Peruvian watchmaker restores German clock in Huancayo Cathedral

Luis Enrique Sisniegas Phocco, a 46‑year‑old Peruvian watchmaker, climbed 30 metres to the tower of the Cathedral of Huancayo and revived a German tower clock that had been silent for 23 years. Carrying more than 20 kg of tools, he worked on the clock’s over‑100 pieces, describing his work as “like operating a heart” and earning the nickname “the surgeon of time.”

Sisniegas, who learned the trade from his father Andrés Heredia Bellido and has spent three decades repairing clocks across Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica, applied his expertise to recreate missing parts and restore the historic mechanism, bringing the cathedral’s time‑keeping back to life after more than two decades of dormancy.