In 1981 I entered the first attempt at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP). At that time, the Peruvian university classrooms were very scarce and the Entrance Examination was especially difficult. My brother Ciro, who was already studying at the PUCP two years before, was a professor at the Academy of Preparation for Access to the Trelles-Montes University, better known at that time as the "Trener". An academy with a lot of experience in Access to PUCP. Again, my studies were with partial scholarship, for being the brother of a Profe de la Trener. The Academy had to combine with the School if you did not want to waste time, and that's what I did, at the cost of increasing my academic stress even more. I had prominent classmates in the Trener (including the Peruvian journalist and lawyer Rosa María Palacios) and as Professor of History of Peru to the writer Fernando Iwasaki. I entered the PUCP at the first attempt and studied only the first semester of General Studies of Letters. They were 6 very beautiful months, full of motivation, love for life and study. Many friends of the Ecclesiastical Community of Base Héctor de Cárdenas entered simultaneously with me, and others already studied in the PUCP. To this we had to add a nice group of friends (girls from the Faculty of Education), getting to have my first official love at that time ... The friends who stood out for their closeness in EE.GG.LL. of the PUC were the archaeologist (and exVice Minister of Culture) Luis Jaime Castillo, Jaime Gálvez, Patricia Torres, etc. Suddenly, my brother Diego died during a terrible accident during a school trip to Marcahuasi. It was a trauma for all his colleagues at La Recoleta, who, in homage, baptized his Promotion as Diego Alegría, in his memory.

​

At the funeral of my brother was President Belaúnde (who had just started his Second Government). Belaunde, such a friend of my father (who was a Deputy of his party in his first government), was the Godfather of Baptism of my brother Diego. At the wake, already at dawn he said giving me a hug: "I was the godfather of Ciro Alegría's youngest son and I still am, so Gonzalo, count on me as if he were your Godfather too". I frequented it little but I keep a fond and noble memory of him. It was a great Peruvian.

​

Afterwards, my mother decided to return to Spain for a while, to "cleanse" herself of so much death that was around the house in Lima (my father, my grandmother and my brother ...), and as if by magic, I was torn from the gardens of the PUCP, plagued by trees and tropical flowers, deer and squirrels, to place me in the neighborhood of Moncloa, near the Arc de Triomf, in the Colegio Mayor Iberoamericano Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (virtual visit: http://colegiomayorguadalupe.es/tour -virtual /), surrounded by students from all over Latin America (Spain, Portugal and all Latin American countries with the exception of Haiti and Belize). I arrived in the fall, and it fascinated me to walk through the Parque del Oeste, stepping on the leaves that placidly floated from the tall glasses until they landed on the side of the road. Streams and mountains, typical of British landscaping, in the heart of the capital of Spain: the Parque del Oeste was a kind of green bastion that separated us from the madding of Madrid.

​

I enrolled in the Faculty of Sociology and Political Science, branch of Sociology. In it I made great friends who would accompany me all my life: Martin Plaza, Hilde Sanchez Morales, Joaquin Tallada Mestre ..