Ruta Quetzal BBVA 2011 expedition to follow in the footsteps of Martinez Companon in the north of Peru
The Chairman and CEO of BBVA, Francisco González, Spain’s Minister for Education, Ángel Gabilondo, and the expedition’s director, Miguel de la Quadra-Salcedo, presented the 26th edition of the Ruta Quetzal BBVA: The Adventure of Martínez Compañón in Peru: From the Moche Desert to the Amazon Rainforest.
- (1888PressRelease) November 30, 2010 - On this journey in June and part of July 2011, participants will visit the area where the Spanish cleric, Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón, bishop of Trujillo in the Viceroyalty of Peru, oversaw his jurisdiction, and there they will learn all about the evolution of the main pre-Hispanic cultures that developed in this area. From here they will travel to Madrid and Navarre and set sail from the Basque Country to Lisbon, ending their journey in Extremadura.
* Ruta Quetzal BBVA will leave for Lima in June, moving on to cities such as Huacho, Trujillo, and Chiclayo, from where it will cross the Andes to study the Chachapoyas culture
* This latest edition of the expedition will, for the first time, include a mission for the disabled, set up as a result of an agreement between BBVA, the Spanish Committee for Representatives of the Disabled (CERMI), the ONCE Foundation, and the Ruta Quetzal BBVA organization, the aim of which is to promote the social inclusion of disabled people
* BBVA’s Chairman and CEO, Francisco González, underlined that, “it is our aim that the route should be an inclusive program that enables barriers to be taken down and that furthers the endeavor of social inclusion". He added that "the inclusive education of children and youngsters, which benefits a broad strata of society, forms the backbone to our commitment with society"
* After their tour of Peru, the expedition members will travel to Madrid and Navarre before then sailing the Cantabrian Sea from the Basque Country to Lisbon, to later arrive in Extremadura, where they will commemorate the fifth centenary of the birth of Francisco de Orellana, who discovered the Amazon river
Francisco González, BBVA’s Chairman and CEO, demonstrated his commitment to education, one of the focal points of the Group’s Corporate Responsibility, and underlined that BBVA’s aim was to make the route “an inclusive program that enables barriers to be taken down and furthers the fight against social exclusion”. He added, “education is key to a better future. And this is what we are striving for with our initiatives: equal opportunities”.
At the same time, the Chairman and CEO highlighted the importance given by the bank to innovation. For this reason BBVA views so positively the fact that the young expedition members are delving into civilizations such as the Moche culture, which used the very latest techniques to achieve progress and expansion. He added, "at BBVA, we have also been working for years on increasingly innovative formulas in order to bring the bank closer to the public."
In what is to be the twenty-sixth edition of the Ruta Quetzal BBVA, the 222 young expedition members from 53 countries will follow in the footsteps of the cleric from Navarre, Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón, who in 1779 became bishop of Trujillo in Peru and made numerous trips to his diocese in the north of the country.
The route will start in Lima, and from there to Huacho and then Trujillo. The young people will then visit Chiclayo before continuing their journey through the Andes, the region where the Chachapoyas culture developed.
The Ruta Quetzal BBVA itinerary then takes them to Spain, where the expedition will be received by Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain, and will visit Madrid, Navarre, the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia, and Lisbon, completing their tour in Extremadura with a visit to Trujillo, where members will commemorate the fifth centenary of the birth of Francisco de Orellana, Discoverer of the Amazon river.
Also in this edition, BBVA is once again demonstrating its commitment to the disabled (preference-interest group within its Corporate Responsibility strategy), and has reached an agreement with CERMI, the ONCE Foundation, and the organizers of the Ruta Quetzal BBVA, to include, for the first time ever, a mission for the disabled in the Ruta Quetzal BBVA 2011 expedition.
This mission will enable two disabled youngsters to take part in the expedition, and its aim will be to promote social inclusion. In addition, Ruta Quetzal BBVA and BBVA will ensure website accessibility so as to facilitate the program’s channels and content.
Participating institutions
At the presentation, thanks were extended to the King and Queen of Spain, who in 1979 tasked Miguel de la Quadra with launching a program to forge bonds among Ibero-American nations, for their support of the expedition, to Spain’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation for their patronage, and to Madrid’s Complutense University, which selects the expedition members and designs the academic program and its broadcasting on TVE's channel 2. The ongoing assistance from Canal de Isabel II, Hispasat, Panamá Jack, the Spanish Navy, and Repsol was also highlighted.
The Adventure of Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón in Peru
The Ruta Quetzal BBVA 2011 expedition will travel to Peru, following in the footsteps of Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón, the Navarre cleric who in 1779 became bishop of Trujillo, a city from which he launched a number of pastoral appraisals in the north of the country to get to know his diocese and parishioners. Faithful to the spirit of the Royal Decree drawn up by Carlos III, which ordered the church and civil authorities to collect curiosities and antiques for the collections at the Real Gabinete de Historia Natural in Madrid, Martínez Compañón left behind 1,411 drawings of the nature and culture of his area of jurisdiction. This priceless legacy was compiled in nine volumes and deposited in the library of the Royal Palace in Madrid. It was later to be published as a work known as Trujillo de Peru.
The expedition members will leave from Lima, capital of the viceroyalty of Peru, and make their way to Huacho, city that was home to members of the movement that wanted freedom from the Spanish crown, led by José de San Martín.
From there, the Ruta Quetzal BBVA moves towards Trujillo, a city that was founded by Diego de Almagro in 1534 and which formed the base for Martínez Compañón's pastoral work. Trujillo is strategically located amidst the 11 oasis valleys that saw the development of the Moche culture between the first century and 750 A.D. During this period, the Mochistas built one of the most robust, complex, and sophisticated pre-Hispanic civilizations in America, erecting densely populated cities crowned with huge ritual pyramids, and laid out around spacious squares and other types of constructions. They attained an unparalleled expertise in metalwork, textile manufacturing and pottery, also making important advances in science and hydraulic engineering.
The expedition members will learn about key aspects of the Moche culture with visits to Las Huacas del Sol y de la Luna, the royal tombs of Señor de Sipán, and the El Brujo archaelogical complex (the burial and ritual site where Señora del Cao was found). This woman, a member of the Moche elite, was buried with a funerary bundle made up of twenty-six layers of blankets and cotton sheets weighing a total of 120 kilos. The youngsters will then go on to the villa de Zaña where they will learn about the design of what is now an abandoned colonial settlement.
Martínez Compañón’s bishopric extended across the mountain range, dropping down its east face towards the Amazon rainforests. The route then crosses the Andes, reaching the area that saw the development of the Chachapoyas culture. It is here that the Bishop of Trujillo collected the huge range of geographical, botanical, faunal, archaeological, ethnographical, and cultural features for his drawings.
Situated between the Bosque Nuboso and the upper-Amazon basin, the Chachapoyas culture covered the length of what was one of the scenarios in the search for the mythical El Dorado, an imaginary place full of gold and other riches. Its architectural display, today hidden under thick forest, gives the Chachapoyas an air of "lost civilization", but there was a time when these people led a very dynamic life in strategic and permanent communication with the Andean and Amazonian societies. Against this spectacular backdrop, Ruta Quetzal BBVA expedition members will be able to see the impressive 711-meter Gocta waterfall, the fort at Kuélap, and the Chachapoyas tombs at Karajía and Ciudad de los Muertos.
Commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the birth of Orellana in Spain
Ruta Quetzal BBVA will cross the Atlantic to Spain, where it will be received by Their Majesties King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía at the Palacio del Pardo in Madrid. An expedition camp will be set up at the Canal de Isabel II in Madrid, and members will visit the Royal Palace, the Botanical Gardens, the Prado Museum and the Museo de América, which today houses part of the legacy sent by the Bishop of Trujillo to Carlos III.
From the capital, the expedition will enter Navarre via the town of Fitero, where it will celebrate the canonization of the bishop, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. It will then move on to Cabredo, birthplace of Martínez Compañón, where members will have the chance to discover the ruta de los Dólmenes in the Urbasa mountain range. Then, from the port of Pasajes (Guipúzcoa) they will then set sail in a Spanish Navy frigate for Bilbao, where they will visit the Petronor refinery, and on to Santander to visit the El Soplao cave (important paleontological site from the Cretaceous period with extraordinary amber deposits).
Then, by way of the Picos de Europa National Park, the young people will arrive in Asturias, where they will later be taken to Avilés to visit the Centro Cultural Niemeyer. They will then sail along the coast to the Torre de Hércules, La Coruña’s millennial lighthouse, and on to Finisterre, before eventually docking in Lisbon.
Finally, the expedition will move to Trujillo in the province of Cáceres (the roman town of Turgalium), which was occupied first by Visigoths and then by Moslems until it was definitively re-conquered by the Christians on January 25, 1232. Here the youngsters will attend the celebrations to commemorate the fifth centenary of the birth of Francisco de Orellana, who travelled to Peru in 1527 to join his cousin, Francisco Pizarro, in the conquest of the Inca empire, and who on August 24,1542 discovered the Amazon while sailing on the Coca and Napo rivers.
Ruta Quetzal BBVA 2011 will finish with a diploma award ceremony to the close the Academic Program at the Madrid Complutense University.
For more information, please contact:
BBVA Communications Department (91.374. 67.97)
Ruta Quetzal BBVA (91.351.26.21)
Or, on the official http://www.rutaquetzalbbva.com website.
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