Huaraz, Day 2

I`ll start today with yesterday`s journal entry since I failed to log in to my blog:

¨Huaraz - 6.15pm - Sun. 17 December 2006

¨One thing about Perú I can definitely say I`m glad to have again is ´arroz a la cubana` (rice, fried egg and plantain), the most delicious meal I`ve had in South America. The buses are also much better than Bolivia`s (sorry Bolivia) and almost always have a bathroom.

¨I arrived in Huaraz at 6.30 this morning with absolutely no idea of where I was going to stay. I took the advice of the first pushy Peruvian who approached me, and his word that I could get a single room for S/10 ($3.41), and walked to Hostal Imperio. It`s a pretty nice Peruvian place with friendly staff and hot water, and I have a rooftop room with a big double bed all to myself for the promised price. Lovely. I napped until 11am before deciding to do anything.

¨Before showering I noticed they have 2 brown owls (great owls?) in a small cage on the roof. They look at me with their big yellow eyes; they`re so beautiful. I have to stop myself from pulling the cage door open and setting them free. I`m pretty sure it`s illegal to keep them there like that.

¨I finally had a look around the city at around 1pm. I took in a few sites: the ´Museo Arqueológico de Ancash` and `Parque Litico´, the Iglesia Señor de la Soledad, the Plaza de Armas, Plazuela Belen and the little church there, and the `sitio arqueológico Pumacayan´. The archeology museum was really interesting, perhaps because I haven`t been to one in a while and my interest has refuelled. It gave me a chance to glimpse at all the historic sites in the area that I don`t have time to go see in reality. I looked at a lot of artifacts, the likes of which I`ve seen before, but also a lot of lithic stone carvings from Chavin and other old towns nearby. I wish I could go see a place called `El Puente Colgante Inca de Pukayacu´ - it has this big suspension bridge I would love to walk across.

¨The Pumacayan site is actually just a bunch of old but still inhabited houses on top of a hill with a nice garden. It wasn`t much to see, but the man I spoke to briefly said something about it getting hit and ruined by earthquakes in the past.

...

¨I`m officially surrounded by Christmas, by the way, and have been for a while now. The decorations are the same, but tackier and more often over the top than in Canada. While I was waiting in Lima`s bus station yesterday I had to suffer through a hundred repetitions of cheap beep-tone Christmas songs because the bus people decided to decorate with blinking, singing lights. As if the blinking-only ones aren`t annoying enough. Some of it is very nice though, especially the trees, and it makes me long for a proper Christmas sometimes.¨

Today, Monday the 18th of December, I took a micro to a little town called Monterrey, just 15 minutes out of Huaraz. There they have `hot springs´ which turned out to be a concrete pool with brown (but yes, hot) water. There were a lot of locals there, horsing around and having a good time. I did a few laps but couldn`t take the heat for long. It was very nice though to have a dip, and after walking around town a bit I went back to Huaraz.

Nothing much doing today though except for this crazy drunk guy who wanted to buy me a drink. I`m having a good time just walking around and relaxing. Tomorrow night I take a bus to Trujillo on the coast, after which I`ll head to Máncora, the surfing town I mentioned before. If I like it I might actually spend Christmas there rather than have to rush to find a nice place in Ecuador. I`ll just have to see!