Travelling onto Cajamarca
Trip Start
Feb 06, 2007
1
78
332
Trip End
Jan 14, 2008
Cajamarca,
Peru
Monday, May 14, 2007
Today is our 4th anniversary, which Pete is 'celebrating' by feeling sick, again. Luckily he is keeping it to himself !
We found a couple of sombrero shops. In the first one a man was tying off the shaggy ends of a hat, and in the other they had a stack of hats for sale. Barb tried a few on but they were either too small, or would have blown off in a South Aussie wind.
Goodbyes were said at Naranja Mecanica and we got on the CABA coach to Cajamarca. Alas, it's clean appearance and comfy-looking seats were misleading. It had no springs or suspension and you felt every rock through the lumpy seats. The other coach (Atahualpa) which started 15 minutes late soon overtook us and it either did not stop for lunch or was way ahead of us. We skipped lunch and ate mandarins and bread. Much safer. The 'toilets' were a challenge for Barb. Females are not designed to pee into a 10cm diameter pipe in the middle of a concrete floor ! Probably males aren't either, as the loos stunk.
Unlike the previous journey with superb views of ravines and distant mountains, the scenery between Celendin and Cajamarca is just lots of farming land, and by the time we got to Cajamarca the most exciting thing we had seen was a row of teddy bears pinned out by their ears to dry. The views looked better from the left side of the bus (we were on the right)
The hotel recommended by a fellow passenger costing 35 sol turned out to cost 50, so we tried several of the hotels in Plaza de Armas and settled for Hospedaje Peru (40 sol), a rambling place with a double-bed room on a street corner. Staff denied it would be noisy, but they were wrong, as we found out throughout the night.Our anniversary was celebrated in style. We went to a restaurant with tablecloths ! Pete had 'Filet Mognon' which was very good, and Barb tried a traditional dish, cuy con papas (guinea pig with rice and spicy potato). The guinea pig was either very underfed, or else all guinea pigs have no meat on them. We had 3 glasses of Argentinian wine between us, and after the first half glass it tasted pretty good. Potent stuff. Desert was 'off' but a squishy cake shop up the road rounded off our meal nicely
