Vivas Los Mayorgas Part 2

The next day we woke up at 6am to drive to the Mayorga’s Mountain house in Caraz, Peru. It was around a ten-hour drive. We had no_­­ clue what to expect but knew the Mayorga’s would not steer us wrong. We picked up Pedro’s uncle “chino” and began the ten-hour trek. In the back seat was Pedro, Kim, and myself all sitting cozy. The drive had the most incredible scenery we have ever seen.

 When leaving Lima the first thing we noticed was how large and sprawling the city was. On the very outskirts of Lima we saw how many people live in adobe shacks with one room and no running water. After exiting Lima we hit a large desert, which looked like a scene from the Middle East. There where many l­­arge rolling sand hills with huge snowy mountains in the background. The desert contained many sugarcane fields with the Andes Mountain range in the background..

 While heading up further we saw one of the biggest mountains I have seen to date. On the roads we noticed all the agriculture as well as the gorgeous tradition wardrobe of the Peruvian woman. The drive had been relatively easy until we got about 50 KM outside of Caraz where the roads were littered with deep potholes. This made the last couple hours very bumpy. We stopped at amazing restaurant called Alpaymo. We ate in their outdoor patio, which was surrounded by fruit trees and tropical birds. Kim and I both ordered an amazing flat cilantro chicken filet. Pedro got the goat, and Chino got the Cuy (which we will describe more later). 

We hoped in the car again to make the last stretch to the house. We reached Caraz, which was an extremely cute Mountain town. It’s population was estimated at about 20,000 people. It is about 1800 meters above sea level. This was a change of pace for us because we were the only “Gringos” in town. We would walk down the street and people would literally stop to watch us pass. We arrived at the Mayorga family house located four blocks from the center of town, very close to the market.

A little background on the house….

The original part of the house was originally purchased somewhere around 1870. It has developed into a 9 bedroom 4 bathroom home. The “guest house” we stayed in was originally used as a donkey hold while villagers would go to the market. Later it was transformed into a bakery and the fresh bread was sold daily at the market. Then before it was a guest house it was a refrigerator for flowers that were picked on the farms above. It was really neat to see what this property had transformed to over 100 years.

At the mountain house we met Pedro’s 92 year old great uncle who did not speak any English. He is the only one currently living on the mountain property. He welcomed us and seemed happy to have us there. He still drinks beer and smokes cigarettes’  in his old age.