FROM CHAOS TO RECOVERY

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  Cajamarca, Peru
Friday, March 21, 2008

March 1-7

Arriving by plane in Cartagena, we were among the few who got off the small plane and walked across the landing strip to the small airport. Customs inspections were cursory or non-existent. We found a taxi and headed into town to find the recommended hotel - by Lonely Planet and a couple we met in Panama - in the old town section. On the way, the taxi driver turned around to us and said "You want an apartment on the beach?" So we took a chance and let him drive us to the newer part of town to look at an apartment in a building close to the beach. It was half the price of the hotel room in old town, with two bedrooms, a solarium overlooking the city and a fairly modern kitchen, swimming pool and Jacuzzi on the 15th floor with views of the ocean. So we opted for living life Columbian style. It's a strange mixture of modern style with not-quite modern standards of maintenance, but agreeable and reasonably priced. Sunday we toured the old city with all its fortifications against the English pirates, churches and cathedrals and great museums. We especially liked the museum of modern art and the museum of gold, which showed the stunning work done by the indigenous people before the Spaniards came.

Monday we went to the port to receive our Jeep and found out that the ship had not only not arrived, it had not left the port in Panama. This was due to storms in the Carribean that delayed its passage. We were furious and depressed, contemplating another 2-3 days in Cartagena before we could set off on our drive down the coast of Columbia.

1800 BC WOW

So we went back to our hotel, walked up the avenue to buy some postage stamps and down the avenue to find an internet café, where we ran across the news that the Columbia military
had killed a major FARC member on the border with Ecuador, the one that we had planned to pass. A Dutch man sitting at the terminal between John and me heard our discussion about where we were planning to go and advised us not to cross into Ecuador and preferably not to drive in Columbia. We pondered that advice, then called our



shipping agent in Panama. The Jeep was still there, the ship had not arrived, and it was possible to change our booking from Cartagena to Guyaquil in Ecuador, which is close to the Peruvian border. We would have to fly to Guyaquil. We decided to sleep on the decision and call the agent back in the morning, but it seemed like the wisest course at this point.

Back to the port on Tuesday to solve the shipping problem, we found that we couldn't ship to Guyaquil in the container the Jeep was in, but would have to go to Lima, missing all of Ecuador and parts of northern Peru. The border with Ecuador was still closed and much posturing taking place between Venezuela and Ecuador, with Columbia keeping a somewhat lower profile. All three were going to the central office of the OAS to make protests and discuss issues, and nothing was being resolved. So we decided to ship the Jeep to Lima and to take ourselves inland into the mountains to see a bit of Columbia before we caught up with the Jeep in Lima on March 11.

A Thriughly Modern Mariott

The efficient woman at Seaboard Marine in Cartagena gave us the name of a friend who was a travel agent, and we spent the afternoon with her - on and off - figuring out what we wanted to do. In the end, we booked a flight to Medellin, so we could take a bus through the central part of the western side of the major mountain range. Our trip was often breath-taking - both the scenery, with vast towering mountains on either side, and the road, with wide variations in road surface and twisting curves. The driver was really good, pretty fast and expert at keeping the nose of the bus in when it really mattered.

We headed for the "Zona Cafetera - Coffee Zone." Juan Valdez came from here, whether real or imaginary, and coffee is more important than wine. It's also called "tinto" - red - which had us very confused for a while, since red wine is also called tinto. No one seems to drink wine, but everyone drinks coffee from morning to night. Our host at the Finca La Manuela picked us up at the bus station, holding a sign that said Juan y Carol Holmes - pronounced "hol-mess" - and took us to the finca, a family-style inn in the middle of fields of coffee and banana plantations in the foothills of the mountain range. Here we settled into a lovely room with a large balcony overlooking the swimming pool and the mountains beyond. It's as far from border disputes as it can be, and peace and quiet reigns over the valleys.

In the morning, we went off - with some apprehension - to the Parque de Café, which sounded like an amusement park, but turned out to be a nature preserve and living history museum.

above and below

It had acres of Columbian forest and jungle, large stands of bamboo, an area called the "Forest of Myths and Legends," which was actually a preserve of rare flowers and plants that was breath-taking in its scope and the steepness of its paths. We also saw two shows: one was a colorful and technically excellent display of all the folk-dancing history of Columbia. The dancers were obviously trained to a level of ballet, and the costumes were colorful, beautiful and very well integrated into the dance. We cheered them at the finale along with everyone else. The other show was a weird musical by mechanical orchids who seemed to be under attack by a gremlin of some sort. It was pretty hokey as entertainment, but the mechanics and lighting effects were fascinating. We managed to take a train around the vast park and two gondola rides across its entire length, with mountains all around, and found a wonderful little museum in one train station of pre-Colombian statues, objects and masks. Then our host at the finca picked us up and took us back for dinner.

The next day we passed up the chance to visit a panaca - which seems to be a ranch and rodeo combination. Instead, we asked our hosts to find us a place to go horseback riding in the upland plains. A taxi was called, driven by a driver education trainer, who seems to be connected to one of the staff at our finca, and off we went to a finca further into the mountains that had horses. We spent a wonderful two hours trekking, trotting and cantering across fields with grass up to our thighs, crossing streams, visiting the ruins of a coffee processing plant, all the time surrounded by the mountains.

Atkins Diet?

We saw lots of cattle and no other human beings and could easily have been in another century, especially given the saddles and tackle we were using. Returning to the horse finca very content, we were invited to join the communal lunch, complete with large glasses of guyaba juice. Our taxi driver/driver's ed teacher made life complete by giving us his driving sleeve - an important innovation in a sunny climate like this one. It's literally a sleeve with a wristband that goes up to the shoulder and keeps the sun off the arm that's leaning out the window. That has been a problem for the one not driving as we head south - the afternoon sun is blazing on just that part of the arm. So we admired Columbians for their country, their coffee and their ingenuity.

March 8-9 Bogota

The alarm on the super-adventure travel watch went off at 5:30 am; we drank our tea in the warmth of the main finca building with its giant wood-burning cooking stove. The stove is 4 feet by 6 feet, built of brick with various cooking surfaces over the roaring fire, which we could see periodically when a "burner" was uncovered to cook something. There was a well constantly full of boiling water for making coffee, cooking or cleaning. Frederico, one of the owners of the finca, drove us to the airport in Armenia for our flight to Bogota. He and his wife live in Armenia, not at the finca, which is purely a business for them, in spite of the ads for sharing family life with the finca owners.

We arrived in Bogota by flying up to 7,000 feet elevation, through or above clouds all the way.

Built by a viceroy i n 1920

We had arranged for transport and hotel beforehand and arrived at the Hotel Casa Americana, virtually next door to the American Embassy, but quite a distance from the historic center of town. Bogota is spread across acres of mountain-top plateau and hills, with motorways connecting the various sectors, at least when it's not raining. We grabbed a taxi and headed for the old town center. We found the colonial mint and an incredible museum of gold, from the periods before the Conquest and after. A modern cultural center held an excellent art museum with pictures dating from colonial times right up to abstract/conceptual modern schools. We have been struck everywhere in Central and South America with the quality and quantity of modern paintings; this one was one more varied and extensive example. Thinking to stop in the museum café on our way out, we found it had started to rain, so we grabbed chairs at a table under a portico with a charming Bogota gentleman. We got to know him a lot better while it poured with rain for an hour, started to rain harder and to blow sideways. The collected and damp crowd moved their chairs into the lobby of the museum to wait it out. Across the street, young people were pouring into a CD/music store that seemed quite small, but managed to take in a huge crowd, like some incredible stuffing exercise. Finally, John realized that the rain was beginning to let up - old sailors see these things - and that people were arriving in taxis at the cultural center for their events, so we raced up the stairs and nabbed one as the occupants descended, heading back to our hotel.

Bwana John

Driving through a city of 6 million in the rain, spread out across steep hills and valleys, is challenging. Then we found that the rain had flooded the major expressways and had to take the small back streets that climbed up and down the hills to get to our hotel. It was an unusual insight into the variety of areas and styles of homes, businesses and public places and took about an hour. We were now pretty wet and cold, and all our heavier clothes and jackets were in the Jeep in transit to Lima. So we headed from the hotel to the nearby shopping mall and suddenly walked into the 21st century. It was huge and had every brand name known to mankind, plus multiple variations of eating places. We searched around and found a local department store on one of the lower levels and bought John a warm jacket, some socks for his sandals and wine. Luckily, I had my shoes and socks packed in my small suitcase, but his feet were really cold.

Sunday the 9th dawned clear and a little cold, but it warmed quickly, and we headed for the historic center again. We arrived at the end of a major competition between several different drum and bugle corps, banners still flying as they dispersed. I was pleased to see that many of the drummers were girls, having done that myself at their age. It seemed less likely in a Latin culture, but we've found that these countries are far more modern than their images in ours. Candelaria is just north of the original colonial plaza and was a slum, but is developing and is next to the major university area.

Carol at Paramonga

We had plenty of time and sun to wander around the semi-deserted streets, with interesting cafes, art stores and cultural schools interspersed with neglected buildings. We stopped in one café no bigger than a small hotel room and occupied by neighborhood women. Turning the corner, we found ourselves in a tiny, twisting lane that ran 200 yards down a slope and lined with small shops and galleries of all kinds, some leading off into side-lanes, full of artisans and weavers. We ended up at our destination, a Jewish café called L'Haim, just to see what it was. It was quite modern in that Latin American style, very good and peopled with locals and students. You wouldn't want to walk around Calendaria at night, even if you knew what you were doing, but it was fascinating to see it in the daylight. Its future seems obvious as the 'in' place, like SoHo and the Bowery in New York.

March 10 - 17 Lima

Getting to Lima was a harbinger of our time here - it took us all day to fly from Bogota and get through customs. Luckily, we had arranged for transport to our hotel, and Oscar Fernandez met us with his Mercedes, locked everything, including his own briefcase, in the trunk, and took us to Miraflores, one of the 43 municipalities of greater Lima.

Lima is built in a desert on cliffs which are 100 to 200 feet above the ocean. You really aren't aware of the desert concept - no cactus or sand in a city - until you learn it rarely rains in Lima. We of course got a few drops one evening.

Check out my guards

It is humid from time to time which accounts for some of their greenery.

We arrived at our hotel and were pleasantly surprised with the hotel and surrounding community. On a subsequent trip back to Callao, which is near the airport, with Oscar he forgot to ask us to hide everything in his trunk. Lima is a reasonable safe city. Just stay out of the bad neighborhoods. Oscar was over killing for the new arrivals.

Over the next several days we saw colonial and modern Lima and some of the country's culture. The convent and church complex in the center of town was huge, with colonial art and underground catacombs, including several ossuaries with piles of skulls and bones. Due to the risk of disease, bodies were slaked with lime to disinfect them, then added to the pile when only bones were left. Fascinating, if somewhat grisly. One night we went to a dancing and music festival which was a ball. We got to do a lot of dancing ourselves and we met two Dutch sisters. One had lived in Lima for the past 40 years and her sister was visiting from the Pocono's - that's PA - USA. They were a riot.

We were also able to tour an ancient ruin south of Lima which had been home to Lima's, Wabi's, Ismail's, and finally the Inca's. It was a very large complex spread out on the peaks of steep sand mountains with sweeping views of the coast. Apparently, it was a ceremonial center for the pre-Inca culture, with several large buildings and intricate carvings. Unfortunately the camera battery was dead and the charging system was in the jeep.

Dam spillway

As time went on, it was amazing what was in the jeep and not in the overnight bags we carted to Cartagena.

Originally, the jeep was scheduled to arrive in Lima on Tuesday the 11th and we were informed it had departed a day early. We had high hopes, which needless to say, were dashed to pieces with our first phone call on the 11th. We were told the boat had left late and not early and the boat would not arrive until the 13th. Unsaid was the fact the boat had no docking time at that point. Docking time turned out to be 9 am on the 14th and the jeep would be one of the first containers off. We returned to the hotel. Unsaid was the fact all the containers had to be off loaded prior to any movement to the warehouse. We returned to the hotel. Unsaid was the fact it would take at least 3 working days and a Customs Agent to help you through the paper work at a fee of several hundred dollars. We spent the day running between the warehouse and Customs only to return empty handed to the hotel.

We spent the weekend plotting our strategy for Monday, getting the camera battery charged - never could buy one - and taking pictures. Sunday was spent at the beach in Miraflores, our upscale suburb. To get to the beach from the cliffs where the fashionable people live, shop and dine, we walked hundreds of steps down, then planted ourselves on the black pebbles at the edge of the Pacific and watched the dozens of surfers who lolled and bobbed in the water until the perfect wave came along. There were a few scenes worthy of Endless Summer, the 1960's surfer movie, and several hang-gliders descending the cliffs and then catching the thermals.

Lima Coast

We strolled out on the pier of the Rose of the Sea restaurant and had a drink with the Pacific all around us, then taxied our way back up the cliffs to our hotel.

By Monday morning, it had become apparent to us that none of the parties involved - our shipping agent in Panama, the shipper, the warehouse people, Customs, and the for hire Agent really knew what to do so we decided to show up at Customs with what we believed to be the required documents. We had obtained a copy of the rules for bringing a vehicle across the border and that was all we doing. We had it translated from Spanish to English. We also wrote out in Spanish that we were tourists in transit through Central and
South America and we had been caught in the war between Columbia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. We were in fact refugees who had to ship our jeep to Lima instead of Cartagena. Everyone still told us it would be Tuesday or more probably Wednesday before we saw the jeep. None of those people have seen us do our American Tourist act for the police when they stop us. It is very affected and quite funny. We do it when they ask for bribes. Once the Custom agent who hollered at us on Friday saw the note, we had a friend who counted. He did everything he could to defeat the process and except for a few glitches we stormed through customs paper, customs inspection, payments and release of the jeep. We made so many trips back and forth between the warehouse and customs - which is several miles - the security people were cheering us through the gates and no longer asking us to leave our driver license with them.

look for th vehicles

We made many friends, had lots of help and got the jeep by 6:30 pm on St Paddy's Day. We were also asked to write out the full set of procedures in English for future poor souls.

March 18 - 20 North of Lima

It was an adventure in itself to get onto the Pan American North, in order to go see the part of Peru we had missed. The central avenue through Lima was closed for reconstruction; off on the sides streets was chaos, and we didn't know the freeway system. In asking directions, a truck driver volunteered to lead us to the PanAm through the twists and turns in the city, and we thankfully arrived where we needed to be. By the time we got past the outskirts of Lima, we were into desert - just sand on the inland side as far as the eye could see, and down to the Pacific coast. In one small town, we stopped at a copy of a feudal castle in Europe, built by wealthy Peruvians in the 1930's and complete with trophy room for the game they shot on more than one continent. It also had a small, but interesting exhibit of local pre-Inca cultures and, naturally, more bones. We slept that night in the Hostal Jefferson in the regional town of Barranca on the coast and enjoyed the collection of tropical birds and a talkative parrot. Then we headed out for Trujillo, a charming colonial town, where we saw a special procession of the Virgin for Holy Week. The statue was quite large and carried on a platform made of 2X4's that stuck out the ends and sides, resting on the shoulders of 15-20 strong young men.

Mall para sailing

They and the statue were surrounded by women draped in white lace veils, carrying large incense pots, which they waved at the crowds and in all directions. The town square in front of the cathedral was full of people enjoying the evening air and the procession and strolling in the Spanish fashion. We dined on duck and goat at the best hotel in town on the main square and returned to our mini-suite in the local travelers hotel, a bargain and next door to the secure parking lot where we could almost see the Jeep from the window.

The plan was to go up the PanAm along the coast the next morning to the turn-off on Highway 8 to an upland city where the road ends. It was a terrible road surface, pitted, damaged, flooded, twisting and with some fairly heavy truck traffic. John did a great job of holding the road, and we appreciated the special suspension in the Jeep.We were driving alongside the river coming from the mountains and arrived at an impressive dam and hydro-electric compound that had created a 2-3 mile long lake, whose borders we skirted before heading up again. Leaving the sand desert on the coast, we found lush green slopes, some with cultivated fields, and the vegetation turned from tropical to something like pine forest as we climbed, in and out of fog banks, until we found the regional center - pre-Inca and Inca as well - of Cajamarca, famous for its hot springs. Forty Spaniards with guns defeated 80,000 Inca troops here. We're in the Cord Centro mountains, but we're not sure whether that is part of the Andes or if they start further south - more on that later. Avoiding the city center, we turned east for the thermal springs and found a lovely hotel compound with its own thermals inside, including several large pools for soaking and lounging. We even have a large thermal bath in our room with hot spring water piped directly into it. So we climbed in and relaxed, then dined on local mountain trout and the first good steak we found in Peru. The next day we splashed in the thermal pools and went horseback riding in the mountains - surely the only Americans in the Holy Week holiday crowd - and loved our views of the uplands.

More Pictures

more	More coast	More coast 2	Para Sailing
Starting up into the highlands	Still 1800 BC and no metal tools	surfing	The little lake
Top of the rock

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