Wine & Tears Ica is a land overflowing with grapevines and witches. The village of Cachiche, nestling amongst palm trees and huarango groves, is home to folk healers and fortune tellers, locals who are endowed with powers to ease pain, curse enemies and predict the future in a pack of cards or the burning ash of a cigarrette. There are also sorcerers who exorcise evil spirits which have entered the human body as a result of a hopeless love affair, and the prayer men who bring peace to one's soul, murmuring their prayers amongst the shadows of dusk to heighten the effect. The night is ideal for warding off evil. Legend has it that the soil here has produced wines watered with tears of the Weeping Dame (La Llorona), a lost soul that walks the land alone, giving life to the parched earth, and producing one of the best local wines. To this day, in the clumps of reeds one can hear the whispering of the "Black Widow", a temptress lady who goes forth in search of a man among the inhabitants of Cachiche, determined to make him suffer both burning hellfire and the glacial delights of Paradise. Here we have summoned the good witches of Cachiche, those dames who are most in demand for their beauty and goodness. They will protect us from curses, obsessed lovers, the evil eye and fright, as well as from sicknesses of soul and body with the enticing wiles of a cuisine that is both celestial and deeply-rosted in Peru´s past.

Submitted by: Brujas de Cachiche Restaurant www.brujasdecachiche.com.pe alcorta@brujasdecachiche.com.pe Arturo Corcuera, Poet