CHICLAYO, Nov 3 — A luckless Peruvian town that has for centuries been dismissed as cursed is hoping for a new lease on life when Pope Leo visits this month.
Under Spanish colonial rule in the 16th century, Zana — home to around 4,000 souls — was a wealthy centre of commerce dotted with grandiose churches.
But three centuries after it was nearly destroyed by a flood of biblical proportions, vultures now roost in its ruined steeples.
Zana’s identity is strongly associated with Catholicism, thanks to legends of divine punishment — before the flood, it was regularly attacked by pirates — to the death in the town in 1606 of Toribio de Mogrovejo, a Spanish missionary who converted Indigenous Peruvians to Christianity.
