Road to Cajamarca

Josh wanted to travel from Chachapoyas to Cajamarca for the lovely mountain views. For me the twisty dirt roads up and down the Andeas are a motion-sick girls worst nightmare. I´ve become hooked on Dramamine, it takes care of the nasea splendidly as well as puts me to sleep for the entirety of most rides. Honestly, I don´t mind sleeping through the bus rides, they´re quite monotonous otherwise. Anyhow, for part of this ride I was awake.

First off, the bus drivers race down these mountains like a bat outa hell. Second, of course all the roads are dirt and are extremely uneaven. Third, the road is only wide enough for one car and Peru has never seen a gaurdrail. We fortunately got to sit in the front seat, and see all of the action. It was indeed a fortunate seat as the lady in the back vomitted all through the trip.

The ride was terrifying, flying around mountain edges, the driver laying on the horn...hoping to God that we didn´t smash into another car and tumble over the 100ft cliff. There were a couple close calls, when another car appeared around a corner and our driver (seemingly unexperienced) slammed on his breaks vearing toward the edge, with less than a 2 foot buffer from the canyon below. I wished I were sleeping, or atleast had some ativan.

We got to stop at one point at one of the moutain towns, no more than 2 mudbrick buildings and a few tents selling fruits. I used the toilet here and was pleasantly surprised that it was infact an actual toilet, no seat of course and they did charge a fee. Even so, this was a grand improvement over the last roadside toilet, which consisted of a green shack thick with flys and a hole to urinate in or around.

In the end the bus made it safely to Cajamarca and we found a tiny hotel room with a reasonable rate to stay in. We had some wonderful pizza that evening...but I must say I prefer mozzerella to the white cheese of South America when it comes to pizza.