Chavin - not the best experience

Chavin statue
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The day started good with Jan´s diarrea under control and everyone else being healthy. I had misinterpreted the information of the time it was suppose to take to get to Chavin. Instead of one hour, it was more like three in a half. Which gave me plenty of time to evaluate if I actually thought it was worth it. In much excitment for this adventure I decided that it was going to be intriguing and I was very expectful.

Before arriving at our final destination after a, like always, very scary bus ride, we stopped at a restaurant. The eating area was situated outside under little huts and had a considerably nice garden. Besides that, this was our only option and we were hungry. The food however.... not so good. We all ordered chicken and it looked like they just cut off the head, plucked the feathers off, pounded it down and fried it up whole. Two cats recieved most of my portion, since I didn´t dare touch it. Jan and Aleks, on the other hand, were very brave. Not a good choice for Aleks, which the coming night would later reveal.

On our way to Chavin
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Irony put aside, being that Chavin is a UNESCO marked site I was actually enthusiastic about seeing this site. Chavin is one of the older Peruvian civilizations that dates back to 900 BC - 200 BC. Unfortunately not much of this culture is left and the first thing you see while entering this UNESCO site is a bulldozer.

Needless to say, it was quite a disapointment. The mini-mini museum that had a few artifacts displayed succeeded in making the history of the Chavin culture only more confusing due to the lack of using correct English. For example, "the Chavin era can be divided into four stages where the first is classified as the oldest, the second as the oldest and the third and fourth as the oldest. The three different stages were later renamed." So.. are there three or four stages, and which one was now the oldest?

Stoping at a lagoon
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The guide claimed that they were fanatics of the number seven - but he only gave us one example of this, an arena that was 49 square meters. Oh well. He said that we were suppose to stay there for four hours, but due to bad calculation we resulted in staying only two. It appears that the guide forgot that we were in the rainy season, and as the road barely fits a bus it would be a good idea to not drive on wet terrain, more so in the dark.

Altogether I was quite happy to be leaving early even though I did get to admire some llamas for a while. Disturbingly, but not at all surprisingly, after about an hours worth of driving the bus broke down.  But guess what? They just happened to have an extra exhaust pipe with them and were able to fix the bus within half an hour. What gets to me, is that, why would one have such extra parts if it wasn´t obvious that the bus was going to break down at any minute? And then, why not fix it right away? Stupid questions, I´m in Peru and like I´ve mentioned before the notion of time here isn´t like in the West.

Pretty nice
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Poor Aleks was actually the one suffering the most. The consequences from the gourmet meal she had earlier in the day started to kick in and it was not a pleasant ride for her. Eventually we got home, were she basically locked herself in the bathroom for the next day. I´m starting to get the hint from both Jan and Aleks that I might be an unlucky charm for them, seeing that constantly someone has been sick since I´ve arrived. Hmmm.... what could they mean by that?