Our bus (the Emtrafesa one that was the only one of the four companies we approached that had service to Cajamarca) broke down somewhere along the road. It was dark and abandoned and we would have slept quietly through it except for the long line of passengers filing out to switch to the other bus and the constant thudding of luggage being moved from one bus to the other (none too carefully, I might add). We filed out to oversee the movement of our bags (which were probably small enough to have fit above our seats in this bus but since the last one had had absolutely NO storage space, we had assumed this bus would be the same). Expecting to see luggage - backpacks, suitcases and the like - we were a bit surprised to see that they were moving boxes instead. Hundreds of them. Although it was a passenger line (rather than cargo), someone had decided to bring over 200 boxes of shoes (or at least shoe boxes) with them. It wouldn't have really been a problem if we didn't have to wait for all of them to be moved to the new bus before we were reassured with the *scrape, thud* of our own small backpacks being transferred.
Secure in the knowledge that our bags were still with us (and mentally checking that we did not in fact have anything breakable inside), we hopped on the new bus and went back to sleep. I was sitting next to the window, and every time I woke up, I was treated to the lovely view of the hills and views below us. Far below us. And the cliff that ended just about a foot from the bus' tires. Generally, I tried not to wake up.
We finally arrived, only a couple hours late from the breakdown, and set off to find a hostel for the night before buying our bus tickets to Trujillo... This time with a different company.
We spent the day exploring around the town center, which was an easy walk from our hostel. Our breakfast was queso mantecoso (Cajamarca is known for it's cheeses) and bread, and then we headed off to see the lovely plaza and churches around it. The sun was so incredibly bright that, although we had put on tons of sunscreen, we were clearly turning red within seconds of stepping into the sunlight (Jay too!), so we escaped into an internet cafe for a couple hours to upload photos and posts from the past week. When the clouds gave us a bit of cover, we walked around a bit more, had lunch, and headed back to the hostel for a few very close games of "Glory to Rome" and Jay worked on his Spanish and guitar.
This morning we got up early, checked out, and left our backpacks in the hostel office. We then headed up Santa Apolonia hill to the Silla del Inca (Incan chair) and some beautiful views of the city. There was a small tunnel cut into some of the rocks on the hill, so we had a nice place to escape to when the rain started coming down. And now here we are, back in the same lovely internet cafe, putting up our photos. Yay World Wide Web. For reference, the photos that look darker or have Jay in them are probably mine (I figured out how to get my camera to take mini-JPG copies with the NEF files!), and the others are Jay's. Enjoy! And for those of you who are sending us e-mails, we're sorry that we don't respond very quickly - we've only come into internet cafes a couple times. But we do read them and appreciate them very much! Keep 'em comin'! :-)
Photos of Cajamarca:
