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Anza-Borrego

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Me at the Vallecito Stage Depot in 2014

A large chunk of Eastern San Diego County is occupied by the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the largest in California’s state park system. I used to go hiking and tent camping there with my friends.

The Vallecito Stage Depot, which is located in the general park area, was an important stop on the first official transcontinental route, serving the San Diego-San Antonio (‘Jackass’) mail line (1857-1859), the Butterfield Overland Stage Line, and the southern emigrant caravans. This was at least a full decade before the first transcontinental railroad connected the Eastern U.S. with San Francisco.

Little known outside the State of California, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is a scenic destination with the town of Borrego Springs in the middle and near the museums and restaurants of mile-high Julian, California. To the east is the Salton Sea and desolate Imperial County.

Kumeyaay Indian Morteros at Anza-Borrego

The original inhabitants of the area were the Kumeyaay Indians, who also called parts of northern Baja California home. One keeps running into evidences of their habitation of the area on the park’s many trails.

Klaatu Barada Nikto

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At the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico

It was the summer of 2017 and the temperature soared above 100° Fahrenheit (38° Celsius) every day. It was Martine’s idea to visit the New Mexico desert during the summer, and we both paid a high price for it in terms of discomfort.

One of the high points of our trip was revisiting the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. I’m not entirely sure that I believe in UFOs; but, if they exist, the Roswell museum does the subject full justice. Plus they have t-shirts to die for in their store.

Fear Not! I Did Not Enter Through the Exit

I have always enjoyed visiting dinky museums in small towns. I will never forget the Eastern California Museum in Independence, California, where there is on view a full set of coyote dentures for a patient who had no patience with local dentists. Martine and I greatly enjoyed BOTH Loch Ness Museums in Scotland: the Loch Ness Center and Nessieland. And that despite the fact that I do not believe the monster exists!

One museum I did not visit was the Iceland Phallological Museum in Reykjavík. Anyone who has driven in Los Angeles traffic does not have to go out of his or her way to see multitudinous dicks of every variety. And you don’t have to pay admission for that!

Road Trip

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Tortoise at the Santa Barbara Zoo

Because of all the rain we’ve been having, Martine and I haven’t gone on any road trips lately. Today, we drove to Santa Barbara, had a great seafood lunch, and went to the Santa Barbara Zoo. Unlike the Los Angeles Zoo, there are usually fewer than 10,000 visitors present; and consequently there is about 76% less chance of having an infant stroller destroy your ankles.

Mind you, there were many small children in attendance. But that is to be expected at any zoo. It’s one of the few places one can take one’s small progeny and allow them to act like kids without inflicting too much damage to the animals and other visitors.

We’ve been visiting the Santa Barbara Zoo for upwards of twenty years, so we were saddened to hear that the two Asian elephants, Sujatha and Little Mac, died in 2019; and the zoo is not planning to replace them. Instead, their large compound is now an Australian “walkabout.”

On the way back, we took the pleasant and very rural California 126 to avoid the usual traffic jam around Oxnard and Ventura. We stopped at Francisco’s Fruit Stand in Fillmore to buy some honey, strawberries, and mandarins. I was shocked to find that taking 126 and I-405 in Santa Clarita takes no more time and eats up no more miles than taking either the Pacific Coast Highway to U.S. 101 or taking U.S. 101 all the way.

Unfortunately, Martine was in considerable pain from a pinched nerve in the back that has been bothering her for several years and getting progressively worse. Unless she finds a way of ameliorating her condition, we may not be able to go on many more trips together.

Snæfellsnes: Iceland in Miniature

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Twice I have had my toes touching the Snæfellsnes Peninsula of Iceland, but got no further than Stykkishólmur each time. The first time, in 2001, I was on a day trip from Reykjavík; the second time, in 2013, I took a ferry to Flatey and Brjánslækur in the Westfjords and returned to Reykjavík by land via Hólmavík.

I would dearly love to go to Iceland again and see some of the sights I have missed. These include:

  • Most of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula west of Stykkishólmur
  • The area along the Ring Road (Route 1) between Borgarnes and Akureyri
  • The Tröllaskagi Peninsula
  • The Sprengisandur Route through the center of Iceland

As I understand, there is no longer any public transportation on the Sprengisandur Route; and it requires an oversized 4×4 vehicle that can ford glacial rivers.

Map of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula

What interests me about the Snæfellsnes Peninsula is that, within little more than a hundred miles (or 160 kilometers), it includes just about everything that Iceland has to offer, including mountains, waterfalls, a famous glacier (which inspired Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth), attractive fjords, puffins, black sand beaches, postcard pretty fishing villages, and even the site of a famous medieval saga: The Eyrbbygja Saga.

I know there are a lot of long, complicated Icelandic names in this post. It is only because I love Iceland so much I want to make it easy for anyone who reads this to find out what I am talking about. A few minutes on Google Images would show you what I mean.

Mérida Noviembre 1975

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Street Scene at Night in Mérida, Yucatán

I had just landed on a Mexicana de Aviación direct flight from Los Angeles. I was thirty years old, yet this was my first trip alone that did not involve going “home” to Cleveland or going back and forth from Cleveland to college. The night was much darker than in a U.S. city, and the humid heat told me I was in the tropics. As the taxi sped to the center of town, we passed houses where I saw families seated at dinner in the dim light.

We passed a huge Coca Cola bottling plant that I later learned was the largest employer in the city.

The taxi pulled up to the Hotel Mérida on Calle 60 and I checked in. As soon as I dropped off my luggage, I took a walk down to the Plaza Grande and stopped in at several of the shops. I had a delicious meal at the Restaurant Express of Cochinita Pibil with a Cervéza Carta Clara.

Returning to my room, I finally bedded down for the night; but I couldn’t sleep. Several times, I rose from bed and looked out at the street from my ninth floor room at the Optica Rejón and other shops across the street, and a very different kind of foot traffic than I ever experienced in the States. Several times, I would stare at a Maya pedestrian dressed in the typical whites; and, knowing he was being watched, he would look up at me directly. How did he do that?

Eventually, I was able to calm down and get to sleep. Nonetheless I was up early the next morning, eager to acquaint myself with the city before branching out and visiting the Maya ruins on my schedule. I showed up at a local travel agency called Turistica Yucateca which was run by a helpful woman who didn’t know a word of English. Somehow I managed to book two trips with her using the same guide (Manuel Quinónes Moréno) who drove his own car.

The first trip was to the ruins of Dzibilchaltun just north of Mérida. The second was to the ruins of Acanceh and Mayapán, On my own, I managed to get to Uxmal and Chichén Itzá.

I was in seventh heaven. Almost nothing in this life had given me as much pleasure as that first trip on my own. As much as I have enjoyed all my journeys, that one was always special to me. It was the start of my travels. And now, as I approach the age of eighty, I still have the travel bug.

Chiclayo and Sipán

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Tomb of the Lord of Sipán

After Chachapoyas, my Northern Peru has one more destination to its farthest point, back to the coast to Chiclayo. The bus ride to Chiclayo is nine hours. Nine easy hours. No two mountain passes at Himalayan-like altitudes to cross on a dicey road hovering at the edge of a precipice like the one between Cajamarca and Chachapoyas.

Also, we are in the land of the Moche, whose lifelike sculptures I have noted in an earlier post. As with Trujillo, there are numerous ruins, particularly those of Sipán, and museums to visit at Lambayeque, Ferreñafe, and Túcume.

And then it will be time to return to Lima. Chiclayo has an airport, but it is not an international one, so I will have to fly out of Lima’s Jorge Chávez Airport. So I could fly to Lima via Avianca or LATAM. Or I could even take a 12-14 hour bus trip arriving in Lima with a burst bladder.

What will I have accomplished with this trip, should I decide to eventually take it? Peru, Guatemala, and Southern Mexico were the homes of great urban civilizations—none of which had managed to invent the wheel. The Maya of Mexico and Central America did, however, develop a form of hieroglyphic writing. The civilizations of Peru did not, but they were nothing short of amazing with all their closely packed mountain civilizations. In the end, there is far, far more to Peru than just the Inca. They were just the final pre-Columbian civilization before the Spanish Conquistadores rode into town and took over.

Kuelap

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The Chachapoya Ruins at Kuelap

As with the bus trip from Cajamarca to Chachapoyas, I am not sure I am in good enough physical shape to visit the mountaintop ruins of Kuelap. While the city of Chachapoyas presents no particular challenges, the journey to Kuelap consists of multiple parts:

  1. Bus from Chachapoyas city to the Kuelap Cable Car Station (approximate time: one hour)
  2. Take a private bus to the cable car platform (included in cost of ticket)
  3. Ride the cable car 4,400 meters (14,435 feet) to the station at the top of the cable car route
  4. Either walk or ride horseback to the entrance to the ruins

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Two Kuelap Cable Cars Passing Each Other

What is so interesting to justify an arduous all day trip to ma mountaintop ruined city? Although they were conquered by the Incas, the Chachapoyas were an amazing people. These so-called cloud warriors controlled the swath of land around the city of Chachapoyas for a thousand years, until the Inca overcame them. Kuelaps’s “were thought to be great warriors, powerful shamans, and prolific builders who were responsible for one of the most advanced civilizations of Peru’s tropical jungles” (Lonely Planet).

I was hooked when I saw an episode of Lost Cities Revealed with Albert Lin in which the host used a drone and special archeological software to study the extent of Chachapoya civilization that digitally eliminated the foliage cover of the mountains to reveal ancient building sites.

Peru is eager to make Kuelap a popular tourist destination, as Machu Picchu is being worn away by the crush of foreign tourism. This whole itinerary as envisaged by me is a search for alternative destinations, some of which in their own way are as spectacular as Machu Picchu or perhaps even more so.

The Road to Chachapoyas

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The Road from Cajamarca to Chachapoyas

In my perhaps pipe dream (perhaps actual) plans to visit the pre-Columbian ruins of Northern Peru, the one big question is the side trip to Chachapoyas. The Andes at that point consist of a number of parallel mountain ranges. From Cajamarca (at 2,750 meters or 9,022 feet), one goes over a mountain pass of 3,085 meters (or 10,121 feet) to Balsas before tackling Abra de Barro Negro (“Black Mud Pass”) at 3,678 meters or 12,067 feet. From there, one can see the Rio Marañon, which is a tributary of the Amazon. A quick look at the map for this part of the trip will give you a general idea:

The Wiggly Line of Route 88

An even more specific look at the route:

Yup, It’s the Same Road

From what I understand, Route 88 is paved all or most of the way, but there are frequent floods and landslides during the rainy season, which runs from November to April. There is, I believe, one bus per day along this route from Cajamarca to Chachapoyas at 4 :00 AM using the Virgen del Carmen bus line.

This road is by no means the end of my troubles, as you shall see when the discuss the ruins of Kuelap. In fact, I will probably overnight at Leimebamba on the way, visiting their famous museum. My nerves will be plenty jangled by then, especially if I sit on the left hand side of the bus.

Cajamarca

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Back to the World of the Inca: Cajamarca, Peru

On my imaginary Northern Peru trip, I head inland from the coast to Cajamarca, which is 2,750 meters (9,022 feet) above sea level. It was near here at Francisco Pizarro and his Conquistadores captured Atahualpa, the Inca ruler, on November 15, 1532 while he was enjoying himself at the nearby Baños del Inca thermal baths.

At that time the Incas were engaged in a civil war, with Atahualpa ruling the north and Huascar the south. Atahualpa had just defeated Huascar at Cuzco when he decided to take his ill-advised spa treatment. Cajamarca is even today a major gold mining area, so Pizarro imprisoned Atahualpa and held him for ransom. And what was the ransom? A whole roomful of gold from floor to ceiling. Even though the Incas kept their side of the bargain, Pizarro had the Inca leader executed.

The building where Atahualpa was imprisoned still exists, though it is mistakenly called El Cuarto del Rescate (the Ransom Chamber).

From Trujillo, it is a seven hour bus ride to the heights of Cajamarca. From here, I have two choices:

  1. Return to Lima by air (or take a sixteen-hour bus ride).
  2. Take a dangerous bus route to Leimebamba, Chachapoyas, and the ruins of Kuelap, returning by bus to Chiclayo, from which I fly back to Lima.

In my next post, I will discuss this second option.

Next Stop: Trujillo

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The Citadel at the Chimu Ruins of Chan Chan

I am sketching out here a possible trip to see the non-Inca ruined cities of Northern Peru. Yesterday, I dealt with Huaraz and the ruins of Chavin de Huantar. From Huaraz, it is a seven-hour bus ride back to the Pacific Coast and the colonial city of Trujillo.

Francisco Pizarro founded Trujillo in 1534, naming the city after his birthplace in Spain’s Estremadura. The area had already been inhabited by the Chimu, whose ruined city of Chan Chan covered 20 square kilometers (8 square miles) and was said to be the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas.

In addition to Chan Chan, there are other nearby archeological sites at Huaca Esmeralda, Huaca Arco Iris, Huaca del Sol, and Huaca de la Luna, to name just a few.

Trujillo would be a good city to base myself in for several days, as there are a number of colonial structures of architectural and historical interest worth seeing. And the restaurants are rumored to be excellent.

Trujillo’s Cathedral and Casa de Urquiaga

The blue structure on the right was where Simon Bolivar had his headquarters in 1824 during his final campaign to liberate Peru from Spanish control. Just east of the Plaza de Armas is the Casa de la Emancipación where Trujillo’s independence from Spanish rule was formally declared in December 1820.

From Trujillo, I would head northeast, back into the mountains, to see Cajamarca and Chachapoyas, which I will describe in my next post.c