Cajamarca - agua, agua, agua..

We left Chiclayo for Cajamarca, a city further south and high up in the Andes. It was a long bus journey but then that's something that we'll be well used to before long. We didn't have a nice air-conditioned bus, but we had beautiful scenery, which was better to look at than the latest dubbed Jean-Claude Van Damme film they had decided to put on!

Cajamarca is set in a basin surrounded by green hills. It reminded me a little of Banos in Ecuador but bigger - plus it has a lovely central square. And it was wet. Finally the wet season is living up to its name. On our arrival, a short break in the rain allowed us to leave the bus station and walk into town. Water ran everywhere. I didn't see many drains but only oversized gutters along the sides of the roads where the water flowed like rivers. It was time to put away the shorts and flip-flops!

After popping my head in a few places I found a hotel that for 30 Soles (under $10) that seemed like a bargain - it came with a private bathroom and TV. Unfortunately when we returned to check in with our bags, the room we had been given had a bit of a security flaw. Above the door to our room was a large rectangular hole where a pane of glass should have been. The room itself was nearest the main entrance and it was all too easy for someone to shimmy over and take our belongings. It's a paranoid life I have to lead!

Still, no problems, the young girl working at the hotel showed us up to the only other free room which was on the top floor. She could only have been about twelve and getting two towels was hard enough, let alone moving rooms. Much better for security we took the other room. The next day however, the rain really came. It was a proper afternoon downpour that lasted a good few hours. Our top floor room however, was not the place to be. The roof wasn't really up to taking such a pounding of torrential rain, and one by one puddles started to appear. A few puddles here and there you can put up with - it wasn't exactly a five-star place - but when the drips started over the bed we had to again call the services of the twelve year old. Even she suggested we move back to our original room without prompting, security problem or not!

Earlier that day we had jumped on a last-minute tour to see what is said to be the oldest man-made construction in South America. OK, so the guide book has a statistic on every monument, ancient citadel and archeological site making you feel you shouldn't miss out on it, but this sounded pretty cool. Near Cajamarca there is a plain on a mountain range called Cumbe Mayo. Here we saw some of the pre-Inca channels that run 9km across the mountain tops redirecting drainage water from the mountain. It was presumably for irrigation and drinking water however we learnt of sacrifices that took place specifically to let blood into the stream - not so sure I'd have wanted to drink it! The construction of these channels dates back to 1500 BC and it is really impressive how intact they are, still carrying water. They also made us climb through into a cavernous rock and out the other side. Not entirely sure why as it was almost pitch black inside. I think it was once a sacred place.

It was good to be in the countryside and with the rain and the green surroundings we felt we could be back in the UK! Maybe we should high-tail it back to the nice warm coast!