Last day on the road to Cajamarca:
Set off from Celendin knowing it's a reasonable road. After breakfast I had walked across the Plaza to the Policia where I had deployed all my Spanish to interview the squadroom. (It had apparently been raining for several days in Cajamarca, across the mountains. I asked if there were any huaicos (landslides, that have been blocking many mountain roads).
The sergeant (or at least the oldest and most authoritative guy in the room) declared that the road was 'an autopista! (motorway). When I probed further he proclaimed: 'es perfecto!' which stretched even my credulousness.
We fill up and turn left as directed, into a deeply rutted and puddles mud road and I immediately begin to doubt
.
But after 2 different 'Si, es la ruta para Cajamarca' we press on.
Soon, by the giant straw hat statue in the outskirts of Celendin, we join a tarmac road (if not an autopista!). It has lovely swinging bends, some with dogs sleeping on them in the sun.
We climb to 3700 metres and the threat of neblinas as it gets cold but, happily, stays dry.
We arrive at a little town where we had been 12 days before, on a busy market Sunday. Today it is pretty quiet whereas then there was a cacophony - including this reluctant pig:
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