Carnival!

Cajamarca and Carnival were both amazing. Cajamarca is the capital of the mountainous province with the same name. It is situated 9,000 feet up in the Andes and is famous historically, for being the location where the Inca king Atahualpa, was captured by the Spanish. In order for his release, the Inca’s had to fill a room once with gold and twice with silver. It took them over a year, and in the end, the Spanish killed him anyways. And so, the city, of maybe 100,000 people, is a unique mix of Spanish and Incan tradition.
After a long and frustrating trip, I finally stepped off the bus and breathed in the fresh mountain air. I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. It was so good to get out of the desert and Lima. The mountains shot up in all directions from the Cajamarca valley, and they were green. There weren’t many trees, just lush, bright, green grass covering every inch of the ancient sierras.
I had seen so many pictures of Cajamarca and other mountain towns, it was so amazing to finally be in a part of Peru that looked to incredible to be real. Immediately, I felt a pang inside. I thought how different my life would be if I wasn’t a Lima volunteer. Cajamarca was always the image I had in my mind of how I would spend my two years in Peace Corps. My whole trip, I couldn’t shake the “what if” feeling. Especially because in my first month of service, I was offered a site changed to a mountain town in Cajamarca, which I turned down. But I didn’t spend too much time thinking about the way things could be. Within 5 minuets of hoping off the bus, I was at the hotel and regaling new stories with follow PCV’s in no time.

I invited my Lima friends up to celebrate the festivities with us. One of my friends is a former PCV from Ecuador and all of my Lima friends were so excited to meet all the volunteers who I never shut up about. I think all my fellow 9ers were taken aback by how much my friends knew about them already. There must have been at least 45 volunteers. We filled a whole hotel and then some. So Friday night, every body hung out at the hotel catching up until it was time go out and party.

Saturday morning I woke up bright an early and went with Team Lima (all the volunteers from specific departments have cool names, aka “Ancash Money“ and “Arequipin’ it real”. Since I was representing Lima solo, I gave me and my friends the name Team Lima) to the Banos del Inca. The Inca Baths are natural hot springs that they have channeled into private baths and swimming pools. Tania and Lauren opted for private baths and me and Candice hit the pool. It was the most spectacular setting. A steaming natural pool surrounded by bright green mountains. Even though it is so high up in the mountains, it’s tropical, so when the sun is out it’s quite warm. It was strange but awesome to be in a bikini at 8 in the morning at 9,000 feet. The sun was hot but the air was still mountain morning crisp. Being in the water felt amazing, being out of the water felt amazing. I could have stayed there all day. But I knew the tranquility of the morning had to end. It was Carnival. Craziness was about to ensue.
I had heard stories about what to expect. It was clear who the veteran volunteers were and who were the rookies (rookies featured bellow in picture). Peru 7 had shirts specially made and others were dressed in a wide array of get ups. I was wearing my high school basketball shorts, sandals from Costco and a Cajamarca Tee-shirt I bought at the hot springs. Cajamarca is famous for it’s completely, out of control, water and paint fights. We all started drinking and in a huge group we took to the streets to take on the locals at their own game. We were instant targets cause we are white (and black and asian, but definetly not Peruvian). Every person that saw us attacked us. When we finally arrived in the town plaza we were COVERED in paint and water. So we danced in the plaza with each other and locals as we continued to be nailed by balloons and buckets from all sides.

This may sound awful to some of you. But I assure you, with the right mind set and the right group of people, it is such a great experience.

One thing about Cajamarca, is that every house and building has a balcony. So you can’t walk down the street without people dumping buckets of water on you. So after we were done with the war in the Plaza, we headed back to the balconies of our hotel to continue attacking anyone that passed. The picture on the left is after we had all been attacked in the streets so we're up on the balcony of the hotel with a water baloon launcher

When late afternoon hit, we were all tuckered out. Some volunteers headed to the Inca Baths to recharge. Me and Team Lima went and passed out for two hours in our room. The nights in Cajamarca are chilly, so when we woke up we got some hot soup and yummy tea which hit the spot after our incredible day. Team Lima went back to the room after dinner and took advantage of the cable TV and I didn’t see them the rest of the night. I spent the evening in the common area with Peru 9ers, drinking beer and catching up on all the good stories from site. Afterwards we went and danced the night away at a club.

By the time I surfaced Sunday morning, a lot of volunteers had already left. I decided to go check out the parades with Team Lima. Saturday is the official paint day, the rest of the days are just water. We thought we would be fine. But we were four white girls in a sierra town. We were attacked, and unfairly. But I guess we should have expected that. We always get way more attention than we want. And when the men who normally whistle and holler as you walk by them have water balloons and buckets of water, of course they are going to attack us instead of the tiny, 40 year old village woman standing next to us. In this picture, you can't really tell, but Tania (to my right) is alraedy soaking wet head to toe. As you can see the streets were filled with people, but everything about us makes us stand out.

I learned my lesson from my trip from Lima and gave myself plenty of time at the bus. I settled into to my seat that I would be occupying for the next 14 hours, and I slept better than I ever slept on an overnight bus. Between the Inca Baths, the friends, the paint wars and the green fresh mountains, Saturday was one of the best days I’ve ever had in Peru. I woke up in Lima ready to take on the summer desert once again. But I had something bigger on my mind than the heat. The deputy director for all of Peace Corps, the country director of Peru, the assistant director of Peru and my program director were all arriving at my site hours after I did. I tried very hard all of Carnival not to think about this visit and enjoy my vacation. I did a good job of keeping it out of my mind. But it was time to move it from the back burner to front and center. Did all of my plans fall apart over the weekend while I was partying and playing? Or was my visit a gran exito (big success)? Tune in tomorrow for the