I discovered the Huanuco Pampa Ruins completely on accident.

And quite a gem they proved to be! La Union is a small, rough looking town that I was simply passing through while trying to get from Huanuco to Cajamarca. In Huanuco I had gotten a ride in a carro and the carro was going no further than La Union. Solomon, the driver, dropped me off at the bus station where I bought my ticket. I wasn’t due to leave for five hours and asked the ticket lady what I could do. She told me to go check out “the ruins” aka Huanuco Pampa Ruins.

There are only two ways to get to the Huanuco Pampa Ruins…

You can either pay too much for a carro or walk 7 km to the top. The bus lady told me that walking is dangerous because people get robbed there. I discovered this before I even got to the trail when a creepy couple tried to lure my into their house. The carro was too expensive, in my opinion so I found a third way. Somehow, I found myself in a van full of young men and food going up to the pampas for an overnight soccer party. And they were going to drive right by the Huanuco Pampa Ruins. The drive was full of hairpin turns on dirt roads. We had to hold the doors shut on the steep bumpy road.

About 30 minutes later, they dropped me off in the middle of this big field, pointed and said “Walk that way and you’ll see them”. I paid the driver like 10 soles and walked “that way” towards what I hoped where the Huanuco Pampa Ruins. There were sheep, alpaca, cows, asses, and horses all over the place. A man named Chavez was at the gate cleaning his jeep (I still have no idea what he was doing up there) and offered to wait for me and give me a ride back down when I was done. I agreed and went on my way.

I walked through the gates of the ruins, bypassing the ticket stand, as there was nobody there and started walking the path. This short lady came up to me wearing traditional Peruvian clothes and told me to follow her. I did. She took me to her village where the village people were fixing up the virgin Mary’s Chapel for some other virgins celebration. The village people welcomed me and let me go into the church to pay my respects to the virgins. Another interesting experience…. These two men were in there with a jug of something and said that if I didn’t drink it curses and stuff would happen so yeah. I took a sip. And yeah. I got sick. But I didn’t want curses.

The village people let me take their picture, which I was super grateful for.

They assigned a local man to be my guide and show me the Huanuco Pampa Ruins. Our first stop was to look at this temple where the Inca’s made their sacrifices.

He also showed me the wall on which they would slowly hang people. There are two holes in a super thick stone wall and they would put a rope through the hole’s and around your neck. Everyday they would tighten the rope until you were dead.

Near there, there are dilapidated door frames and only one of them still had the original carvings of Pumas on the sides. According to my guide, this was incredibly rare.

He also showed me the Inca highway that went from Cusco to Cajamarca.

Inca homes

The Inca baths

Another temple that was never finished because the Spaniards came along and ruined it

And La Vista de Allegria.

La vista de Allegria is beautiful, and rightly named. It does fill your soul with happiness. La Vista shows all the surrounding mountains,  and more ruins. Peru does not lack in beautiful views that fill the soul with happiness and awe.

My guide took me back to the ticket booth I bypassed and asked me to sign the guest book and to pay. I really don’t remember how much it was but it wasn’t much and was well worth it.

Chavez was waiting for me, just like he promised and took me back to the bus station.

On our drive down, he explained why he waited and didn’t ask for pay. He told me that he has a daughter my age and would be very unhappy if she was doing what I was doing; traveling alone.

There were so many occasions on my trip where random strangers helped me when they didn’t need to.  It just goes to show that there are good people everywhere and crappy people everywhere. I happened to encounter a lot of the good people.

At the bus station, I really had to pee…

And I didn’t have toilet paper. Moral of the story? TAKE TOILET PAPER! In Peru, there isn’t toilet paper in the bathrooms. They make you pay for toilet paper and only give you a couple squares of it. So be aware of that.

Anyways, my bus came eventually and I safely made it to Huaraz.