Into the North!

As promised, a brief description of my four day trip into the north.  (Yes, it was mysterious for me as it sounds - I had never been north of Lima before this trip.)

Mount Huascaran!

To get to Chavin de Huantar, you have to take a bus from Lima to Huaraz and then a bus/car from Huaraz to Chavin.  The bus ride takes eight hours, and the car ride can be three hours.  In other words, Chavin is in the middle of nowhere.  After arriving in Huaraz at 6am, I jumped into a car headed for Chavin.  While the scenery was absolutely breathtaking, with gorgeous views of Mount Huascaran, the tallest mountain in Peru, the road was anything but smooth.

The main facade of the principal temple of Chavin.

After 1.5 hours (or the last half of the car ride) of traveling over crumbling pavement and sharp curves, the town of Chavin was a welcome sight.  The site of Chavin de Huantar is a 10-15 minute walk from the center of the town.  It dates to the first millenia BCE and has numerous galleries and canals that served both a practical and ceremonial purpose; there is evidence that the sound of rushing water was timed with certain parts of the ceremonies that were practiced at this temple complex.  The galleries are tunnels that make up a labyrinth and are big enough for people to travel through.  At the end (or middle?) of some of these galleries, there are chambers in which ceramics and other fine artifacts were found.  Needless to say, walking through these galleries that were open to tourists was surreal.  After spending three days exploring this site and the town (including attending a mass on Sunday), I traveled back to Huaraz.

One of the galleries that I walked through.  Without the artificial light, I could not see a thing. This is seriously the most Indiana Jones-esque thing that I have seen in Peru.

The unfinished cathedral in the central part of
Huaraz.  It is as beautiful as it looks.

I had seven hours to explore Huaraz before catching my bus back to Lima.  A friend of a friend showed me around, but it was definitely not enough time.  We hiked up to a site dating to the 16th or 17th century that hasn't been studied before (future PhD project perhaps?) and saw a beautiful park with a Greek amphitheater outside of the city.  Of course, we hung out in the Plaza de Armas and feasted on pollo a la brasa (baked chicken with fries and a salad).

Manjar Blanco - one of the most sugary,
unhealthy yet best tasting spreads in existence.

Since Peruvian gastronomy is one of the loves of my life, I am obligated to include an incredibly brief description of food in the North.  Huaraz and its surrounding areas is famous for its manjar blanco, a sweet white milky spread.  Not only did they have the best manjar blanco in all of Peru, but they had different flavors (lucuma, orange, among others).  Naturally, I had to contribute to the local economy by purchasing some of this stuff.

MK, enough about the North.  Blog post about my first week in Cusco coming soon...