Leymebamba to Celendin

ihana.com - big trip - diary - peru - july 2003

Thursday 24 - Friday 25 July

With the landy tucked away behind our hotel (one of two in the village), we had dinner in a restaurant that had a group of german tourists in bicycle clothes. Back at the hotel we noticed lots of mountain bikes along the wall. The tourists where riding from Cajamarca to Tarapoto, at the edge of the jungle. Their guides where peruvians from Cajamarca and Celendin and T spent the evening chatting about bikes, germans and other nonsense. Two of the guys were just along for the ride (literally) and got free food and accommodation just for helping out a bit. However, they were finding the Germans a bit dull and in the morning suddenly announced that they were quitting and riding back home. One of them lived in Celendin and warned us not to eat any food in Balsas, a steamy village where the road crosses the river Marañon, as he reckoned that everybody there carries some kind of stomach parasite. With this advice in mind we set off on the way to Balsas, Celendin and Cajamarca.

After a few kilometres we came across the Leymebamba museum which has a big collection of 219 mummies which were found nearby. The mummies are kept in a climate-controlled room but can be seen behind the glass. For some reason, pictures aren't allowed but we managed to sneak a fair few anyway. Most of the mummies are wrapped in cloth, sometimes with a complex design, but most often with just a simple face drawn on. Inside is the mummified body and some knickknacks to send it on its way into the afterlife. Lots of mummies have been slashed open by robbers in the past and some of these are on display. They look pretty gruesome, especially one that is the body of a baby. The museum also has lots of other interesting things in it, all in good condition such as sandals, pan pipes and combs.

After the history lesson the road continued its dusty, bumpy way up over a pass thickly covered in fog. Descending a little brought us into the sun and we could see the huge expanse of mountains yet to cross. This route is supposed to take all day by bus despite being less than 200kms. The reasons for this are that the road is terribly bumpy and twisty with big drops off one side making the few buses that ply this route crawl along at snails pace. The landy is a lot more suited to this kind of travel though and we blasted along, enjoying the twisties and stopping often to take in the view, being able to see the road down to the river valley then climb back up again on the other side was cool.

We arrived at Balsas, the relatively low altitude of about 900m making it pleasant and warm with a kind of oasis of fruit trees all around. A quick police checkpoint and we set off, heeding the warnings not to eat or drink anything even though it was lunchtime.

Climbing up to altitude again we could look back and see the road stretching back down to the river and back up the other side and a sudden puncture from a rock piercing straight into the tyre, leaving the reinforcing wires hanging out, giving us a bit more time to enjoy the view as we swapped wheels. A few hairpins further on we came across a couple of blokes beside their motorbike - out of fuel. We had a few spare litres of petrol for the stove and tipped it into their tank. One of them took out of his pocket a small plastic bag which contained about eight precious soles carefully wrapped in paper which was funny. We relieved him of only two as a token payment and carried on our way.

It wasn't far to Celendin, a largish town where we stopped to get our puncture fixed. Getting out of the car T was taken aback to find a kid brazenly peeing on the back wheel of the landy! He hurriedly tucked away his tickle tackle just before a size 11 boot sent him flying towards his unsympathetic mother.

Most rural puncture fixing guys don't have a machine to remove the tyre and use all sorts of tools, this one preferred a pick axe to get the tyre off. Sounds bad but they've had plenty of practice and it doesn't take long, best of all, it costs only about a dollar.

After a late lunch the road changed, being less precipitous and a bit wider with more potholes and traffic. As it started to get dark, T's choice of menu started to want to exit stomach as fast as possible, pulling over at the side of the road the advice to not eat at Balsas was cursed many times over.

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