Hmmm...it´s kinda hard for me to make a blog entry about Chiclayo, because now that I think about it, I didn´t go out of my way at all to experience it. When I was there, I really didn´t like the city, and I didn´t even find the ruins all that impressive or feel particularly attached to the local archaeology, even though it was much the same as that of Trujillo, which I loved. I don´t really know how to account for it. So I guess I´ll just quickly summarize the days.
So...the first day I got to Chiclayo, the cabbie dropped me off at the wrong hotel, but not only that, he went inside to collect commission because it´s a popular scam for cab drivers to take their foreign passengers to the wrong place. So, I go inside and realize I´m not where I´m supposed to be...but the guy behind the desk was pretty cool about it and even told me how to get to the correct place.
I´m running sort of low on money, and the ruins around Chiclayo are pretty far from the city center, so that taking a combi or collectivo of some kind really isn´t a viable option. In place of that, I decided to book a tour on the first day, in order to get a pretty good idea of where everything was. With the tour, we went to Huaca Rejada, where they found the senor of Sipan and something like twenty other burials. It´s a great story, but it actually makes for a pretty unimpressive visit. After this, we lunched (I ate delicious arroz con pato) and then went to another museum, where all of the Senors gold is stored. This was considerably more impressive, and I especially liked these giant gold and turquoise earrings that the senor had in sets. The last stop of the day was Tucume, which is basically a huge valley of pyramids, though they only actually allow you to visit two of them, which is pretty lame. But we climbed up, got a nice view of some coastal communities, and then left. Maybe I didn´t have a great time at these ruins, but on the upside I did meet some other travelers, which is a much bigger challenge on the largely unvisited north coast than in the southern highland towns (or in Lima for that matter). On the tour, I talked a lot to this lady whos actually from Lima, which was interesting because Limeans tend to have quite radical views of the provinces, I think. Also, there was a couple from Denmark doing an around the world...or maybe just around SAm, I can´t remember. Anyway, after the tour was over, I met up with this Danish couple and we went to Chiclayos newish, American style mall, called the Real Plaza. After a dinner chock full of fresh vegetables (just what we all wanted), we went for Starbucks, and then to see a movie, Knowing, at the mall´s theater. I quite liked the movie, actually. I mean, I know that it´s not a great movie or whatever, but I enjoyed myself.
The next day I was sick as a dog. Woke up at like 5 am and spent the rest of the day in bed, watching American imported TV and wondering if I was going to die.
Skipping over that unpleaseantness, I decided while I was ill that I hated Chiclayo and never wanted to return. In fact, I fell into quite a slump, probably because I had been in bed all day. I got really frustrated and wished that my trip was over and all the rest of it. So on the next, and last, day of my stay in that city, I decided to skip any sort of attempt to be a responsible student of PreColumbian civilization and I went to Chiclayo´s Mercado Modelo, inside of which is a witches market where you can buy ingredients for potions and get cured by a shaman. To get there, though, you first have to walk by the city´s produce market and butchers. Basically, it´s this huge, semi outdoor complex underneath tents. From the second I walked into this thing, I felt pretty nervous, because everyone was definitely staring at me (like I said, not a whole lot of foreigners up there, especially not to see something like THAT) and because once you really get inside of this complex you realize how huge it is, and it becomes quite a claustrophobic experience. I just tried to rush past the vegetable part, but I realized I really had no idea where the witches market was. So I past the vegetables and then ended up with the meats...which was really unfortunate. The stench was so ungodly, like everything was just rotting, and the sight was completely bizarre, which huge sides of cow sitting on a table next to this ridiculously long knife...I don´t even know. I doñt actually have a weak stomach, believe it or not, but I thought I was going to throw up in the middle of this market...which probably would´ve blended in perfectly with the general atmosphere, honestly. So straight back to the back
I headed, and after some searching found the witches market, which wasn´t that interesting after all.
So by this point I´m pretty depressed, and I start wishing I were Mexico like I had planned to be ALL YEAR LONG before that stupid swine flu and the tec de monterrey cancelling the program and the state department fucking me over and all that. I had mostly stopped thinking about that, of course, because why bother? Anyway, so I leave the market and head back to that American style mall, not knowing what else to do, and I buy a ticket to see Up, the only movie showing at the time. And I know this probably sounds silly but this is how it happened : Seeing that movie actually made me renew my resolve not to lose the spirit of this adventure, to experience the best of South America in this once in a lifetime setup that Ive got going on here. There´s this sequence at the beginning where the couple is dreaming of visiting South America, but real life keeps getting in the way and the wife dies before they ever get the chance to visit. Their dreaming, though, really reminded me of everything that I love about Latin America, about the fact that Ive spent a whole LOT of my life thinking about and trying to understand and wanting to be in this part of the world. I don´t know... I regret now that I more or less wasted two days feeling bad for myself and missing out on whatever Chiclayo had to offer (which must be SOMETHING) but in the end I think what matters is that I conciously decided to enjoy what little time left I have on this trip. Which really is very little time, actually, considering how much I still want to do. Maybe Peru doesn´t exactly fit in with the way I´ve thought about this part of the world...but thats the point, right? I dont know...but when I was thinking all of this I just sat in the theater and cried, and cried, and cried, though I really can say I left renewed. I should add that there´s something in there, too, about strength in loneliness, but I can´t quite put my finger on what that is yet.
As it turns out, there could have been no better introduction to Chachapoyas, the tiny capital of the department of Amazonas. As I blog now, I´m sitting high up in the cloud forests, in the Ceja de Selva, where the warm air of the jungle hits the mountains and creates jungle like vegetation. It´s so beautiful! I can´t believe that I only get to spend two days here, but like I said, this trips almost over so Ive got to get moving.
On my first day in Chacha, I arrived at my beautiful hotel at 5 am, slept until 11, and then went to the travel agency to book a tour for Kuelap. At the agency, the guy told me that I could also, if I wished, have a visit to Gocta, the third highest waterfall in the world, just an hours drive outside (and in the jungle). With my newfound sense of adventure, I thought that it would be a great idea! So I went to Gocta and began the hike. It was far more difficult than I anticipated. First, to get to the falls, you have to hike 2 and a half hours each way, and the hike is constant up and down climbing (though it seemed, in both directions, like it was mostly up). Also, the Amazon has been having a lot of rain recently, so the road, which was not paved in ANY form whatsoever, had turned completely to mud. It was disgusting....I had mud on my pants, up to my knees, sinking in over my shoes, and all the while I´m just trying not to fall. And the whole way there, the campesinos with there lame mules were making fun of me because I was single! (It was explained to me later that they´re far more accustomed to seeing a couples set up). Anyway, I was mostly unperturbed by the mud and the peasants, though the climbing was rough. But in the end the falls were beautiful, and I got some nice photos, and when my exhausted body finally made it back to town I was happy I had done the trek.
Today I went to Kuelap. It´s a really crazy site...since we´re in such a remote location Chacha has had its own unique development, so it looks nothing like any other Andean site, what with round buildings and all. But anyways, I enjoyed that, and I ate some delicious cecina de res, an Amazonian dish a lot like jerkey.
Tomorrow, I´m off for quite a trip. At 4am, the bus leaves for Celendin, a rather treacherous ride, actually, because it goes on some pretty dangerous highways on, of course, cliffsides. From Celendin, it´s another three hours to Cajamarca, which is my main destination. I could avoid this kind of trek by going BACK to Chiclayo and trying to catch a same day bus to Cajamarca, but this could potentially take twice as long, and plus I have such ugly feelings towards Chiclayo that I´d much rather take this grueling 14 hour andean highway trek than backtrack to stupid Chiclayo and potentially overnight. Ugh. Anyway, this post has gone way too long. But as it comes to a close it´s just all so exciting and I just can´t help it!
