Carnival in Cajamarca!

Before I tell you about our week end in Cajamarca, I have to clarify something that is very meaningful to me. A friend pointed out that some of my comments in my previous post could easily be misunderstood. Specifically the comments that refer to Alto Trujillo and other "impoverished" parts of town. I was told that these comments could seem insulting and after reading them again I agree that my sarcasm was probably not all that obvious and at the same time a little too "heavy". My respect for the people in the poorer parts of town is immense: people live in very difficult conditions, but they work hard and lead an honest life and most of the time they do all this with a smile! They may not have many physical possessions, but they possess plenty of dignity and pride, which are a lot more important. I am sure that with time, a good education and hard work their living conditions will improve dramatically. In the meanwhile I am doing my best to try and help some of the NGOs that offer the local communities the opportunity to improve their standard of living by "learning how to fish" as opposed to being handed the fish by someone else.

Ok now Cajamarca:

After spending a week in bed with the flu, I was eager to leave the house and get out of Trujillo.

Billy, Ruwan, Carla, Anjana and I rented a car and drove to Cajamarca. In Cajmarca we met up with Amber, who is working and Trujillo and lives in the same house as Billy.
Peru has three distinct geographic regions: the coast (la costa), the highlands (la sierra), the jungle (la selva).
Cajamarca is in the sierra, a "short" 300km drive from Trujillo (the coast). Minor inconvenience is caused by the 2800 meter climb to reach Cajamarca, the corrupt police officers, interesting roads and even more interesting "means of transportation" on said roads.

The coast is arid, desert like, vast areas of sand, dust, rugged looking mountains and rocks with the exception of the few very green irrigated areas. The blue sea provides a bit of color in the otherwise blunt landscapes of the coastline.
Billy did all the driving and he deserves a medal for avoiding stray dogs, donkeys, children playing on the street, trucks/buses driving on both sides of the road and camouflaged speed bumps.

After approximately 150km we got stopped by a police officer that had "trouble" written all over his face.He insisted that our rental did not have regular license plates and he was obviously looking for a bribe. I refuse to pay bribes, I believe they are the source of a malfunctioning government and society. The cop kept on asking "what should we do about this? Should I confiscate the car? Give you a fine? How should we solve it?". Eventually I got so upset I returned to the car, because I was about to give the cop a big speech about how he was an embarrassment to his country and should feel ashamed. I am glad I didn't because this would have probably gotten us into trouble. Anyhow if a corrupt police officer ever stops you in Peru there is a fool proof way of escaping his demands for a bribe, play dumb: speak English only and smile all the time. Eventually he will get so annoyed that he will let you leave.

Como lo solucionamos? Carla and Ruwan with the "nice" officer

We arrived in Cajamarca, found our hostel (conveniently located on the main square, it was basic but only cost 3.5 USD per night per person) and moved in while Billy and Ruwan looked for a spot to park the car. They got back and we all went out for dinner in a pretty good Chinese restaurant on the main square of Cajamarca. After dinner we went to the main square where some kind of party was going on. Basically most young people congregate on the Plaza de Armas, play marching drums and sing the same song over and over and over and over all night long. The lyrics to the song apparently vary, but the tune and underlying drum beat remain the same. The lyrics are of the naughty kind if you understand what I mean. Everyone was in a jolly good mood and everyone wanted the gringos (us) to dance with them. I "danced" with a number of random locals and we all really enjoyed the night.

Me pretending to dance on the main square. Ruwan and Anjana to the left doing a much better job.

Every "two man marching band" plays the same rythm and people sing songs to the same tune, this is more or less what it sounds like:

The morning after we woke up and after breakfast decided to head out in search of some form of carnival disguise. We had been warned that the carnival could get a little aggressive. "If you want to play, you will enjoy it. If you don't want to play you won't have any choice: they will force you to". After walking into the first store I immediately realized what they meant. A two man marching band came walking down the street with a dozen people singing and carrying buckets of paint. They would sing, march and throw paint at ANYTHING and EVERYTHING: people, cars, stores, even some police officers where partially covered in paint. I left the house with a white t-shirt, after a short while the t-shirt was green,blue,pink,gold,yellow,orange,red,purple, etc. My t-shirt now looks like a cross between Kandinsky, Pollock and the arts and crafts of some of the 5 year olds we teach. It currently is my favorite t-shirt.
After stepping out of the relative safety of the store, where we bought colorful hats and other types of carnival gadgets, it took approximately 20 seconds for someone to come up to us and smear us with multi-colored paint from head to tow. We joined the marching bands, sung and danced. Around one pm the skies opened up, torrential rain rapidly cooled the air, but not our spirits. The climate in Cajamarca is pretty unstable: it can be sunny and warm one minute (t-shirt weather) and pouring with rain and cold the next. At night the temperature drops dramatically, to the extent that it feels like the European winter. Drenched to the bone, we formed our own "marching band" with two local kids that possessed drums and were obviously amused by the way the weird gringos were dancing. One of the kids made the mistake of letting me play the drums and I spent a good forty five minutes torturing Cajamarca with my newly found drumming skills. By mid afternoon I was starting to feel cold. Carla, Anjana and I lost the rest of the group and decided to return to the Hostal Plaza in order to clean off some of the paint and put on some dry clothes. Unfortunately the hostel only has warm water from 6 am to 10 am and from 6 pm to 10 pm, so I spent 30 minutes under the freezing water trying to scrub the paint off my body, little did I know that it would take me almost a week to get most of the paint off. I am not sure if I ever felt as cold in my life, but it certainly was worth it.

Left to right: Carla, Ruwan, Me, Anjana and Billy

When my t-shirt was still almost white.

One of the parading groups. I am on the far left towards the back.

Cold and covered in paint.

I had a nap and managed to regain some of my body heat. The rest of the group showed up around 5 pm looking much like mythical fluorescent rainbow beings. After a nap and a Chinese dinner everyone was pretty exhausted and most of our group opted to have an early night. Anjana, Ruw, Carla and I somehow summoned enough energy to venture out again. We went to a small bar called Usha Usha. The bar is small and picturesque. The walls have been decorated with the graffiti of passing tourists, a Che Guevara poster and several unusual shrines in honor of  what I guess are some form of pre-colombian idols. The owner of the bar plays traditional songs on the guitar and gets everyone to sing along, whilst the bar tender alternates between percussion instruments and pouring drinks. We got in and we were sitting towards the end of the small room, a couple of hours later we were sitting right close to Jaime Valera Bazan, the owner, and we were playing the maracas. I was so glad that we decided to go out as the unique atmosphere and Jaime's showmanship made it one of the most memorable experiences of my stay in Peru so far. According to Jaime, Usha Usha is something that the local farmers say to animals that invade their fields in order to shoo them away,  but it is also a powerful spell that the local shamans utter at the end of the healing process in order to drive away the evil spirits. I have to agree that Usha Usha definitely rid me of the evil spirits that I had been carrying around with me as a consequence of spending a week in my bedroom.

USHA USHA!

The following morning we briefly watched the traditional carnival parade, where the various carnival groups wear masks and walk through the town singing the same old tune.Thereafter we wanted to visit the Baños de los Incas, thermal baths that are 15 minutes from Cajamarca... so we followed Billy and Ruwan to the car park... except that they had forgotten the location of the car park and lost the receipt with the address. They kept on insisting that the car park was close to the main square. The two of them spent the following hour looking for the car park. Eventually Carla, Anjana and I joined the search. We approached the local traffic policemen and they were highly amused by the fact that we could not locate our car, but they didn't know of any parking garage in the surrounding area. Eventually I walked into a hotel and asked the receptionist if he knew of any parking garages in the town. He laughed at me and said there was only one parking place in town and it was on the main street, 200 meters from the main square. Turns out that the parking place was on a different side of the square from what Ruw and Billy thought. We then discovered that the main street had been closed because of the parade, so we had to wait for it to end. We found a café overlooking the carnival madness and enjoyed a hearty meal before returning to the pleasant warm climate of Trujillo. Billy and Ruwan, we love you, but your sense of direction is pretty poor!

I have decided that I will return to Cajamarca and Usha Usha in the upcoming months. Unfortunately I will probably have to return alone. As I write this Billy has left Peru and is exploring Ecuador. Ruwan and Anjana will leave Trujillo in two weeks time. I already miss Billy, his good nature and positive attitude. I hope I will meet him again some day.