Cajamarca - She ate a Guinea Pig!!!!
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2007
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72
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Trip End
Jul 03, 2008
Cajamarca,
Peru
Friday, March 14, 2008
After stumbling round the streets for a hour we managed to book into the San Hose hostal on Amazones street. (40s for double). We ventures straight out and booked ourselves on to the Cumbe Mayo tour. There really isnīt any other way to see the local sites and the tours are pretty cheap at 20s.
Cumbe Mayo
Cumbe Mayo is a pre inca site set 3500m in the mountains. There isnīt that much to really see there but somehow it is really fascinating. The main attractions there are:
Pre inca canals perfectly carved out of the rock. These canals enabled the water to be directed in the opposite direction from the natural flow. This area only gets rain 6 months a year and this channel enabled irrigation.
There was a pre inca living area. This basically was a natural stone shelter that had evidence of fires and some carving in the rock.
A tunnel through a rock. not entirely sure why as it would be quicker to walk round it but fun to be in pitch darkness for a brief second. There are a group of little kiddies that, although dressed like they were forty, helped you through the dark. They obviously expected a little tip.
lunch
After the tour we went to a nice restaurant with an older Peruvian Couple, Paul and Pat, who were on our tour.
Utzuco burial site
They introduced us to various Peruvian dishes and drinks but none of these compared to Carolineīs main course. Feeling no remorse Caroline chomped through a whole meal of Guinea Pig. And yes it did turn up on the plate looking like a skinned Guinea pig with little claws and everything. We have photos which we will put up in due course. Guinea pig is a local delicacy here and everyone raves about it. To be honest it didnīt really do much for us!Cajamarca
Then next day we wondered round the streets of Cajamarca. The centre of town is a lovely square with 2 impressive churches (look better at night). Just off the square are various staircases that lead up a hill to a great Mirador and garden. The views from here are awesome. We tried to be a little cultural before our tour in the afternoon. There are a series of Churches and hospitals that you can see all included in one ticket. Unfortunately we only had 30 mins to get round all 3. One thing we did learnt and went against everything weīd been taught was that Jesus was born in Peru! Sorry but we have picture evidence!
The Necropolis pre Inca de Otuzco:
Our second tour was to the The Necropolis pre Inca de Otuzco. Again Pat a Paul were on our trip and even came bearing gifts. They had seen us earlier that day and bought us some souvenirs from the market! How nice is that!
Our trip today had various stops. The first was to a cheese factory. Not something we really had thought to do but was nonetheless interesting.
Our next stop was to a flower farm. Not the most interesting... the rain might have had something to do with this!
The Necropolis was our main reason for taking the tour. This is a secondary burial site situated in a cliff face. The basic principal was that the Pre Inca people would preform a second burial here. The remain would be dug up from the village and relocated to holes carved in the side of the cliff. Each body would be crammed in and accompanied by jars of corn for the afterlife. The holes were then sealed with red and white slates. Red a white being the colours of funerals and incidentally the Peruvian flag!
Early night before a mammoth trip tomorrow!
