Cajamarca Carnaval
I arrived in sleepy town Cajamarca (population around 100,000) February 15th by flying from Lima. I stayed a few kilometers outside of the small city at a hot springs resort. After my first day, I was a bit underwhelmed, but I figured a week of underwhelming events would be good for me. On Saturday I took a tour of Cumbe Mayo about 20 kilometers from Cajamarca. I quickly learned why travel on roads around here takes so long. The roads are dirt/mud, single lane and incredibly curvy. So much that a vehicle can never go fast and we made good time by covering the distance in 50 minutes. I estimate that we really only went about 6-7 kilometers by way that the crow flies. This would have been torture except the scenery was spectacular. First, we had views of the city getting further into the distance below us as we climbed out of the valley. Second, the indigenous properties above the city are incredibly interesting. The best farms were the ones built into the verticle rock formations for which the area is famous. Green pastures and rows of crops with large rocks jutting up, homes and barns built into the areas between the rocks using the stone walls as sides of the buildings and cows, pigs, etc. running around. The area is famous for dairy production.
Cumbe Mayo’s main attraction is an irrigation canal dug around 1500 BC to deliver water from the highlands to Cajamarca. It was dug into rock with amazing precision. In total, it is about 7 kilometers in length. Being that it is 3500 years old, it constitutes the second oldest manmade structure that I have ever seen (Stonehenge and other structures around Stonehenge being the oldest… so far!). I believe Peru has the oldest ruins in the Americas including the oldest city (Caral – about 5000 years old) and many compete with the oldest pieces of civilization that I will see anywhere around the world. Cumbe Mayo also has petroglyphs in caves and on the canal. None of them are very impressive, but I was in awe just knowing that they were created so long ago. The most amazing part of Cumbe Mayo is the landscape itself. The verticle rock formations are a hundred meters high or greater. The trails wind through the formations criss-crossing the canal. We arrived back at Cajamarca at 1:30 PM. I had been told that day’s Carnaval festivities would be limited to one section of the city and the center called Plaza de Armas would be “safe”. Not true…
On Saturday, the festivity of the day was throwing paint. Yes, people had paint in balloons and other launchable devices and ran around and coated each other, cars and buildings. Being that I do not have clothes to toss out and I had my cameras, I didn’t want to be part of the fun. When we got back, the fun had found its way to the area that we were dropped off. I safely made it into a taxi. A taxi covered with twenty different colors of paint! All the taxis were covered. All the people in the area, too. Almost all businesses were closed. The spectacle I witnessed on the way to my hotel was amazing. The city was trashed.
On Sunday, I went into town early to get photos of the colonial buildings and interesting neighborhoods. I was surprised to find that most of the paint had been cleaned up. This seemed impossible based on what I saw the day before. When I got to Plaza de Armas, the square was fairly empty except indigenous folks setting up their displays of trinkets for sale. Cusco Indians were also in town for Carnaval and to sell their goods just off the square. Sunday was supposed to be the quiet day or so I thought. I did not take any precautions… Around 10:00 AM I noticed that people were starting to line up on the street around the square and two streets leading to and from the square. A bandstand was also being constructed with bleachers across the street. I realized a parade was coming. Uh oh… See Cajamarca is famous for water and paint at Carnaval and I was not prepared. I took photos of the crowds forming while I was thinking about what I should do.
After photographing some indigenous folks having a good time waiting, I stepped off the sidewalk which was about a half meter above the street. Unfortunately, someone had tied a rope across the sidewalk to mark their saved space for viewing. Next thing I knew, I was flying through the air and impact on the asphalt was coming quick. Luckily, I had my camera in my hands rather than hanging from my neck in front of me. I yelled and I mean YELLED “shit” as I started to fly. It is amazing how fast the brain can think making such a situation seem to be in slow motion. First, I thought about how much this is going to hurt. Second, I thought about how much harder the asphalt would be compared to my last fall when the gorilla hit me. Third, I thought how I am glad I am doing this at 43 rather than 63 years because this would more than hurt someone twenty years older. Fourth, I thought about how smashed the camera would be upon impact. Lastly, I just tried to relax and get my arms fully extended. I landed hard. Really hard. A gasp was emitted from the hundreds of people who saw me fly and crash. The camera hit first, but I had gotten myself so extended and came down so flat that my whole body basically landed at the same time. I took inventory quickly and found that just my left shoulder was a bit tweaked. I assumed the camera or at least the lens was a goner. I popped up highly embarassed and just started to walk away dazed and confused. I went a couple of blocks and then checked myself more closely – no scratches, torn clothes or other marks. Even the shoulder seemed fine. And the camera had no problems. Love that camera… another great advertisement for the Olympus Evolt E-500. A ten pound Canon or Nikon would have been dead if not also injuring me.
So now I am just ready to get out of there. No parade for me. No fun for me. Why am I in Cajamarca? A dumb choice for a break or so I thought. I was standing on a corner in the main square watching the beginning of one of the strangest scenes I have ever witnessed. Strange until I witnessed Corso the next day… further on… People had come fully equipped with water and devices to deliver the water. Balloons were being hurled. Water guns, huge water guns, were firing liters at a time. Buckets were being tossed. I put the cameras in a waterproof dry bag and watched. As I was standing there, I started to laugh about something with a woman standing next to me. We started to talk and I learned her name is Lourdes from north of Trujillo on the coast. “Talk” being quite liberal since her English is worse than my Spanish. But we just started having a great time. The parade was interesting, but the crowds watching the parade were way better. We were standing next to a bus with people on top and we concluded that eventually they would become a target and we should move. We crossed the street and ended up on a pickup truck with a Serbian, Cajamarcan, Liman, Spaniard and four Indians from Cusco in their full getups. It is the surreal moments like that one which are the best memories of my trip… It’s a Small World After All. The Serbian had even been working in Kinshasa last year and we had an interesting conversation about DRC Africa… in Peru between an American and a Serbian… odd.
After three hours of parade and getting wet, Lourdes and I decided to get some food so we found a restaurant. About three more hours flew by just talking and laughing. I can tell you that some of the best experiences I have had are trying to communicate between two different languages. Chris and I stayed at a six hundred year old chateau in Loire Valley a few years ago and had dinner with the couple (husband’s family had owned the chateau since it had been built!). Their English was rusty because we were the first guests in six months and they don’t speak much to begin with. Our French was a series of grunts. We sat there for five hours enjoying their amazing food, wine and hospitality and we laughed the whole time basically playing one game of charade after another. Lourdes and I hit it off right away and so our charades were fun. When we left the restaurant we found the square empty and basically cleaned up. Another clean up miracle in Cajamarca.
We met that evening at Plaza de Armas and found 10,000 people in the square. More festivities! Thankfully, no water. I was amazed at how many people were just having a great time together. Most of the participants were young. I noted large groups of guys and girls and hardly any groups of just males or just females. A lot of drinking was going on, but even at 1:00 AM, I didn’t see anyone drunk. There were no police present. I was learning how much fun Peruvians are and how much they love life, friends and family. I seriously doubt you could take thousands of Americans or Europeans, add a bunch of alcohol and no police (or even with police) and not have fights and a lot of other problems. The highlights of the night were watching spray paint artists create amazing paintings with just spray cans and a couple of tools, seeing an Indian’s homemade cooker from which she was selling food blow up right where I was looking shooting the pot ten meters into the air and nobody getting hurt (a miracle) and a group of jugglers with fire a couple of meters away from children and nobody getting hurt (a second miracle… these people are a bit crazy when it comes to safety!). Lourdes and I spent the night laughing.
The big parade was on Monday. It is called Corso – I have not been able to determine what that means. Doesn’t matter, it means more fun than I have ever witnessed in my life. The night before on the way home I saw bleachers being constructed along the parade route. It seemed like more bleachers than the number of people who have ever been to Cajamarca. They were made out of scrap wood and many of them leaned against buildings. I was dumbfounded that anyone would use them. Well, upon arrival the next day, Lourdes and I bought some seats (on the ground) and watched the bleachers nearest us fill rapidly. By noon, there were thousands of people in the streets, on seats/bleachers, on buses and other vehicles and on top of the buildings at the intersection where we were located. This was a small section of the total parade route. I could not believe what I was witnessing – pure mayhem with water balloons and other water trajectories firing through the air. Although I was at the parade the day before, I would soon learn that I was a Peruvian parade virgin – totally inocent to the fact this parade would go on for 5 1/2 hours!!! Every group and locale in Northern Peru was represented. While this may sound boring, I can tell you that it truly was the most fun-filled day I can ever remember. It was crazy. We got soaked and we weren’t even targets. The floats were crazy. The performers even crazier.
I should look at the photos I took to remind me about what was so crazy, but I still could never impress upon you how crazy and fun things got. First, the human body is celebrated. Not like it is in Brazil – Peruvians are too modest for nudity – but they have no shame in having a hundred different senioritas displayed on floats as Miss Whatevers. Many whatevers for towns, companies, institutions. Some of them were only six years old. All of them were quite beautiful in their dresses, native getups or very little clothing. Peruvian women are very proud and they are very proud even if they do not have perfect bodies, noses, breasts, etc. I bring this up because at the same time, Europe and America are having these debates about how sexed up images are hurting little girls ( http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070220/ts_alt_afp/uschildrensex_070220135757 ) and I am telling you that this supposed disease of our part of the world is not here. It is another issue where I continue to question our society’s sanity. Along the same line, two young boys appeared in the parade wearing nylons so that they looked nude. They each had a stuffed appendage of about a foot long sticking out in front of them. Yes, that is right, two eight year old boys were made to look naked with twelve inch hard penises and it was the funniest part of the parade. EVERYONE laughed. It was truly funny. It was HARMLESS. A young girl ran out from the crowd and posed with them for a photo (posing with the paraders was a common sight all day). And that, too, was FUNNY. How well would that have gone over in America? I’m telling you, our society has real problems with sex and the human body and they just don’t exist here. Sometimes I think we are from different planets.
Another funny sighting was the guy running in a loin cloth with a monkey on his back. The monkey was another person – a full grown person. The guy doing the running was barefoot. I’m not sure of the length of the parade, but you can assume it went on for kilometers and I bet he carried the other guy/monkey the whole distance. Peruvians are that tough. Barefoot… how about the women wearing high heels. They paraded through the messed up streets in super high heels. Many indigenous people had just their normal sandals made out of tires or they were also barefoot. Shoes are an amazing thing in this world and I am sure Peruvians have as tough of feet as anyone in this world. Damn ugly feet, too! But tough as nails!
Other things that were funny included the fact that many of the drivers of the floats (basically 18 wheelers) were drinking beer. I know, what’s funny about that? Well, you had to be there and you have to release all your safety-first mentality and get into how the locals operate. This safety stuff is now becoming clear to me. Another disease of the American and European societies. We’re so safety conscious thinking we can all be protected from cradle to grave at a ripe age that we are killing every ounce of fun. There are horses that are famous for their dancing in Northern Peru. They were all there and most of the riders weren’t just drinking beer, but they were drunk. Yes, drunk horse riders in the middle of a parade. The horses were straight and they did some dance moves that seemed impossible. The crowds came prepared to share food and alcohol with the paraders. They had a vat of something scary-looking in front of us and we watched people drink from the same cup as they passed by all day long. Hopefully, the alcohol content was high enough to kill the germs…
Everyone was worn out by the end of the 5 1/2 hours. I checked the bleachers and although they looked quite hodge-podge being made from scrap lumber, they actually were sturdy. The place was trashed, but once again it was totally cleaned up the next day. I will never forget Corso in Cajamarca. I will never forget the colors, the beauty, the laughing, the water, the comraderie, the love and mostly the absolute fun that I saw that day. I would love to think that we could have that much fun at home, but it is not possible. If you think I’m off my rocker on this one, come to Cajamarca for Carnaval and I guarantee you will have more fun than you have ever had and you, too, will have some questions about American societal diseases. Come to Latin America in general and learn how to live life to its fullest.
Tags: peru, south america, Travel
vagabondrick
Hey – I saw that woman’s cooker blow up as well 🙂
I’d love to see the pictures you took if you’re alright with showing me, but I guess I might be a little delayed here.
Glad to hear you had fun in Peru 😀