Wednesday was a holiday here in Peru. It was the anniversary of some battle, but I couldn’t get much more than that out of anyone I asked about it. In any case, we didn’t have training. So, Brian, Robyn, Douglas, and I decided to go on an adventure. We heard that there are some “mystical ruins” about a 3km hike away from San Pedro. San Pedro is at 10,000 feet above sea level, and is 33km from Chosica. Our guidebook said it would take an hour and a half to get there. It sounded like fun, and so we met at the plaza in Chosica at 10:30am to begin our journey.
We had a bit of a time finding the place in Chosica where the combi was supposed to leave for San Pedro, but thanks to our first bit of luck we found it about 5 minutes before the combi left. I’m not sure how many combis left from Chosica for San Pedro yesterday, but I don’t think they were very frequent. The 33km drive took 3 hours. Yes, I realize that some of you can run faster than that. I believe that my pictures of the drive up there will explain our slow pace. Chosica is 2,000 feet above sea level, which meant that we had to climb 8,000 feet in a van. The road was dirt and snaked perilously close the edge of the mountain as we climbed. We had to stop and back up in the middle of several of the hairpin turns because the combi couldn’t make it around in one try. One time the doorman had to get out and put rocks behind our wheels. At another point we forded a river, and twice we had to stop and wait for livestock (donkeys and then cows) to make their way around our combi.
When we finally made it to San Pedro it was beautiful. It is a small town perched near the top of a mountain (although the people here still call these hills… can’t wait for the Andes…) with breathtaking views on all sides. It was very misty, which added to the mystery, but was hard to capture on film. First we stopped for lunch. I had a large plate of chaufa (Chinese fried rice Peruvian style) that was possibly the most delicious meal I’ve had in Peru thus far. Then we set out to find the path to the ruins. We found some other tourists who looked like they might have been there and asked them. “Well,” they said, “you’ll have to be especially careful of the horses. Also, it’s a five hour round-trip hike.” Horses? Five hours? Well, the hike was out because it was already 2 in the afternoon, and we all had to be home for dinner, but we inquired about the horses. As it turned out, yesterday was the day of the annual horse race in San Pedro. The jockeys all had raced up in the morning, and in about half and hour would all be barreling down to the finish line at the beginning of the main plaza in San Pedro. So the hike was definitely out because none of us felt the need to dodge racing horses as we trudged our way up to the ruins. We decided to stay for the race.
The race was amazing. The entire town turned out and perched everywhere from the surrounding hills to the top of the chapel to the wall on either side of the race road to watch the horses come in. We were certainly the only Americans there, and aside from those two other tourists, were probably the only non-Peruvians there. San Pedro is at the beginning of the sierra, and so we got to experience for the first time the more traditional outfits and attitudes of the people there. Everyone was very friendly, and they were amazed that we had come all of the way from the USA to see their horse race (umm, kinda). The race itself was brutal. About one in every three horses crossed the finish line without a rider. We personally saw three people fall. There were dogs and people running up and down the race track who often had to make quick dashes for the sidelines as more horses came through. At one point a donkey came trotting along the race track just like a horse and everyone cheered. It was an amazing day.
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