Cajamarca

After a not very pleasant overnight bus ride - they were the best tickets we could get - we were picked up at 6AM by a neighbour of the owner of the AirBNB rental we had found and whisked to another world. We went straight from our house to the hot baths

Baths are individual and you control the heat. They are emptied and washed down after each usage.

When we came back breakfast was ready.

The garden was full of beautiful birds

and flowers

Garden in Don Simom's Farm, Cajamarca

with mountains in the distance

The home is owned by Ileana Dufresne; the widowed mother of a young child - Alphonso.

Alphonsito

Olga and I traveled with Clara Bravo, our friend from Trujillo (see my Trujillo post).

The patio of the house is typical of older country homes

The nice touches are that almost everything is hand made by the owners. These stairs for example. They are home made, the bracket holding them is home made and they come from the first cut of a tree trunk so only have one flat side.

The sinks in ech of the rooms are what are sold as feeders for pigs. They are re-used old truck tires and cost about $1.50. They look quite nice

All of the wood is the first cut when you are milling a tree (I don't know its name in English) so it only has one flat side. The table the sink sits in is made entirely of this wood - very cheap.

Later in the day we were served tea - English style

The picture contains Ileana's mother (Sophie)  visiting from Yucatan, Olga, Clara and Ileana.

Our first night I made pizza on the stove top. It turned out ok but I don't have any pictures. The second night we made Indian food and ate as a "family".  The kitchen had a wood-fired stove. Each room has a stove (but without the oven) and all the stoves are used to heat water.

The picture is of Ileana and her father, Eduardo.

Ileana also raises cuy (guinea pigs). She charges about $6.00 for one but cooks two every Thursday and sells a meal consisting of 1/4 of a cuy, ric, veggies and salad for about $3.50.

Her hen house is pure African

But what really impressed us was our rooms. They couldn't have been better.

Olga looks like a real campesina in a 3/4 ton pickup.

Visit to Huaraz

We started our trip to Huaraz, which lies between the Cordillera Negra and the Cordillera Blanca at about 3500m, in Chimbote in the home of Blanca Gutierrez and her brothers.

Her brother, Vico, was a big help.

I have taken 300+ pictures of this part of the trip so if you want to see more I have them.

Soon after leaving Chimbote on the coast we began to follow a river. We never left it for long.

The countryside was dryish; dependent on irrigation. The mountains in the distance seemed to stay just there, in the distance,

but bit by bit they got closer.

What is amazing is the level of erosion. I have tons of pictures showing this kind of washout.

People along the road eek out a living hoping travelers will stop and buy something

In very few places you could cross the river

Sometimes it was only a foot bridge and somethings a cable chair.

We came across the first of over 40 tunnels

The valley we were in got much narrower.

And we got closer to the edge of the road

Not a lot of room for two buses.

Some people still try to survive.

but it is rather bleak

We came across our first construction roadblock. As you can see they were tarring the road.

We literally saw workers every 2 miles. Without constant repair the road simply wouldn't be safe.

Those that do survive want cable tv though. This is a photo of the roof of a house

Our next blockage; fallen rocks needed to be removed.

Here you can't help but appreciate rocks.

This looks like an abandoned coal mining operation. Very small scale

It gets narrower

and narrower

Now we get into the part with a lot of tunnels all along this gorge.

None of this looks particularly stable but it holds.Our bus is a normal big bus.

This is a scary as it looks

Coming out of a tunnel

The rocks are beautiful

We had to push this microbus but it was fine with our bus.

It went on for hours. The whole trip took 7.5 hours and at least 5 of those hours were in this wild country. We were climbing all the time. We topped at 3600m.
To keep the water rushing down the mountain to by right from washing out the road, re-enforced culverts were being put in frequently

These cactus grow wild and produce a fruit you can buy in Shoprite (called tuna here).

We are topping out in the Cordillera Negra and will start a slow descent. We continue to follow the same river

It also starts to get greener, at least for a while.

We are now high up and there is the river down below

Lower down now, on the other side of the mountains, the colours are amazing. We are still a long way from the continental divide even though we have gone over a mountain range.

Small town, everyone has satellite tv.

We come across an electricity generation station. The engineers, at least, have nice housing.

Wow, those rocks.

More tunnels, this time on the way down. The road is now paved.

It gets greener as we get lower but we are still following the same river.

We arrive in Caraz and change to a microbus to take us to Huaraz.

I didn't take any pictures of Huaraz. It had the misfortune of being destroyed by an earthquake in the late 70s and was rebuilt in a very utilitarian way; not very attractive. It was beautiful in its day.

The next day we took a tour across the next mountain range - the Cordillera Blanca. This is the continental divide. We stopped at a lagoon - Laguna Querococha -  along the way. In the distance you can see a wee bit of a glacier. It is a shame so much has been lost

But even when you use the outhouse (very clean) you still have a great view. No door, you see.

This is the altiplano; very bleak and wind swept. Lots of sheep being raised

There is the continental divide

This beautiful paved highway disappeared on the other side but the countryside was still beautiful.

It got greener as we got lower and you can see that the entire surface of that far mountain is farmed

We arrive at the archaeological site we were heading for. This is a replica of a "knife" the is found underground at this site. It is 3200 years old and one of few such objects in the world to be left where it was found. Perhaps because you would have to remove an entire temple to get at it.

That is the handle at the top. The point of the blade sticks into the ground.
This is the temple

The place is called Chavin if you want to look it up.

An earthquake destroyed the local town but this wall was not harmed. The layering of large and smaller rocks is the reason.

This is the temple entrance

Me with our guide

These rocks are amazing. Did I say that before