Wandering Words: Huamachuco

To celebrate one year in Peru, I decided to make a long overdue day-trip to visit Huamachuco, the site of PCV friends Lindsay and Chris. Huamachuco, which is a 1.5-hour drive away from Cajabamba, is actually the closest PC site to Cajabamba, despite the fact that it's technically in another department (La Libertad). However, although the two towns are close in terms of distance, Huamachuco was a significant change from Cajabamba in two key aspects: it's colder, and it's bigger. At an altitude of about 10,500 feet, Huamachuco was noticeably chillier during the day, and absolutely freezing at night - my visit definitely made me appreciate Cajabamba's more temperate climate, and the slightly-less-than-icy water that comes out of our sinks (vs. Huamachuco's finger-numbing water). In addition, with a population of 60,000, Huamachuco felt more like my regional capital of Cajamarca than my town of Cajabamba. The city has a huge plaza (see photo below), substantial motor traffic, enough inhabitants to support a handful of quality restaurants (real pizza!), and covers a much larger area than my little campo town.

Huamachuco plaza

The plaza was filled with plant sculptures, including, of course, a cuy

None of these differences are necessarily for worse or for better; it was just really interesting to experience such a marked change such a short trip down the road. The highlight of my visit was definitely our excursion to Marcahuamachuco, a sprawling mountaintop site of pre-Incan ruins just outside the city. Not much is known about the people who inhabited the site, but it's thought that the buildings were constructed between 400 and 800 A.D., and that Marcahuamachuco was one of the region's most important political centers, prior to its conquest by the Incas. It took us the better part of a morning to explore all the ruins, as we puffed for breath at 12,500 feet and were buffeted by some serious winds, but the hike around and down from the site was beautiful.