Barranca, Casma and Huaraz
Well, my long paper on politics and indigenous culture will still have to wait - no time to write it yet.
I left Lima on Saturday. First I went to Barranca, a small city along the Pan American highway. There, taking a few different collectivos, I went to see the ruins of Mochica, a pre-Inca culture, fortress or what's left of it. It's nicely situated on the hill, overlooking the ocean. I was the only person there. There was a small ranger station and a few dogs who live there and also three very little puppies. The ruins look as if they were made of adobe bricks but really they are stones just resembling adobe. They date back to about 2,500 years BC. Later that day I tried to get to Casma but it was Sunday and it turned out the buses were running either very early or very late. I met a girl Yanina who saw me waiting at the small bus station outside of Barranca and she invited me to visit her home and meet her family: parents and eight siblings. I heard of northerners hospitality - it's truly amazing. We spent time talking and I decided to catch a ride because the bus would drop me off in the middle of the night, it turned out. So Yanina walked me back to the Pan American highway and immediately I got on a truck going to Truillo. The driver Hector was a very nice person as well and we talked all the way. I got to Casma and met yet more very nice and hospitable people. I walked around the small and peaceful town, an oasis in the middle of the desert. It was much warmer there than in Lima - it was a very pleasant evening walk. I asked one of the motortaxi drivers to pick me up the next morning at 9:00 am to see the Sechin ruins. I don't have the guidebook with me and I don't remember if this was part of the Mochica culture - I will check it and let you know. It is believed that it was a temple where people where sacrified. All the walls of the temple have carvings of different parts of the body, mostly heads, hands, legs, spines, eyes and stomachs and intestines. Among them are carved warriors with matchettes or swords, some of them are dancing. Only carvings of men are on the walls but the archeologists found mummias of women also. According to their findings they died an "unvoluntary and violent death." Maybe, however, this was not a temple but a hospital? I wonder if that is possible. There really is no exact evidence of anything with things this old. Everything is just a theory... After visit to the ruins I invited the taxi driver, who also acted as my guide, to lunch and he took me to the "best ceviche place in town". It really was one of the best ceviches I had. I then borded the bus, which was a really chicken bus as chicken were present, to Huaraz. What was supposed to be a five hour drive turned into an eight hour drive because we first got a flat tire and then the bus broke twice along the way. But each time it was repaired and the views as we were snailing our way up to Cordillera Blanca were spectacular. Today I went to a hot spring in the mountains, about 15 km away from Huaraz, and went into the best sauna I have ever seen - a nautral cave with steam coming out of the walls. It was really hot. When the attendant told me only 15 minutes I asked him if I could stay longer than that but after 15 minutes I came out roasted. I could really feel the microelements I was inhaling. I think the best ideas come to my mind after an extensive exercise such as boxing and in the sauna. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that the toxins are expelled from the body and the mind and body is really really clear. Tomorrow I am going to visit all the different little villages in the valley and then I decided that I will go back to the coast and continue my way along it. I won't do any more trekking in the mountains. Huaraz is again over 3,000 meters above the sea level and I just can't take it again. I think I am done with the mountains. When I come again to Peru, and I am sure I will one day because it's just so beautiful, I will visit the north in detail and maybe conquer a peak or two but right now I long for long sandy beaches and tropical weather.
I left Lima on Saturday. First I went to Barranca, a small city along the Pan American highway. There, taking a few different collectivos, I went to see the ruins of Mochica, a pre-Inca culture, fortress or what's left of it. It's nicely situated on the hill, overlooking the ocean. I was the only person there. There was a small ranger station and a few dogs who live there and also three very little puppies. The ruins look as if they were made of adobe bricks but really they are stones just resembling adobe. They date back to about 2,500 years BC. Later that day I tried to get to Casma but it was Sunday and it turned out the buses were running either very early or very late. I met a girl Yanina who saw me waiting at the small bus station outside of Barranca and she invited me to visit her home and meet her family: parents and eight siblings. I heard of northerners hospitality - it's truly amazing. We spent time talking and I decided to catch a ride because the bus would drop me off in the middle of the night, it turned out. So Yanina walked me back to the Pan American highway and immediately I got on a truck going to Truillo. The driver Hector was a very nice person as well and we talked all the way. I got to Casma and met yet more very nice and hospitable people. I walked around the small and peaceful town, an oasis in the middle of the desert. It was much warmer there than in Lima - it was a very pleasant evening walk. I asked one of the motortaxi drivers to pick me up the next morning at 9:00 am to see the Sechin ruins. I don't have the guidebook with me and I don't remember if this was part of the Mochica culture - I will check it and let you know. It is believed that it was a temple where people where sacrified. All the walls of the temple have carvings of different parts of the body, mostly heads, hands, legs, spines, eyes and stomachs and intestines. Among them are carved warriors with matchettes or swords, some of them are dancing. Only carvings of men are on the walls but the archeologists found mummias of women also. According to their findings they died an "unvoluntary and violent death." Maybe, however, this was not a temple but a hospital? I wonder if that is possible. There really is no exact evidence of anything with things this old. Everything is just a theory... After visit to the ruins I invited the taxi driver, who also acted as my guide, to lunch and he took me to the "best ceviche place in town". It really was one of the best ceviches I had. I then borded the bus, which was a really chicken bus as chicken were present, to Huaraz. What was supposed to be a five hour drive turned into an eight hour drive because we first got a flat tire and then the bus broke twice along the way. But each time it was repaired and the views as we were snailing our way up to Cordillera Blanca were spectacular. Today I went to a hot spring in the mountains, about 15 km away from Huaraz, and went into the best sauna I have ever seen - a nautral cave with steam coming out of the walls. It was really hot. When the attendant told me only 15 minutes I asked him if I could stay longer than that but after 15 minutes I came out roasted. I could really feel the microelements I was inhaling. I think the best ideas come to my mind after an extensive exercise such as boxing and in the sauna. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that the toxins are expelled from the body and the mind and body is really really clear. Tomorrow I am going to visit all the different little villages in the valley and then I decided that I will go back to the coast and continue my way along it. I won't do any more trekking in the mountains. Huaraz is again over 3,000 meters above the sea level and I just can't take it again. I think I am done with the mountains. When I come again to Peru, and I am sure I will one day because it's just so beautiful, I will visit the north in detail and maybe conquer a peak or two but right now I long for long sandy beaches and tropical weather.
posted by Asia Kabat at 6:26 PM
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