Hostal Peru
Trip Start
Feb 06, 2007
1
79
332
Trip End
Jan 14, 2008
Cajamarca,
Peru
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Trying to find a quieter room we tramped the streets, and found plenty of rooms, but mostly very small, or dingy, or just as noisy, or very expensive. Our hotel gave us another room with 3 single beds overlooking the Plaza de Armas, which does not have a set of traffic lights directly underneath.
The tourist office in Complejo de Belen was very helpful, after the right information person turned up. Initially we got fobbed off with a guy who knew nothing, was not interested, and who had clearly been told to help those gringo tourists, or else.
We had lunch in the market, ceviche combinado, which is marinated raw fish and something else coated in batter and deep fried, probably fish, plus mashed pumpkin. It was pretty tasty, and only 3 sol.
A view of the town and the mountains behind
In the afternoon we climbed to Cerro de Santa Apolonia, which has some Incan remains (though hard to work out which they are). Several small boys offered to act as guides.The main tourist sights in Cajamarca are the churches and the cathedral (which looks half finished - the belfreys never got built to avoid Spanish taxes a couple of hundred of years ago), and 3 sites where a ticket for all 3 costs 4.50 sol. These are El Cuarto de Rescate, where a ransom in gold and silver for the life of Incan leader Atahualpa was stored (the Spanish reneged, hung him and kept the ransom), a baroque-style church in the Complejo de Belen with lovely carved and painted woodwork (NO photos, the man said), and a couple of small museums. The church of San Francisco has a crypt, but this was closed when it was supposed to be open.A sad thing about Cajamarca is the number of old indigenous women beggars in their traditional clothes. They hang on to you. This is the first time we have seen begging by women in 4 weeks in Peru. & amp; nbsp;
