Cajamarca

Dylan and I rolled into Cajamarca to take a rest and wait fro Matt to catch up. Cajamarca was the first good sized city I had been in for over a month since Loja, Ecuador - quite novel to see streets lights. But Cajamarca is best known to Peruvians as the place where the Incan Empire came to an end through the treachery of Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizarro.
In brief, Pizarro with a force of 168 soldiers was confronted with a battle hardened Inca army of 80,000 in the heart of the Inca Empire. Over the course of several months of talking, spying and conniving on both sides retreat was impossible for the Spaniards and support over 2000 miles away. Pizarro seized a moment by luring the Inca command structure into a confined square unarmed, while a demand for obedience to the Holy Roman Empire was delivered (refused), then mounted a surprise attack with four small cannon and armored soldiers massacring 1000's of unarmed Inca, decapitating their command structure, and seizing the King Atahualpa. Not pretty but talk about huevons - the conquistadors have always struck me as bad ass crazy. Atahualpa offered to ransom himself for a room filled with gold and two times filled with silver - that is the stone building pictured - the El Cuarto del Rescate, or Ransom Room. So Pizarro takes the gold and executes him anyhow thereby defeating the Inca Empire. Quite the story (being retold below), and typically in the telling Atahualpa is depicted as the noble ruler dealing in good faith betrayed, admired by all. However, good to remember he too was king of a militaristic, expansionist, colonial empire . . . not to defend the Spaniards.
Cajamarca was a nice city with an obvious middle class, universities, and tourist infrastructure that catered mostly to nationals. Great markets, great dairy, beautiful central plaza, and elaborate carved stone 16th century churches.





Matt showed up at our hotel for a happy reunion after we had been there for a few days and we stayed a couple more while he rested. The last time I saw Matt was a month earlier in the Ecuadorian Amazon when he headed to Cuenca to wait for a replacement stove pump and I continued onwards through the Amazon basin. The three of us, Matt, Dylan and I, headed out together for more dirt roads through the high sierra.