Last weekend I headed about 6 hours inland for a new taste of Peruvian culture in Cajamarca. Cajamarca is a beautiful town surrounded by mountains, filled with picturesque avenues and known for it’s delicious dairy products – cheese, yogurt, manjar blanco – as well as the ever popular “cuy”(guinea pig).
We arrived at 4:30am and headed straight to a place called “Los Baños del Inca”- a tourist spot that boasts steamy natural hot springs (previously visited by Inca King Atahualpa), private hot tubs, a pool, beautiful gardens, spa services, and ruins. Great (and cheap!) way to warm up for a few hours!
That afternoon we explored a culinary fair and climbed up to the top of Cerro Santa Apolonia for a great (though rainy) view of the city. I finally gave in and tried the cuy for dinner – and let’s just say that I am still not too impressed. May have been the fact that most of my portion was the head of the animal (see picture).
We also got soaked at one point as we explored town- one of Carnaval’s traditions is to dump water (via buckets, hoses, water balloons) on complete strangers! That night we hit the streets around the Plaza de Armas for the start of the festivities – which involved a whole lot of music, dancing, singing and chanting.
The following days’ festivities continued with much of the same, plus extra dosings of water and lots and lots of brightly colored paint! Massive crowds paraded around the streets, grouped in smaller bands, singing songs about carnaval and engaging in rowdy paint and water attacks. Being a bit competitive myself (ahem…) I joined in by dumping cups of red paint on anyone not in our group.
Residents of the homes dumped water and launched balloons from doorways and rooftops. Toward the end, it started to downpour, which did not seem to deter anyone at all (we were already completely drenched anyways). Miraculously my camera made it out alive!
We managed to catch a big parade on the last day before we headed back to reality. It was definitely the rowdiest weekend I’ve had yet, and a bit of unique, glorious Perú culture I will surely never forget.
Neat pics. Looks like a lot of fun & so festive. I might need to check it out for myself:)
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