that at some point it will get mined) they start serious work up there, the population would probably have to be moved...  And, as far as I know, there is really no convenient vacant land for them to move to...

[Sidebar on mining in Peru in general.  The laws are different there than in the USA.  The national government owns ALL underground mineral resources.  While private land owners (say an ecological minded rancher -- common in ecology-concious Cajamarca) can say "No" to miners coming on to his land, there are a variety of tricks and coercions the government and others can do to "convince" them, in the end, they all sign..., for peanuts.  It is also important to understand that mining is still a dirty business, especially in Peru where the national government is fairly lax in enforcing "best practices" (as miners do in the USA).  Yanacocha, for example, even while it is relatively "green" and responsable, did have an accident when a trucker wrecked his truck filled with poisonous mercury that spilled into a river with over 1000 affected to some degree...]

So, mining is a LITTLE BIT cleaner now than in the past, Mr. Abante told me, but not very much.  There is still corruption and all...  And the government needs the money (Cajamarca Department gets to keep about 30% of the money from mining)...  So keeping in mind that mining is still dirty and pollutes a lot there in Peru, it is understandable that a LOT of locals are against Conga...  Many (most?) are in favor of the project, however, as it would bring in a lot of money.  $ Billions and $ billions...  But, the lakes disappear, the really big problem is WATER.  And reservoirs (dams, a proposed solution) bring their own problems and are not as good as lakes...

At this point the project has not been started, and there is a rough stand-off between rural locals (and their environmental allies) who would be affected and almost everyone else (who would make more money).  The gold miners at Yanacocha, for example, are very well paid and treated well.  And mines bring in all sorts of service-sector work (alas including crime like prostitution, etc.).  Another problem is that radicals have infiltrated the local protest movements (hey, do you think all those really bad "Sendero Luminoso" guys just disappeared into the night?).

So the project has not been started. It is not clear when things will get moving, and a few of the protests wre violent enough (recall: Sendero Luminoso) that the government imposed a state of emergency three times due to rioting, and THAT is what hurt tourism as well.

Just based on what I "know" now, "Presidente Mix" would pay each affected citizen, say, $5000, and put each onto a decent patch of land as nearby as feasible.  This will not happen though, because in general the rural poor are treated badly by TPTB (The Powers That Be)...

One other important mining project, apparently LESS controversial is the "HUGE-ISSIMO" (sorry, lo siento mucho...) copper deposit at Michiquillay (Quechua is a wonderful language by the way, I honestly mean that, it is so much more connected to the natural world than any other language I have looked into...).  Michiquillay is so big that once in production, Peru would overcome Chile as the world´s largest producer of copper.  Peru is now No. 2 in copper production (I think), Peru and Mexico are both essentially tied for No. 1 in silver, and Peru is about No. 5 in gold production.

The above commentary would lead one to think that Peru has very large mineral resources.  Yes.  The words Mr. Abante used were: "reservas INMENSAS".  But, Chile has large reserves in their uninhabited deserts, almost all of Peru´s mineral resources are co-located with people...

Two last things about natural resources.  I asked him about China, who is BIG in mining in Africa.  He said yes, the Chinese are exploring there in Peru.  And he expects LOTS of Chinese to be coming down to Peru, as tourists and owners (for better and worse...).  I also asked him for an update on the oil and gas sector, which is "fairly important" in Peru.  They HAVE indeed started exploiting their Camisea gas reserves) as explained in an earlier blog article: ) and they export some crude oil.  He told me that the geology seemed favorable for finding more oil in their Amazonian Basin, but that Peru would never become "a Saudi Arabia", that even if they find big deposits (who knows?) that it would not be a game-changer...

We then went on to talk about other important parts of the regional economy: agriculture (and related), handicrafts and other artisanal work and new fish-farms (which are apparently working out well, the fish are not diseased or toxic and the money is there -- they raise trout in their fish-farms the way we do, in pools).  Also, there are several infrastructure projects (especially roads and bridges, as well as some electric projects).

***

So, there it is.  I now know more about Cajamarca than any other American I know, LOL!  But, it was due to Mr. Abante being kind enough to give me HIS time and knowledge of his wonderful region.  Below is a picture of the front page of Thursday´s edition (the day I met with him):

The edition on Wednesday headlined the death of Hugo Chavez (BIG NEWS in Latin America), even more so than above.  Disclosure: neither Mr. Abante nor I shed a tear nor had moment of silence.

Jaime Abante!  Muchas gracias de mi corazon y de mi alma!  He is a gentleman and a scholar.

***

Jaime Abanto Padilla has a blog, he writes there daily (in Spanish), check it out if you are curious, I am adding his to my list of blogs to read!

balconinterior.blogspot.com

Cajamarca, Peru

Today, Carmen, her sister Lily and I arrived back from the beautiful city of Cajamarca in the Andes of N. Central Peru.  The city has grown a lot over the past decades, mostly because of people moving there to support the local gold mines.  The population is about 250,000 (estimates vary), and the altitude is about 8900 ft. (just high enough to give each of us a little bit of soroche (altitude sickness), in our cases, just a mild headache for 24 hours or so.  (Cuzco at 10,500 ft is a different story..).  Cajamarca is a beautiful city, but its history is soaked in blood and gold, from early days even until now.

It is safe for tourists, and highly recommended however!

We traveled by bus (20 hours, we were delayed about three hours by someone throwing a rock at the windshield of the bus near Trujillo, it was damaged enogh that we had to wait for another bus to take us up into the Sierra).  We took "first class" which allowed us to sleep nearly flat in our seats.  We arrived in Cajamarca about noon.  After checking into our hotel, we went for lunch.  Here is what I had (for ALL photos, you can "click" on the image for a better view):

Recognize that delicacy of the Incas?  It is fried "cuy" (guinea pig), the first time I ever ate it.  A potato "guiso" is just to the right.  And Peruvians (even in the mountains) love their rice...

The next day we took a tour to "Cumbemayo", where the Incas and certain Pre-Incan civilations spent some time working wioth stone, both as art and to trasport water to Cajamarca (an important city before the Spaniards came).  Here is a panoramic view of Cumbemayo:

Petroglyphs from a Pre-Incan civilization (they think these are over 1500 years old), they do not have these figured out yet (there is a LOT of ancient Amerinidian remains of all sorts in Peru, they do not even have the Mexican Maya hieroglyphics figured as far as I know...). The easiest to see are those right of and below the center of the picture.  You can kind-of make out the "roof" above, it is rock that has prevented the rain from washing away all of this through the centruries:

Cumbemayo is at altitude of approximately 10,000´ to 10,500´ depending on who says it, it IS well above the city of Cajamarca.  This next picture shows some clouds coming in, that means rain will be coming soon! March is the height of the rainy season is Cajamarca, from about 1:00 PM to 8:00 PM it rains on and off, sometimes hard.

On the way back to the city, I asked our guide to stop so I could take a picture of the ancient and famous "Camino del Inca" (the Inca Highway, note that it could be a little rough as they did not have vehicles, llamas were their beast of burden, each can carry some 15 kg (35 lbs).  This part is no longer used.

After the tour, we went to their most famous landmark.  This next photo is perhaps Cajamarca´s most famous landmark: the "Cuarto de Rescate" (the ransom room).  The early Spaniards (under the still much-hated Pizarro to this day) had come to Cajamarca a few days ahead of Atahualpa (Atahualpa and his brother Huascar were engaged in a civil war to see who would be king).  The Spaniards captured him, and held him for a huge ransom (it is still not completely clear the chronology AFAIK) in the now famous room.  Here is the entrance:

The Inca agreed to turn over gold objects (plates, religious items, decorative artwork, etc. -- the Incas did not use gold or silver for money).  Atahulapa raised his hand to mark the level of the room where the gold would be piled up.  From all over the Inca empire, they complied, it worked out to 5000 kg of gold (worth some $240 million) as well as over twice that volume of silver (12,000 kg (worth some $10 million, all TODAY´S prices).  The picture below was painted somewhat recently (1900s?, I forget), but shows the Inca noting with his hand how high the gold and silver would be piled up.  And after the Incas paid the Spaniards the +/- $250 million worth of gold and silver?  Surprise!  They broke their word and strangled Atahualpa by garrotte...  To this day, most Peruvians still dislike the Spaniards, wait until you go to Cuzco and listen in...

They would not allow us into the roon itself, as it is under restoration (remind anyone of Italy?).  But, here are stonemasons restoring the room, the Spaniards destroyed ALL other Inca buildings in Cajamarca (unusual, because they often recycled Inca buildings into churches and other buildings), note the small rectangle to the upper left (of the door), which marks the level the Incas filled that room:

[Sidebar: the Spaniards took a LOT more gold than the $250 million or so from the Incas, these figures are just the RANSOM for Atahualpa, they went on to take/steal MUCH MORE later on]

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The view of the "Plaza de Armas" (typically the main square in Peruvian cities and towns) from our hotel´s restaurant:

A corner scene, Cajamarca, Peru, note the lady´s hat at the left, each region of Peru has its distinctive local women´s wear...

A view up up to the shrine of Santa Apolonia (I do not know the story), I hiked up to the top (where the faint white cross is) to take a few photos.  Going up all of those steps at 9000 feet is more tiring than it looks...

Two panoramic photos from Sta. Apolonia of the city of Cajamarca, which sits in a kind of "bowl" in a valley, the first is towards the east, our hotel (obscure in this photo) is about dead center of the photo:

Another panoramic photo, to the southeast, note rain is coming!

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My next two pieces on Cajamarca will be about:

-- Cajamarca and Ameru´s customer there as well as its automotive fleet
:)
-- My interview with the Editor (an excellent and knowledgeable gentleman) of their newspaper!  Part of my interview with Mr. Jaime Abanto was about gold and the impact of the gold mines, present and future...