Festina Lente

I went to Carnaval last weekend with probably 75% of all of Peace Corps Peru up in the mountains of Cajamarca. It was ridiculous amounts of fun. Well, after I stopped taking it personally every time a little kid came at me with a bucket of paint and/or water. WHY ME YOU LITTLE BRAT?! That was the first five minutes; after cleaning the non-toxic paint out of my eyes, I looked around to realized everyone was covered with paint, all the women had at least one colorful hand-print per ass-cheek. I donned my finest pair of $4 brown stretch pants and a $1.20 winnie the pooh shirt that I have come to love and hope to get clean. Surrounded by my fifty closest gringo friends, we marched out to take over the city, but mostly ended up getting hit by all directions, stopping every once in a while to do a little ditty if a group of drummers and fluters were nearby.

Cajamarca is incredibly beautiful and I’m taking anyone who comes to visit me out there to see the sights. Except my Mom because she would, as my Dad would say, fudge her undies as your speeding bus rips around a curve and a tumbling painful death down a deep abyss is only a meter or two away (do you like that I now speak in meters?). The concept of ‘guard-rail’ is still on its way to Cajamarca; I think it got lost in the mail. I think the term ‘lush rolling hills’ was defined there. You can see for miles (or would that be KILOmeters?) and despite the aforementioned abyss, it is impossible to take your eyes away as you are traveling to and from the city. I maybe didn’t blink for a good two hours. The city itself feels much safer than the coastal towns I’ve been to. I saw a rock forest, which is a way lamer description of what it really is. What it really is, is giant rocks at the top of mountains (at nearly 4,000 meters) that were possibly formed by volcanoes, though I didn’t see any volcanoes. The living history there is more vibrant, more explicit. On the coast, you have to get way out of the city to see traditional dress and customs, but history is walking around the city of Cajamarca, selling her food or wares. The Andes take my breath away. The cheese is to. die. for. As is the yogurt and sauco jam. I don’t know the translation of sauco in English but it is like a tart and better-tasting blueberry. My favorite meal was cheese covered in jam…

gross or tasty? I’ll let you decide, when you come visit and we trek together to Caja.