Life in Leymebamba

Hello again,

I'm sitting in an internet cafe listening to Celine Dion singing 'My Heart Will Go On (theme from Titanic)' with a latin beat in the background from somewhere else. It must be Peru. I have no idea why this country is so obsessed with that song, but anyone who knows me would know that I would not make up such a thing.

Leymebamba is an adorable little town, three hours south by dirt road from Chachapoyas. It is surrounded by impressive green peaks, and everyone you pass on the street wishes you Buenos Dias (or Tardes or Noches, depending on the hour). Everyone does, even the little kids, and they'll say it once for every person in your group. It's really very friendly and very lovely. There are two restaurants in town that were recommended by both my guide book and the woman who runs our hotel. Neither has a menu in the sense that we would think of it. Generally there are one or two choices, based on what they decided to make that day. Soup, a main and a drink cost between $1 and $3, depending on where you go, and the food is really very yummy. Yesterday I had fried trout for lunch, and a veggie omelet for dinner, served with pumpkin soup, fresh bread, corn, 'salad' (cucumbers and tomatoes), and rice. Delicious! (By the way, they've restarted the Celine song).

Yesterday we arrived and went up to the museum (Museo Leymebamba, run by the Centro Mallqui). It's a really wonderful museum with a very cool collection, set at the top of a hill near town. Rosio, the lead archaeologist from our trip, gave us a full tour. The collection is especially interesting because it includes a lot of evidence of cultural mixing between groups here. Generally museum collections are specifically Incan, or Chimu, or Chachapoyan, or Cajamarcan, or from one of the cultures of the Amazon basin (or from any other of the many pre-columbian cultures here). This collection features pottery and textiles combining any number of these groups, with techniques of one and iconography, materials, or shapes of another. It's really interesting. Mostly they feature the collection from Laguna de los Condores. Seriously, if you haven't seen the website for the museum, please google it. If I had a faster connection, I'd look it up for you, but you'll find it if you look. They house over 200 mummies from that collection, all of which are Inca-Chachapoyan, with some influence from the jungle as well.

They have an extensive collection behind the scenes too, and today we got to play. We're going through the pre-Incan bone collection, comparing the signs of stress, nutrition, and trauma with what we saw at the cave. (Incidently, they've restarted Celine yet again - I tell you this so that you will know how I am suffering for the sake of communicating with you). The work with the collection is extremely interesting, and everyone at the museum has been wonderful to us. We're planning to continue with that all day tomorrow, and then will probably move on by Monday. I'll let you know.

For now, I have to head off to meet the group for dinner. I think four of our group of seven will be leaving tomorrow, so this may be our last dinner together (at least for this trip).

I hope everything is going well for all of you.

Hasta luego,

Karen