The Adventures of Andrew Maurer

We caught collectivos to Caraz at around 8am, making sure to get some fried egg and cheese sandwiches for breakfast for S0.50/unit ($0.17). The collectivo was about 1h40min at S6 ($2) each. At Caraz we got one of those rickshaw/converted motorcycles with sears for 2 in the back to the other bus station – S5 total (though it should have been S3 or S4). Finally we caught a collectivo taxi from Caraz to Cashabampa – S8 each, with a total of 7 people in the car! And no, this wasn’t a minivan; this was a standard 4-door Toyota. One person sat on a pillow over the handbreak and 4 of us crammed into the 2 seats in the back. Was it ever a relief to get out of the car at Cashabampa!

From Cashabampa we spent about 4.5 hours hiking through rural countryside to Hualcayan. It was great passing through small villages and being followed by many young school children. They would say “carmello” “carmello” (which we later found out means “candy”) and occasionally Alex would dig out some candy from his stash. One boy was very talkative and I talked to him for a while.

We were happy to get to Hualcayan – a very small village of farmers, though there is road access from the opposite direction. We were surprised to find that the village has a convenience store, but it seemed to have gringo prices (for any trekkers who pass through). We bought 4 eggs @ 3eggs/S1 and cooked scrambled eggs with cheese and salami right on the curb. We asked if there were any restaurants and the man said no, but if we waited until 6:30pm his senora would cook us something. We were excited about this and hoped that this meant a normal dinner with a Peruvian family. Alex also convinced me that we should buy 30 more eggs for the rest of the trek (he would carry them). We filled a cardboard egg-tray with 30 eggs, placed another upside down on top, tied it with string, and then put it in a plastic bag. I was very sceptical about the eggs not breaking while being carried in Alex’s pack.

While we waited for dinner, many gringos walked through. They said that they were a group of 35 archaeology students excavating some ruins nearby. Few spoke spanish – so much for being in a remove Peruvian village!Dinner was very disappointing – a bowl of soup each for S4/person eaten at the table in the convenience store. Alex wasn’t too thrilled. We camped in town on a grassy patch at the start of the next day’s hiking.