Peru 2017

Leymebamba, April 2017

Sadly, we had to leave Cajamarca eventually. At 5AM. Happily, we had a break in the long ride at 8AM when we stopped in Celendin for breakfast (included in the fare).

After Celendin we started to climb (that's Celendin below),

and climb (you can still see Celendin)

The countryside is beautiful

and still we climb

Spectacular

Top of the world.

And then it is down to cross the Marañon River. This river, with the same name, runs over 1000 km to the Amazon. We are 700 km from its beginning.

We stopped for a few minutes in the town called Balsas 

and then moved on and of course, up.

I think I should add that this is a single lane highway. There is a white line painted along the side of the road - a few inches in, you can see it in the above picture - and lots of the time, if I stick my head out the window, I can't see that white line. Moreover, it is a long way down

Still looking at the Marañon as we continue to climb

Not a lot of room to pass

We eventually stopped for lunch

and we, after a long and rainy day, arrive above Leymebamba, which is our destination for today.

The Plaza Mayor de Leymebamba is pretty and quiet.

Life is not dull in Leymebamba. The day we arrived there was to be a discotheque with "sexis chicas".

Leymebamba has its own river- the Otcubmaba  (cotton valley). This looks like the perfect river for rafting; a nice combination of class 2, 3 and 4 rapids.

Another picture of the Plaza Mayor

We stayed in a hotel in an old house called "La Casona". The owner had three of these things

This is the patio of the hotel

It is much warmer in Leymebamba than Cajamarca. So you see a lot of bromeliads

The tour we took brought us to see some ancient burial sites called Revash. It was a 2 km walk, mostly up and down. This is Javier, our guide.

I need to say that Olga has impressed me no end in her ability to keep up. Most of our walks were not nearly as easy as the nicely paved walk above.

I don't remember the name for this kind of construction but it is typical of this "Ceja de Selva" region.

We started over there (Olga's ability to make these walks amazes me)

The country-side is beautiful

and there, in the top left of the photo are the burial "houses".

The trail gets narrower and more precarious

These graves have all been robbed in years past. They are just too easy to get to.

The paintings include what looks like a fried egg -  the symbol for a grave - and the Andean Cross.

The colour red is probably symbolic of something and it survives the weather.

One final look

Heading back we passed a trout farm

Our next stop was the museum in Leymebamba. This is a small town and a small museum but it has one of the largest collections of mummified remains in the world. There are over 200 mummies in a single climate-controlled room. I didn't take a photo of the mummies although there was a large picture window into the room.

These mummies were found in the cliffs above a lake called Laguna de Condores. I'd like to go there one day but it is an all-day horse ride to there and another back. Olga has suggested that when we get home we take riding lessons so she'll be better able to go to such remote places. That makes me hopeful.

The face on the carved piece of wood in the photo is reminiscent  of the statues on Easter island but no one was able to explain this.

This photo is of a collection of different burial techniques used by the different tribes that make up the Chachapoya nation (500AD - 1500AD).

This picture shows the extent of the Chachapoya people. The big trade between them and the people of Cajamarca was salt. The image at the right of the photo is of a 1000 year-old road. And these people didn't have the wheel.

I am not showing the mummies themselves but here is a photo of one of them.

Those of you who can read Spanish will see here a little of how the Incan Empire established itself.

Back at the hotel, as we were leaving Leymebamba, I took a picture of the corner butcher

Cajamarca, March 2017

Ortuzco

Our shortest tour was to a near-by town called Ortuzco. It is known for burial niches in a rock face above the town.

We started visiting a small waterfall. This is a lovely meadow just above the falls

The falls were not very high but the walk was very nice

Beside the meadow was this home that sold sodas, etc. What caught my eye was the sign on the post. It says "Let's Change our Conduct. Pick up your garbage. You pig."

We had to cross this bridge, which was fun.

The "Ventanillas de Ortuzco" were up a hill.

They were impressive once you got there. The rock face was weakened by all the tunneling and you can see parts of it have fallen off. Almost all the tombs have been broken into and robbed. Now the government keeps a guard on duty all the time.

This tomb is for a whole family. If you zoom in you can see the niches.

Some tombs are nicer than others so the society was hierarchical. I mention this because once we get to Chachapoyas we will see no evidence of  hierarchy.

Our guide, Gisella, with Olga. Gisella is the mother of the little girl you may remember me mentioning earlier.

A shot of Ortuzco.

After Ortuzco we went to a place where we had some chicharone con choclo - fried pork fat with corn. This is the oven used for cooking the food. Wood-fired and super efficient.

We also visited a place where cheese was made.

And that was the end of the day.

City Tour

We did a city tour one morning. Mostly walking but we did take a taxi to the top of Santa Polonia (later). This is a very colonial city. By law you can't use modern architecture in the center. You can modernize building, there is a nice old convent turned into a bank, but you can't change the facade or add to the height of a building.

This it typical of some of the nicer open spaces

Cajamarquinos lament the lack of green space in the city center. Except for the Plaza de Armas you see very little green.

The city tour took us the the Plaza, the Rescue Room, two churches, a museum and the big hill overlooking the plaza.

The plaza is pretty nice. Like most plazas in Peru they have managed the traffic a bit making it one way. In some other cities one or two sides of the plaza do not allow traffic at all.

The long line of doors on the far side of the plaza are all tourist agencies. There is a great deal of competition for the few tourists coming to Peru these days but in northern Peru, in the interior, there are no signs of any stress at all.

This is one of the churches on the plaza.

And this is the famous Peruvian hairless dog. He's not a pretty sight.

After the plaza we went to the Rescue Room. This is the room that the Inca Atahualpa offered to fill with gold to a highest point his hand could reach in exchange for his freedom.

It only recently got the cover from the elements that it now has. There are plaques with comments from the conquistadores. This one says that no one lifted a finger to defend or abandon the Inca when we was captured. They remained beside him until all were killed

You are no longer allowed into the room. On the opposite wall there is a small wooden plaque at the right side of the door showing the height of gold that was to be collected. As I understand it collection was begun but was stopped when it became clear Atahualpa was to be killed regardless.

Another nice promenade and no tourists. Our guide's name was Edilberto. 

We came upon a fashion shoot in one of the cloisters.

The spaces are really nice.

These churches are so old that even though they aren't tall they needed flying buttresses.

The church facades all over Peru are really ornate. They have lots of soft rock that can be worked. Although it isn't terribly sound structurally.

The typical musical instrument from Cajamarca is the clarin.

Finally we get to the top of the big hill and see about 1/3 to 1/2 of  Cajamarca in this photo

Looking down the valley towards the south

Right above my head, up against the hills, is the town where we are staying - Banos del Inca.

We walked down the hill. The vertical park is very Gaudi-like except for the lack of ceramics.

This picture gives you a sense of how unstressed Cajamarca is by rain. If it were raining heavily here, this little linear park would be a mess.

A picture from the bottom

I took this picture after the tour when we went to the market to buy some food. It is a very old sign for a tailor. Notice that whatever came first, the lamppost or the roof, they cut a hole in the roof to allow for the lamppost.

Granja Procón

Our second tour here in Cajamarca was to a community set up by expat evangelicals but now run by Peruvians along the same Christian principles. It is called the Granja Porcón.

We stopped along the way to look at a local handicraft. Stone carvings in a collection of different materials. This looks like soap stone but I am not sure it is. It costs is a bit over $100.00.

 The workshop is rather rudimentary

This is the same road we took to Chota so I won't show you the countryside.

One thing you do notice about Granja Porcón - a lot of pine trees.

We haven't bought many craft items but we did here and this is the place they were made.

Every opportunity (like a blank wall or somewhere a sign could hang) that offers itself is a chance to put up a quote from the Bible

I count 5 quotes on the front of this church.

The community is in a valley covered in pine trees. These are planted by the people here and harvested for a variety of products like pulp and paper.

There is a small "village" but most people seem to live off on their own.

This little chapel is right beside the church above. There is yet a third on the other side. I imagine that the different congregations all gather at the same time and then try to out sing each other. 

This is a better shot of the village.

Here we see homes that are more remote.

We had almost no interaction with the residents so what we were allowed to see was a little zoo they maintain. Most of the animals in the zoo will eat bread (which you buy upon arrival) and the foxes were positively fat.

This is called a grey deer.

And a vicuna. Its wool is even softer than alpaca. I once saw a $500.00 men's vicuna scarf.

Makes you feel that you are in the Alps somewhere

A pretty noisy sawmill.

I told you the foxes were fat. If you look carefully you can see the bread in his mouth.

This little animal looks half-rabbit and half-squirrel

This flower is called lion's tail. It is everywhere. Disney couldn't make a better lion's tail than that.

Back in Cajamarca. This sign called Cajamarca "The City of the Meeting of Two Worlds". An odd name for the place where the Spaniards executed the Inca emperor.

Rain in Peru

Just a note on the weather situation in Peru. Most, if not all the problems are currently found along the coast. El Niño is warming the ocean causing lots of evapouration of ocean water. On land, coastal Peru is in a bit of a heat-wave.

As the moisture-laden air moves over the continent it encounters the hot air along the coast and this causes it to dump its load as rain near or close to the coast. 

The coast is a desert. Lima is the second largest city in the world in a desert after Cairo. So coastal towns are not prepared for lots of rain. Hence the problems from all the rain.

We are in the mountains between the coastal range and the Amazon range of the Andes. It rains here every day but just a little bit so we see little or no impact of the coastal rains except for their effect on infrastructure. We came here by bus, for example, but returning to Lima by bus is out of the question. Also, our phone company was a few days in the north without service because of damage to coastal facilities. Anyone can now call us by calling our home in New Paltz. The Internet has been slow of late but we can still watch Netflix at night.

Our original plan was to leave here on April 1 and go further east onto the Amazon plateau, flying out of Tarapoto on the 9th of April, spending a few days in Lima and flying to Miami on the 13th.

Currently the roads in the region we next want to visit are in good shape. However as the heat-wave comes to an end on the coast (expected early next month) we can expect to see more and more rain inland. The ocean is still putting out water vapour and it has to fall somewhere as rain and without the coastal heat-wave, it won't fall on or near the coast. So we are waiting until a week from today (27th) to decide if we are going to stay here an extra week and fly back to Lima from Cajamarca or continue on our trip and fly from Tarapoto. 

The plus side of having to change our plans is that we'll have to come back next year to finish the trip!!

Cumbemayo

Our first bit of local tourism was to a place called Cumbemayo - High River. We were told it was to view a stone forest. We've seen something like that near Arequipa so we weren't expecting to see something we'd never seen before but that wasn't true.

Everywhere you go you need to climb out of wherever you are; in this case Cajamarca. This is a series of pictures of Cajamarca from above. We live up against the hill at the end of that long avenue at the right of the photo.

Three shots of central Cajamarca. In the first you see that last brownish hill to the left in the background. Pizarro came over that hill.

Cajamarca has a rule in place that prohibits modern construction in the city center. One of the results of this is very little green space. Just that one hill near the very center of the city.

We are going to walk up there on Friday morning. But not on our knees as religious pilgrims are expected to do. At the top right hand corner of the hill is a plaza. This is the Plaza de Armas of Cajamarca.

It is a pretty plaza and I'll say more about it in another post. 

The hair on Olga's head is pointing to where we are staying.

Our first view of tall rocks. Notice the little grotto to the right.

This is our group. National tourism. I was the only foreigner. Our guide was great. She sang for us and recited poetry. Hopefully I can transcribe a poem for you later.

As we were getting started the tour operator, a woman, came with us for a few blocks where she was handed a little girl on a street corner by our eventual guide. Our guide said the little girl was "blessed with 2 mamas". It was a very nice moment.

The Spaniards took to this tree right away. It provided "paper" to write on.

The little grotto beside that "lemon squeeze" in the rocks contains many glyphs. 

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Our guide said no one knew what they meant but on of our group said that they were carbon dated to the same time - 1500BC.

This is the opening to a cave we had to pass through. The steps became quite steep - 16" or ever 2' risers. Olga did very well. Later on she even jumped across a stream leading with her right leg. No problems.

These hats are traditional in the north. The taller the hat the richer the person

More glyphs behind us but you can't see them.

Some chimneys

A snail?

What I was expecting on this tour

How do plants survive?

A pretty place.

The guide called this rock formation "the newly weds". I think it looks more like Olga and me - Los Viejos.

Then a surprise, beside a stream (Cumbemayo obviously), a nice stone wall.

Even more surprises.  A bridge?

Enough of the suspense - it is an aqueduct. You can see that the builders didn't go around rocks; they went through them.

Our guide giving us a history lesson.

These elbows were more about controlling flow than going around obstacles. These people didn't go around unless they wanted to. This elbow slows down the flow.

We walked about a kilometer of this aqueduct and most of it was cut from living rock.

This is where it all begins.

The aqueduct is actually blocked off since it has fallen into disuse over the past 3500 years. But the work of the original builders is clear in its quality, precision, attention to engineering detail, everything.

So what is it all about? The stream is flowing north at this point on the western slopes of a "hill", at 3800m above sea-level and heading for the Pacific Ocean. On the high eastern slopes of this same hill, which I should tell you are part of the watershed of the Atlantic Ocean not the Pacific,  are fields with no water except rain water. So 3500 years ago it was decided to irrigate them with water from this stream.

So what you are looking at is an aqueduct that takes water destined to flow to the Pacific Ocean and diverts it to the Atlantic. How cool is that?

Moreover, since the aqueduct is on the left of the stream (western side) it obviously crosses over the stream (more than  once), hence that little "bridge" in the photo above.

Much of the work is modern reconstruction so people like us can have something to look at. Those earlier pictures of the "wall" and the "bridge" are just that. But the real art work like

is all done by the original builders. Again, 3500 years ago.

All that work just to gain a few meters on the stream (you can see the stream a bit lower on the right)

Just above the point where the aqueduct starts is an alter

and the place where it starts is a little bit of Paradise. That is the Continental Divide you are looking at.

At some points the stream is actually underground and the aqueduct is on top of it. 

Another "bridge" crossing the stream from east to west. Into what appears to be a tunnel

A sharp elbow inside this tunnel  and the flow continues

More glyphs so it seems all the glyphs were made at the time the aqueduct was built.

I suspect the steps were put in for our sake.

Here you can see how very little the aqueduct has gained on the stream after half a kilometer

But it keeps trying

Remember, this was a tour to see rock forests.

On and on

At this point the aqueduct was diverted back into the original stream. It continues on for half a kilometer before crossing over the Continental Divide and then another 8 kilometers to actually get to the fields that need to be irrigated. 

This cross is pre-Colombian and I don't know what it means. More glyphs beside it.

One last look at the effort

So long Cumbemayo. A real surprise and something, I dare say, that only happens once or twice on this earth - man diverts water from one ocean to another. 

Baños del Inca

The whole point of coming to Cajamarca was to visit the thermal baths - Los Baños del Inca. The inca, Atalhualpa, was visiting the baths when the Spaniard, Pizarro, first encountered him, defeated his army, held Atalhualpa captive in exchange for a room full of gold and after it was paid strangled him anyway.

The baños come from subterranean rivers and lakes of water. The ground is of porous rock and all the rain here in Cajamarca filters easily to the levels where the water is heated to very high temperatures. The surface temperature of the water is about 70oC. 

The health benefits of the waters are numerous. The poster below says they are chlorinated but of low mineralization (soft?). They contain lithium and help the nervous system. There are 24 varieties of algae that offer benefits to the skin and because of its sodium content is anti-inflammatory. It says you can drink it too and it activates peristalsis (look it up, I had to).

This is a picture of people arriving at the baños. We are sitting on the balcony of a small restaurant where we have maracuya (passion fruit) juice and a tamal after our bath to rebuild our strength. I feel exhausted after sitting in the baths for 30 minutes.

This is an individual bathing area. It is fine for two people. When you arrive it is empty and recently cleaned. You fill the tub to your desired level and temperature and sit there. One of the curious things about life in Cajamarca is  that the baños are a favourite place for young couples to go. No one blinks an eye when two teenagers get into one of these rooms together for 30 minutes after school. How would that go down in New Paltz or Stanley Bridge?

There are several pavilions and a staff of three or four workers in each of them

The whole complex is quite large

This is the older part of the complex. The access to the baths is directly from outside.

This is a reconstruction of Atahualpa's bath.

This is the complex looking from the old part to the new

You can see the difference between Peru and the US. No fences prevent you from accidentally falling into very hot water

Primordial soup

You can actually rent a weekend cottage that has a private bath inside. Just like hotels in Finland where each room has a sauna.

I took these pictures last year when we first visited Cajamarca with our friend, Clara, from Trujillo. We went early in the morning to avoid the crowds. That's the sun coming up. The baths are open 24 hours per day.

The House

The hacienda we are staying in is called Hacienda Mayopata. It is an old home that was about to fall down when Ileana and her husband (who lost his life in a light plane accident a few years ago) took it over and have brought it back to life.  Our bedroom has a wood stove and we light it every night. It is also our hot water heater.

The fuel is eucalyptus. It burns with almost no ash. We have lit about 10 fires and have an inch of ash at the bottom of the stove.

Both the inner courtyard

and the garden were rotting from excess water and Ileana's husband set up a drainage system that dried everything out and made the place livable again. In the picture above our bedroom is on the left so we have the sun warming us when we wake up in the morning.

I brought Alphonso some books so he wanted me to start reading them right away.

It is sunny but cool even at 8:30AM, which is breakfast time.

The inner courtyard from our door.

Our first day we ate lunch with Ileana and a friend, Susan, from Holland.

Delia, the woman on the right, works for Ileana. Delia is a really nice person.

From the outside, the hacienda looks more African than Peruvian. This is the influence Ileana's husband had.

Even the chicken coup is African

It is a bit of a hike from the street to the building.

Day 1 of school for Alphonso.

Our bedroom (picture above) is like a master suite in a big house.  The bathroom is huge. It is done in an African style. The shower has no walls but a curtain and when they are dirty you wash them.

The Garden

Our destination is Cajamarca. In the first week we rested, took a side trip to a place called Chota and took daily baths in the Baños del Inca. But let's start with a little bit of paradise. This is where we breakfast on sunny mornings.

It is hard to describe how beautiful and peaceful this little garden is. Ileana, the owner, was telling us about the swamp it was when she and her late husband first moved to this hacienda. They dug two deep trenches and put in pipes to quickly remove any water that accumulated from heavy rains. It has made all the difference in the world. 

A typical breakfast here. We start with fruit, then a cup of oatmeal (the word the people use here is quaquer; you figure out where they got the word!), a swiss chard omelette with some avocado on top, a delicious  jam home-made from aguaymanto, a close neighbour to our tomatillo and, of course, cafe con leche. 

Look familiar

A previous guest of Ileana's has drawn pictures of the birds in this garden. Here is a Yellow Warbler picture

And here he is again furious at  his own reflection in our bedroom window.

This attack on our window is a daily event but only when the sun produces the right reflection on the window. Here is another picture the Blue and Yellow Tanager it seems.

Here is a short video clip of the garden.

Trujillo, 2017

We take the bus-cama to Trujillo. Bus-cama allows you to lie down flat and not worry about being kicked in the head by the person behind you. The seats look a lot like fancy seats in business class on airplanes. You go to sleep and wake up the next morning at your destination. This picture is from last year.

Our stay in very brief - just 2 days. As usual we stay at the Casa de Clara hostal. It is owned by our friend Clara Bravo. We had our favourite relleno de yuca.  This is a large croquette that people make with potato but in a particular restaurant in Trujillo they make it with mashed yucca. 

On our last day Clara took us out for a mid-day show and great food. The show was of the famous Peruvian horses called caballos de paso fino.  We saw a man pour a glass full of wine and then move quickly around the enclosure. The liquid in the wine glass hardly moved at all. That is what is so special about these horses. Their gait is hereditary, not a trained thing. 

We all had our picture taken.

And one of Clara with a little girl from France

Afterwards we went to eat at a restaurant called Palo Marino. You can see the menu here.

Later we had our obligatory dish of helado de lucuma. 

Lucuma is a fruit and in ice cream it has the flavour of burnt toffee. Delicious.

Next stop Cajamarca.

 

Lima, February 2017

We only have a few days in Lima so we made a point of eating things we missed.

Our first day we ate lunch with Jean and Edgar, our friends from our time in Brazil. On the menu was a home cooked ham sandwich - jamon del pais.

The next day we went with Naty, the woman we are staying with. We went to La Punta, a very old and charming part of Callao, where Olga grew up.

Of course we went to eat - lomo saltado all of us. Naty's daughter, Sarah, joined us.

And then desert. Those desert prices are in soles. To get the dollar price divide by 3.25.

There is a nice promenade along the the water's edge in La Punta. Clearly a place for families.

Our final day we met Angela, Andres' madrina. Angela is retired from her job in the States and looks after her mother. Rather well, I might add, since her mother is now over 100 years old.

On the menu is one of my favourites - pan con chicharon. Chicharon is fried pork. The sandwich is made with pork, fried sweet potato and an onion salsa. We go to an outdoor bio-feria or organic market. The stall where we buy our sandwich doesn't look particularly hygienic but we have eaten here many times and always enjoy ourselves.

Next we are off to Trujillo in the north. This will be our last stop before we get to Caramarca where we will spend the month of March.