Bumpy Butts

It is the eve of my birthday and my beautiful baby butt still buzzes from the bumpy bus ride today. It completely negated my fine sulphurous hot bath in Los Baños del Inca this morning ... But for you who think traveling around like this is all sun & happiness, glitter & glamour and hot baths: think again ... and again. Some of you have had the misfortune of traveling around with me in places like this. Imagine the full fury of my frugality without constraint ! (I must add there is one travel partner who actually is worse than me in this respect. If this person reads this (s)he knows who (s)he is ...)

More on the horrors of travel later, but first other matters. I am ´stuck´ here on a Tuesday in the town of Celendín between Cajamarca and Chachapoyas. The bus to Chachapoyas doesn´t leave until Thursday morning. But you know what ? This town is small, and quiet ... it´s perfect to spend my cumpleaños. And you are all invited ! I´m in the Hostal Celendín.

And now the bad stuff. This has been my hotel room for the last four nights in Cajamarca. Around 3-4 euros a night, no toilet-shower, the bed is sagged in the middle, and every night the manager comes in and forces his sexual depravations on me. But it´s quiet and I have a little (barred) window to see a bit of daylight ...

Yesterday I went adventuring to a temple ruin around here called Kuntur Huasi. It´s quite a bit away and for the first part I planned to take the Trujillo bus and switch in a little town called Chilete. ¨Es Domingo señor, no hay un bus para Trujillo...¨. Oh yeah, Sunday. The combis then. I walked about 15 minutes to the road to Trujillo expecting to find one of those fine Toyota minivans there and yes, there it was standing. I swear, these combis/collectivos can read your mind. We had to wait half an hour until it was full - and then three more people were taken in - and off we went. I thought it would be around an hour and a half, but it went pretty slowly. The views were great though and I only bumped my head a few times.

Two and a half hours later I was in the cheerful little flowery town square of Chilete, where everybody just loves waiting for their bus. I had started late already and was getting into a bit of time pressure, wanting to be on the whatever-transport-available-by-then back to Cajamarca before dark.My trusty Rough Guide said I should take the bus to San Pablo from here, but all my inquiries with the locals pointed towards the taxis and not to a bus. Now when asking locals for transport options always ask at least three people (separately). When they agree it´s usually right.(If you ask only one you are usually talking to the cousin of the most expensive taxi driver).

Now in this case I did take the expensive taxi, not wanting to wait until it was full. Only I was looking in the wrong spot, this was not the wait-until-the-car-is-full-spot, so I paid full price (sigh) ... It took another hour on an even more bumpy road to get to the little 3-house town of Kuntur Huasi. What was I doing here ?

The reply to that came swiftly. The site was pretty cool, perched on a charming hill top with great views. And I was alone ! :-) There was still a lot to be excavated, but what they had dug up they had put in nice little museum. And what I saw there ... They had found tombs of over 2500 years old in the temple with magnificent golden objects: crowns, necklaces, and more. Amazing !











Yes I liked it (it was worth it after all), but I had to get back. It had started to rain and the all the taxis and combis passing by the 3-house village were full. I had to walk up to San Pablo where they were filled up. An hour up the hill and when I just entered the town, I bumped into a taxi heading down who still had room ... in the back of his station wagon. Ah well, transport is transport and it´s only an hour on that bumpy road. Comfortably leaning on the luggage of the other passengers I bumped back to Chilete.

Now in Chilete, a bus to Cajamarca was about to pass and everyone seemed to know it. The bus stopped ... and about a dozen people ran to the door of the bus, but it pulled off right away. No place in the bus. So I cramped myself again in a Toyota Corolla station wagon (4 in the back seat) and armed with some grapes sold through the window (sharing them with the others - I´m a nice gringo), we were off. While dusk set in and the trusted Corolla raced along the mountain paths, the familiar lights on the dashboard were my only small straw of hope for a safe return ...