31 « August « 2007 « Lanikai Underway

Visiting a local Family

Posted by Doreen in Inland Travel, Peru
Friday, August 31st, 2007 @ 5:10 pm

Friday August 31: The last two days have been special for us as Vicky, a tour guide that we met at the iPeru tourist office, took us to her homes. Thursday she took us to her simple country house near Otuzco. It is under the care of her Aunt and Uncle who farm the small plot of land. Vicky hopes to expand it into a small “bread and breakfast” as time and money permit. Her aunt fixed us a nice lunch of potatoes, tuna salad and lima beans, while Vicky showed us around. Then we all enjoyed visiting while we ate. After lunch Vicky took us to visit the flower growing area of Huerta de las Hortencias. There lilies and hydrangeas are grown for sale. We walked from there thru the Hacienda Tres Molinos (a milk farm) and on to a cheese factory (Los Alpes). There was no ice-cream at this cheese factory, but we did purchase some great cheese and enjoyed rich creamy yogurt drinks before continuing the trek back into town.

This morning (Friday) Vicky came by the hotel again and took us to visit her family at her “in town” home. We enjoyed breakfast with her extended family while we visited. We met several of her sisters, one of her brothers and his family as well as Vicky’s 8-year old daughter. Several pleasant hours were spent visiting before Bill and I left. Thank You Vicky !!

We walked back to the hotel to relax the rest of the day (and play on the Internet), as tomorrow we move on to Chiclayo on our way slowly back to Ecuador and our Lanikai.

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Pre-Inca & Inca Sites near Cajamarca

Posted by Doreen in Inland Travel, Peru
Friday, August 31st, 2007 @ 4:59 pm

See the Map!

Wednesday August 29: In the last two days we have explored the pre-Inca burial site of Ventanillas de Otuzco, the site of Los Baños del Inca, the small town of Llacanora and the pre-Inca site of Cumbe Mayo.

We took a taxi to see the Ventanillas, which are niches carved into a rock face where the bones of the deceased wealthy were placed along with clay grave offerings. The hillside here is covered with these little niches, which are too small for an entire body; the bodies were buried in the ground for several years then the bones were transferred to a niche along with the grave offerings.

From Otuzco we walked to Los Baños del Inca. It is a hot springs area with many tubs and pools for soaking, the mineral water emerges from underground at about 160 degrees Fahrenheit (72 degrees C). It is here that the last Inca ruler, Atahuapla was resting with his large army when the Spaniards (Pizarro and about 160 men, some horses and a few canon) arrived in Cajamarca. The hot springs was a resort in pre-Inca times and it still is today with many locals visiting the site for the hot water pools.

We continued from Los Baños along a country dirt road to Llacanora where we caught a combi back into Cajamarca. The dirt road follows a small river with lush, green farms in the valley below and steep cliffs on the other side of the road.

Thursday we took a tour to Cumbe Mayo which has three interesting features. The first is the interesting natural rock formations, some look like castle walls and others like marching monks. The second feature is the extensive pre-Inca canal structure carved into the rocks in places and built with rocks in others. Water still flows in the channels although being toward the end of the dry season right now there was not much. The third feature is the many petroglyphs carved into the rocks. They are most visible where the carvings are hidden from the weather under rock overhangs. This trip took all day and we returned to Cajamarca quite tired after our second day of much hiking.

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Cajamarca, Peru

Posted by Doreen in Inland Travel, Peru
Friday, August 31st, 2007 @ 4:42 pm

See the Map!

Sunday August 2, we flew from Cuzco to Lima and on to the city of Cajamarca. Monday we started our exploration of Cajamarca at the Belén complex where the office of tourism is located. The complex itself is quite interesting. There is a church at its center with a large patio. Off one side of the church is a 17th century hospital for men and on the opposite side is a similar structure for woman. The hospital wings are long buildings with bed niches along both side walls for the patients. Both now house museums, one with modern art and the other archeology.

We then visited the “Cuarto del Rescate” which was supposedly the room filled once with gold and twice with silver as ransom paid to the Spanish for the release last Inca ruler, Atahualpa, who was captured and held prisoner in Cajamarca by Pizarro. Pizarro collected the riches, melted them into bars to ship to Spain and then killed Atahualpa anyway, thus ending the Inca Empire.

At 3:00 in the afternoon several of the local churches opened. We visited Iglesia San Francisco and its cloisters and catacombs. The cloisters contain religious and secular artifacts as well as early religious paintings. We also visited Iglesia de los Monjas which is near our hotel. It’s interior is much simpler and more modern looking than the highly carved and decorated baroque of many of the early churches.