Cajamarca

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Cajamarca is another quite large town, set in the mountains and full of life. Steve from Washington DC, and Scott from Bosten both came with me to Cajamarca, and we stayed in a pretty cool hostel with a balcony over the plaza de Amaz. The first day we arrived roughly 6am and decided not to waste the day so firstly went to see the local hot springs - Los Banos del Inca. The springs were quite impressive, the actual springs you couldnt swin in because they were 70 degrees C - hot stuff! But we could swim in the pool which mixed colder water to make it a comfortable 28 degrees. After bathing for the morning, we decided to walk to a funery nich roughly 4km away. What seemed quite a good idea at first soon became a very entertaining walk. Our instructions were to follow the river, which we did, only to realise that we were on the wrong side, and the only evident method of crossing that presented itself was a rope. So in true spontanious decision making style, one by one we crawled upside down over this river. First Steve, then myself, then Scott....only Scott didnt quite make it, resulting in a pretty wet Scott and bag, full of camera, clothes, dictionaries etc...oops! Scott was a true trooper though and didnt fuss, just carried on walking with us for a grueling 2 hours under the mid day sun (yes we all forgot sun creme and all got very red faces). Ironically, we happended to pass roughly 2 bridges, but this seemed such an easy method of crossing after our adventurous attempts! When we finally got there, the "funery niches" were really cool - hard to describe so check the photos.

That evening we all decided a few drinks were in order, so we hunted the town for wine and nibbles. On route we found a store that was selling large round chunks of chocolate, so feeling a little greedy we decided to buy the biggest one going! Later, after having played cards for several hours and consumed a large quantity of wine each, we decided it was chocolate time. Each with a huge piece in hand we bit into th chocolate that smelt amazing. As we chewed, slowly we each registered that we had bought pure chocolate, and it was horrible. In histerics we each spat out this really bitter and dry chocolate. What a day!

The next day we took a tour to Cumbe Mayo (Rock forest). This place was really cool. There were faces in the rocks, cubby holes with engravings, we even walked through a cave which was very dark! This place seemed to have character, with very abstract scenery that you could literally make anything of, we walked through the forest to find these aqueducts. Built to worship the water, these aqueducts stretched for miles, with perfectly angled zig zags and numerous engravings, it was impressive to see the precision in the build of them given they were carved over 2000 years ago.

In the evening we decided to climb up hundreds of steps to a small church, based at the peak of Cajamarca. Admiring the view we sat (having roamed the gardens for a while) and reminiced, it was really lovely.

On the final day, Steve parted ways with us to head to Equador, while Scott and I travelled up to Celedin on route to Chachapoyas.

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Photos

On route to the funery niches
Local school kids walking home for lunch

Iglesia de San Fransisco
One of the towns churches