Cajamarca is a town of about 100,000 people set on the western edge of the Andes. After a little difficulty finding our way around town, we wound up at the Hostel Prado. Upon arrival we wound our way from the bottom to our fourth floor room, through stairs that were located at a different spot on each floor, with only small signs directing you through twisting hallways. It was here that I finally understood how conscious people died in building fires, and I thanked god for American building codes. The shared bathroom had a door more akin to a horse stall, and the sink was a glorified eating trough, but it was totally worth the 4 bucks a piece we spent here.
Children Playing in CajamarcaThe next morning we woke up and checked out a local treat, Los Banos del Inca, roughly translated the baths of the Inca people. The Andes, with their wealth of active volcanoes and plethora of rain, probably boast some of the best hot springs in the world. About 5 km outside of Cajamarca, we hopped a combis or shared minivan to the springs, where for 7 dollars we got hot showers, hot tub time, a walk on hot rocks designed to massage your feet, a weird multi headed shower, and a back massage.
View from hotsprings, the steam you see is coming off of pools of 70-76 celsius water straight out of the mountain
With that over by lunch, we turned back to our original mission: Crossing the Andes to make it to the pre-Incan ruins at Kuelap. The first trip we had to make was to Celendin, about 5 hours away and further up in the mountains. This was supposed to be the easy part of the journey along this route, but easy is a relative term. Instead of taking one of the tour buses that leave for Celendin 4 times a day, we opted to try and save 3 to 4 dollars and catch a ride in a shared car. We went to the ¨bus stop¨ for Celendin, which was really nothing more than a curb on the side of the road and a bunch of people sitting there. The only way we knew we were in the right spot was by asking people if this is where cars for Celendin left. So we waited, and waited, and waited some more. There were 15-20 or so people sitting around waiting for something going to Celendin to stop, and then suddenly a car stopped up ahead, and the driver leaned out and yelled ¨CELENDIN¨ This a perfect example of how in South America they don’t believe in lines or colas . Because as the driver spat the words out, it was a mad dash of old men, children, women, burlap sacks, fruit, and the occasional chicken or other small animal towards this car. Stewart and I made it to the car in time to claim a seat in this early 1990s throwback of a small station wagon. The more people the driver could fit in the car, the more money he made, and so the middle of this tiny car is often 4 or 5 deep. I snagged the front seat, but Stewart was not quite as lucky, and had to sit in the trunk with the entire luggage. I couldn’t count them all, but I think that there were 5 Peruvians in the middle seat, one of which was a small girl about 6 who would give me a dirty look every time I turned around.
Climbing out of Cajamarca at 2 or 3 that afternoon, it was smooth sailing. The paved road gently climbed out of the valley and into the range beyond. Happy and content, Ipod playing to drown out the horrible music the driver was blasting (see comment below), we were clams in a clamshell. It continued like this for the first hour, and then... the pavement stopped... and the dirt began. The driver looked over at me and smiled just before we nailed a huge pot hole that sent me and my sunburned head flying into the ceiling. This would be the last stretch of pavement that we would see for the next 3 days and 15-17 hours on the road. The dirt road continued like this for the next 4 hours until we reached Celendin. If the pot holes weren’t enough, the driver was swerving from one side of this two lane wide dirt road to the other, nearly constantly, to try and avoid the pot holes. The problem was he was really bad at it.
The one solace of this trip was that we were rolling through some of the most gorgeous countryside I had seen to date. High up in the Sierran landscape, we wound through rolling hills (we would call them mountains in Alabama, but here they are just hills) covered in green and farmed from top to bottom. One advantage to still using Ox and people to plough your fields is that you can farm just about anything; we saw rows of corn on 20 to 35 degree slopes!
The final fall down into Celendin was literally along the side of a mountain on this skinny one lane path and through two adjoining cities; the road that hugged the side of the cliff was so skinny that when we ran into oncoming cars, we would have to back up 300 to 400 meters to find a spot wide enough without sliding off the edge of the cliff and down 2000 feet. This was all because the main road into Celendin had been taken out by a landslide the day before, as would become a reoccurring theme on our journey.
Getting into Celendin at nightfall in the pouring rain was also an interesting experience. After checking in with the local police and getting one of their officers to show us around town (it was a small town less than 10,ooo so it didn’t take that long), we found a hostel three blocks up from the Plaza de Armas.
Entering the Hostel Reymi Wasi, we were escorted back to our room, and along the way we passed what looked like a miniature bull fighting stadium buried and set 10 feet down from floor level, about 30 feet wide. What was it? It was a cock fighting ring! Apparently every Sunday this entire hotel is packed out as the townsfolk all bet on their weekly cock fights. We were both kind of sad we missed what would have been a true cultural immersion.
Cock fighting ring in our Hostal
Blog Point:
1.) After months spent in South America, I still find myself unable to appreciate the music. It is a mix of nasal singing, pop progressions boiled down to about 4 different variations, lack of imagination in instrumentation, and lyrics that rarely veer away from 20 or so different common rhymes. Thank god for Steve Jobs and the Ipod.
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