Cajamarca, Dairy Capital of Perú
Trip Start
Apr 24, 2008
1
31
38
Trip End
May 29, 2008
Cajamarca, Cajamarca, Peru
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Yeesh, that´s for sure. It wasn´t horrible, but not too clean. I ate my entire dinner because I was so hungry, but hoped it wouldn´t come back to haunt me. And it was really inexpensive at around $1.25. From dinner I went straight to bed. No movies last night...I had a TV but no cable. I watched the most hilarious telenovela (soap opera). It was dubbed in Spanish but not originally in English...maybe Portuguese? Maybe it´s Brazilian? Anyway, there was this hot blond guy who assured his girlfriend that "Sí, me gustan las mujeres. Me gustan las mujeres MUCHO." (Yes, I like women. I like women A LOT.) Methinks he doth protest too much! The next scene was of him and another hot guy riding horses, shirtless, talking about how much they like women. The next scene was the same two guys fishing, shirtless, their fishing poles extending straight out from below their belts and talking about how much they like women. I was beside myself with the giggles!
This morning I woke up after 9 solid hours of sleep. I woke up to the hustle and bustle of the Plaza de Armas....mostly to the sound of mototaxis (little motorcycles with a carriage attached to the back with capacity for 1-2 people). In fact, they are almost exclusively the transportation I saw in Celendín as opposed to cars. I took a hot shower (finally!!! My first shower in 3 days!) but didn´t wash my hair. To be honest it looks better when it´s dirty, and it doesn´t even look dirty! Liz will know what I´m talking about there. Then I repacked my backpack and headed downstairs for breakfast.
The owner was in the courtyard when I descended. He greeted me and encouraged me to step into the restaurant for breakfast. He is very nice but actually pretty pushy about the restaurant...this was the 4th time he´d reminded me to eat there. I walked into the restaurant, sat down, looked at the dirty tablecloth in dismay and then walked out the side door. It was just too dirty and I couldn´t stomach it again. I wandered down Dos de Mayo to find another restaurant for breakfast. There are actually not many restaurants in Celendín, which is probably why my guidebook had to list the dirty one as an option.
I found an acceptable restaurant a few blocks away and asked them for a standard breakfast (a scrambled egg, bread, café con leche). The café ended up being a big mug of steamed milk with a jar of Nescafé powder on the side. The egg came without a fork and the bread came without butter or jelly. But it was all definitely more appetizing than the restaurant I´d left so I made do! I asked them for butter and jelly and I ate everything happily.
When I finished and paid, I started chatting with the girl who had prepared my breakfast. She asked if I was in Celendín just as a tourist or something else, and do I live in Perú? Where was I coming from and where was I going? I told her I had arrived yesterday on the long bus ride from Leymebamba and today I was moving on to Cajamarca. I assured her I´m just a tourist and I live in New York. She was surprised because my Spanish is supposedly so good. I told her some days are good, some are terrible! She said she works part-time at a hostal where they get lots of European guests and most of them can´t speak a word of Spanish. Suddenly I had a sinking feeling...I asked her where she works? It´s the hostal I was supposed to stay at last night. BUSTED -- again! No question the owner will know I´m the same woman she´s been communicating with and that I stayed somewhere else last night! Hopefully she won´t be as hurt as Carlos was in Chachapoyas. She probably found out anyway. Celendín is a small town and I was the only tourist I saw there.
After breakfast I headed to the internet place on the Plaza de Armas to catch up on the many emails I´ve been getting and not responding to! I had time to kill before my bus at 12:15 pm.
Around noon I checked out of the hostal and walked right across the Plaza to the bus company from which I´d purchased my ticket yesterday. They took my backpack (the luggage went in the compartment underneath rather than on the roof with live chickens!) and I found my seat on the bus. This was a bigger bus, probably the size of Greyhound at home, but not as comfy. In fact, I literally fell into my seat because my boots slipped on the greasy floor. Obviously no A/C but it wasn´t really necessary.
We left at 12:15 on the dot. The trip to Cajamarca was 4 hours, and the first 2 hours were tougher than yesterday´s ride! The road was unpaved and really rough, riddled with manhole-sized potholes, and the bus kept heeling back and forth as it dipped in and out of them. I was getting motion sick so I tried to get fresh air from my open window, but I was just getting mouthfuls of dust and exhaust. Ugh! I am feeling sick just thinking about it again hours later! It didn´t help that it was lunchtime and I was stuck on a bus without lunch. I ate a Clif bar and drank some water, which helped a little. And I turned sideways in my seat and just watched the horizon in the distance and that helped a LOT. I started to feel better and could enjoy the scenery more.
This part of Perú is less dramatic than yesterday´s ride but very lovely. There are lots of rolling, green hills covered in a patchwork of crops and dotted with cows and sheep (for some reason there are no alpacas or llamas here). In fact, it looked quite a lot like Vermont! The closer we got to Cajamarca, the more cows I saw. This makes perfect sense, as the Cajamarca area is the dairy center of Perú. In fact, the little bit I´ve seen of Cajamarca so far is chock full of stores selling cheese, milk and yogurt.
About halfway through the ride we pulled into a tiny town and several people got off. I never could find the name of the town, but we navigated through their narrow streets and then onward on smoooooth, beautiful pavement. This is the first time I´ve been on pavement since Friday and it was nice! Even better was that the road was two lanes so we didn´t have to stop and throw the bus into reverse when another vehicle came our way. Aaaahh! The last 2 hours of the trip seemed much quicker.
We pulled into Cajamarca just after 4 pm and I set off walking towards the Plaza de Armas. The bus driver had assured me it is walking distance and indicated like it was right around the corner. WRONG. It was a hike, and it was sunny and hot. I had drawn a crude map in my notebook of how to find the hostal from the Plaza de Armas, which is why that was my destination. What I didn´t know was that I was walking on the same street my hostal is located on....by luck I happened to spot it before passing it and getting to the Plaza. Yay!
I checked in and a rather unfriendly girl showed me to my room. Other than the reception I really like the hostal. It´s located on a busy street with lots of traffic, but the interior is quite peaceful. The courtyard is grassy with many flowering plants and vines....and it has a huge cage with chirping birds in it! The cage is probably 9 feet x 6 feet, so I mean it´s big! I´ll have to find out what kind of birds they are. All the rooms open onto the courtyard and I´m really thankful that mine is in the back so I don´t hear any of the street noise near the front. I have a TV with cable and even caught a little of the Mets/Braves game tonight on ESPN en Español! (They were scoreless in the 2nd inning.) I´m keeping my fingers crossed that my shower has hot water as promised....since if it doesn´t, my hair will be growing fingers to cross themselves.
After dropping my bags I headed straight out to figure out what I wanted to do here in Cajamarca. I don´t have any onward travel arrangements and I´m still not sure how or when I´ll be getting to Lima. There is a LOT to do and see here in Cajamarca! But the first order of business was to get something to eat. I was feeling nauseous and headachy from not having any lunch. I went into a clean, nice bakery recommended in my guidebook just one block from the hostal and spotted some empanadas that looked delicious...but the ladies behind the counter were way too busy chatting to help me. After several minutes I got annoyed and left. I went across the street to a less nice-looking place and they were quick to take my order. I got a simple chicken and cheese sandwich with pineapple juice. I left feeling less hungry but very sick. I had a bad stomach ache and hoped walking would help.
I walked a few more blocks to the Plaza de Armas to have a look around and inquire about day tours to Cumbemayo -- the 3,000 year-old carved water canals about 10 miles outside of Cajamarca -- but I could barely concentrate on what anyone was telling me due to my stomach! Pretty soon I hoofed it back to the hostal and recovered a bit in my room. I took some Pepto Bismal and that seems to have quelled the upset. If not, I have a bottle of prescription Cipro in my bag. I´m doubting that the chicken sandwich would have had such a quick effect...I´d rather blame the nasty restaurant in Celendín where I had dinner last night! And the bus heeling like Quartermoon on a windy day probably didn´t help.
Feeling somewhat better, I returned to the Plaza de Armas and booked a half-day tour to Cumbemayo for tomorrow morning. I´m really excited! A tour in English cost more so I decided to wing it and try it in Spanish. The older man who explained it all to me and with whom I reserved is sooo nice, and he said he´ll probably be the one guiding. He spoke a little English to me when he thought I really didn´t understand, so I´m hoping he´ll generously fill in the gaps if I can´t catch it all!
I certainly wasn´t in the mood for dinner, but I didn´t think it would be wise to skip it entirely either. So I went to a restaurant recommended in my guidebook just 1/2 block from the Plaza de Armas. I told the woman I am having "dolor de estómago" and asked for a simple soup. The young woman recommended "Cajamarca Soup." I didn´t understand exactly what was in it, but I agreed. It was delicious! It was a green (vegetable) broth with chunks of potato, cheese and egg whites. I ate it slowly and carefully and it seems to be settling just fine.
Since today was an uneventful travel day and I´ve had an upset stomach for a few hours, I don´t have much to report about Cajamarca yet. I will have much more to say about it tomorrow....but for now I´ll just say that my first impressions are very favorable! My guidebook says "If you want to see what Cusco was like before the tourist invasion, go to Cajamarca in northern Peru" and that is exactly how it feels. The little bit I´ve seen is like a bustling, small city with the laid back feel and architecture of a country town. But I´ll know more tomorrow and in the days to come!
I´m off to the hostal (sorry, no web site) and then on my half-day tour tomorrow from 9:30 - 1:30. Hope everyone has a great Thursday!
Love,
Kim
Comments
Squirrely!
Hope the tum's feeling better and that you aren't blacklisted by the Peruvian Hostal Owners Association for misleading scores of hostal owners.
As for me, 4e is a total nightmare to DM and will NOT be on my horizon anytime soon. Just call me Pathfinder!