Cajamarca

Cajamarca, what a nice little city.  It has pleasant restaurants, a bit classier than anywhere we have been so far, it has really attractive old streets with balconies and carved wooden details and some very old carved stone doorways that date to the 1600s, and a very few Inca buildings like the one Atahualpa was kept captive in for 9 months before the spanish finally cooked up a reason to take his life.  Also in the surrounding hills it has some very, very beautiful natural and archaeological wonders.  we only had time to take in one, Combe Mayo, which is quite close to town but about 2,000 feet higher and is a marvel.

Combe Mayo is 3 things. it is a lovely expansive hilltop with incredibly large and beautiful volcanic stone protrusions... think of devils postpile but so much more.  then, some of these fascinating huge monolithic stones have been carved by ancient peoples to create sacrificial places and to create hidden pathways through caves. Then, coming down a valley between some of these stones, there is a very, very unusual finely carved aqueduct system that dates back very, very far in time, I think it may be b.c., which is simple and elegant and technically astounding. incredibly parallel stone carving, little zigzag bends to slow the water. its great. hopefully craig will post a picture. but also on this hilltop area there are the most wonderful distant views of blue peaks, and, there is an old preinca road that runs right through the area.  Couldnt ask for a more interesting morning. we went up in a van of about 12 folks 4 of whom were our friends and we had such a nice time touring this place even though there were about 8 other groups there at the same time, including peruvian boy scouts, and lots of peruvian tourists. we were the only haoles.  another great thing was the terrific batch of 6 cute, cute, cute puppies. the day had it all.  and the tour including ride up and down, entrance fee and a very nice, very well educated guide who brought us up to date on all kinds of things about Cajamarca including the struggles about the gold mines, only cost 15 soles which is about $6.

after a tasty lunch with our friends, (local dishes include a very tasty ´green soup which is potatoes in a broth with lots of neat herbs, and tasty fish, chicken and cui dishes, and today I had chicken in orange sauce, and there are avocados stuffed with vegetables and all kinds of things, also good red wine from chile ) we all headed out to the famous Banos del Inca which is a very historically significant hot springs. thats when we ran into our demonstration!  the wide, wide avenue from Cajamarca to its little suburb, is on an old Inca road, but its a 4 lane highway. well it was blocked, very well blocked, with chunks of stone and cactus and who knows what. here and there were small groups of the students who are demonstrating. they are partly upset about some increase in transportation rates.  we were a little nervous because we did not know if the demonstrators would be upset at seeing foreigners! we made it over to banos after about a mile and a half, and went to the hot springs where we 6 in bathing suits shared our own personal rather large hot tub inside, and checked out the grounds which are very nice, and then nervously set out to go home as it got dark. we decided, since the other folks were all from european countries and we spoke french, that craig and I would pretend to be french also. should we have been worried, turns out, not at all. instead the different groups called out to us, Sorry to have inconvenienced you!  they were very sweet.

we were going to explore some of the inca road system around here, but learned that although the countryside is beautiful, the roads got run down when the spanish used them for transporting things on horses and little of the original paving or walls are left.  so we bailed on our original idea of hiking today and instead we roamed the city. we had to go down to the busier modern areas to get our bus tickets for tomorrow, and walked back checking out local markets including for very fresh fish from the coast, and stumbled on a very nice parade of school kids, I think I wrote about that already. real nice contrast all the kids laughing and dancing with their balloons and confetti in front of the staid churches and old buildings.  more tasty fancy lunch with our friends, lunch here takes hours due to the wait staff is not used to getting tips and take their own time and so a pleasant lunch or dinner stretches on and on.  since our new friends are all very very interesting both in their travels and their future life plans -- at least 2 and maybe more are heading to Brazil, which is booming and having a lot of economic opportunity for skilled folks -- we really enjoy this.  then this afternoon we blogged, walked, explored, checked out all the artesania crafts stores which are all grouped around some of the tourist sites and visited a pretty good small archaeology museum inside a former hospital. hospitals for the poor in peru for the last 4 centuries were not a pretty site, basically sick people hung out in a stone niche while they were prayed for under gloomy unctuous statues and paintings of saints. its a miracle they got cured it seems. 

by the way if you are planning to travel in northern peru, the right thing to take are some lightweight pants that will dry easily, some drip dry type shirts, a fleece and a light rain jacket. maybe a nice scarf or top for dinner. the reason is that when the sun is out, it suddenly gets hot, because it is so close to the equator, but rain clouds can pop up almost instantly and cold winds can blow. so I keep taking my coats on and off.  we are mostly washing clothes in the hotel room and because the weather is rainy then clear, things take a while to dry. also everything has to be a little bit modest. shorts and capris would be both too cold and too immodest.