Cajamarca

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We finally arrived in Cajamarca after a long and bumpy bus ride from Chiclayo. Cajamarca is an old historical city in the andes of northern Peru and is most famous for being the place where the Incan empire began to collapse to the rule of the Spaniards. The Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizzaro ambushed and captured the Inca emperor Atahulapa, and eventually executing him after he handing the Spaniards all his treasure. We decided to go there after hearing good things about it from other travelers while we where in Chiclayo and Mancora, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have ever come to this place. We arrived in Cajamarca late on a rainy night, not too welcoming…and took a taxi to the central Plaza de Armas to the best hotel we’ve stayed at so far on this trip. We had our own little balcony overlooking the Plaza, which happened to be hosting several parties that weekend. One was for a political campaign as the municipal elections were coming up, which featured parades and politicians yelling out propaganda on speakers. It was nevertheless a beautiful plaza and place to set up our base for the next couple of days. That first night after unpacking our things in the hotel we ventured out to get some food. Walking along the old pebble streets and seeing the old colonial buildings gave us a real sense of how out there we actually were. Most of the people in this city were indigenous Peruvians and wore the traditional garb. For the first time on this trip we were finally off the gringo trail and an obvious minority in their community. This attracted some attention, especially to my blond hair and blue eyed companion, more on that later.

On day two we got up early to visit Cumbe Mayo, which is a pampa on a mountain range. It’s famous for its extraordinary, well-engineered pre-Inca channels, running for 9km along the mountain tops…..it is said to be the oldest man-made construction in South America. The sheer size of the scene is impressive and the huge rock formations of Los Frailes (‘Big Monks’) and others with fancy names are very strange and unordinary. By being in Cajamarca we were already high up in the Andes, but to get up to Cumbe Mayo we had to travel by combi even higher up, passing by more indigeous communities. It felt like we were going back in time, as these people appeared to be living the same as they did hundreds of years ago. As we were walking through the giant rock formations at the top of Cumbe Mayo, we stumbled across a group of school girls in the mid-teens who went crazy for Nolan. They were all fascinated by him and his distinct appearance that they all wanted to take pictures with him. They screamed and grabbed for him, and got the reception of a pop-idol from all these girls. As we were leaving the area Nolan blew them all a kiss which they went crazy for, it was quite a funny experience to see.

The next day was probably one of the roughest days that I had on this trip, as I encountered the pleasant effects of having stomach flu. We were both supposed to go to the Inca Baths, but instead I spent the entire day either hugging the toilet or curled up in a ball inside my bed. Nolan still went with a English friend that we met and let me know how good it was….at least one of us was feeling good. So after a day wasted we found out through a local travel agency of this place called Kuelap. It was supposedly the Macchu Picchu of northern peru, but way less touristy, so we had to hit it up. The only problem was transportation to getting their, either spend 20 hours going through a really bumpy dirt and rock road which probably had spots that were flooded over, or go back to Chiclayo on the coast and take a smoother ride on a paved highway to Chachapoyas which would in all take us about the same travel time. My sore stomach chose the latter, and we took a bus the following day back to Chiclayo.

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Photos

Cajamarca
Snail

Comments

[Drea]

xo ; ) Hope you are having fun
Wow mike these are the most amazing pictures - I love them ! I can almost feel your enjoyment - I would feel it too !!! The little girl and the lamb pic is amazing - :) I hope that I can add it to my facebook page so that I can show some of my friends a part of your adventure. I totally miss talking and hope you are well, lets chat soon, Andrea