LA ENCAÑADA – CAJAMARCA 03 DAYS / 02 NIGHTS

ENCAÑADA COMMUNITY

The History of the Abanto Family

In this Andean house, the host will be Mr. Catalino Requelme, 37, who has lived here for 14 years with his wife Vilma Martos, among fields and beautiful eucalyptus forests. Mrs. Rosa Abanto, 66, is also part of the family, mother of Vilma and head of the family. She has the natural trait of being an excellent host, and next to her, we will learn the art of textiles and fabric.

The joy of the house are five fabulous kids, children of Don Catalino and Doña Vilma: Alex, 14; Ever, 12; Danicela, 10; Esmeralda, 8; and Percila, 5; together, we will share the activities they undertake day by day to help their parents.

In the house, we will be able to appreciate a singular wood oven where we may cook delicious bread for our breakfast and lonche, and also help Doña Rosa in the bio-orchard, sowing seeds from typical flowers in the area.

Location

Community of Encañada, Km 38th in the Cajamarca Highway – Celendin.

Geography

Access ways: Dirt road
Estimated car travel time from Cajamarca: 1 hour 30 min.
Altitud : 3,200 mmsm
Height: 10,500 ft. above sea-level.

Lodging

House building materials: walls made of kincha (stone and mud), tiled roof, and wooden floor.

Lodging capacity: The house has 2 rooms destined to tourist accommodation. Each of these includes three beds, one bedside table. Thus, the maximum capacity is for six people.

Household services

Water Supply: There is drinking water, public system in and out of the household.
Electricity: There is no electric power. Lamps and flashlights are used only at night.
Restrooms: 01 ecological bathroom with bowl, sink, cold-water shower that go a septic well.

Activities carried out during the visitor’s stay

Food Preparation

  1. We will share the typical breakfast, lunch and dinner with ingredients harvested during the season.
  2. We will help in bread-making in mud ovens, and we will try typical food from the area cooked in mud pots and firewood.

Cattle Farming

  1. At cockcrow, we will guide the cattle to pasture.
  2. We will reap the pastures for the small livestock such as guinea pigs, ducks, chicken, and rabbits.

Agricultural

  1. We will work sowing and/or harvesting different foodstuff from the area such as potato, corn, oca, broad beans, barley, etc, according to the season.
  2. We will participate in communal works such as building platforms for farming, house-building, and irrigation works.
  3. We will help the family in farm work such as trilla or preparing the fields for sowing.
  4. We will collect firewood for preparing the food and our night fire as well.

Handcraft

  1. We will learn the ancient textile techniques from the locals, making typical frazadas and ponchos with granny Rosa Abanto.
  2. La señora Rosa nos enseñara el proceso artesanal necesario para que la lana de oveja pueda ser usada en la elaboración de telares.
  3. Mrs. Rosa will teach us the handmade procedure for using sheep wool in the making of fabric.
  4. We will visit several local households where we will be able to appreciate the making of straw hats, wooden and iron works.

Cultural

  1. We will participate in mystical rituals such as the Table Serving to thank the Pachamama and religious invocation to the Apus (Holy Hills and Mountains).
  2. We will start fires during the night, under the moonlight and hear the storytelling, by the rural people, of tales, myths and legends, about ancestors, Andean customs and traditions.
  3. We will also enjoy local music and dance.
  4. We will go with the family to community meetings at the Water Committee, the Milk Committee, in order to get a grip of the community organization.
  5. We will be part of traditional celebrations (See the Traditional Festivities Calendar).
  6. Participaremos en fiestas tradicionales (Ver Calendario de fiestas tradicionales de la comunidad)

Cultural and Natural Heritage

  1. Visit to the Trout Farm in the community of Tambomayo.
  2. Church and graveyard of the community of Tambomayo.
  3. Water Mill for wheat.
  4. Agricultural Community School
  5. Town of Encañada – Cattle Fair
  6. “Sangal del Cometa Ventrigris” Inca Route – Capac Ñam Road

Program:

Day 1:

Cajamarca:
Arrival and reception in the city of Cajamarca.

Baños del Inca:
Transfer to the Baños del Inca Complex, where you may take a soothing medicinal thermal bath in its extraordinary curative warm water.

Transfer to the community La Encañada:
Transfer to the community La Encañada, enjoying the beauty of the landscape and getting to know a few rules, some advice and main traits about the rural men that are important for having a friendly stay.

Welcome to the Andean house:
Welcome by the rural men and accommodation in the households from where the great adventure of contact and socio-cultural exchange will begin.

Lunch and farm work:
After accommodation and the first contacts are established, lunch will be served at noon. Among farmers, lunch time is very important and it is always enclosed in a strong ritual context. It is held around a legless table, i.e. a circle, all sitting down on the ground and sharing the food looking up at each other.
Dinner is served at 7. It is at dinner time that family gets together and you talk a lot about day chores, the achievements, the problems and what should be done next day. In our program at Vivencial Tours, this meal will serve to share fully the rural man’s cultural manifestations. Bedtime.

Day 2:

Andean Dawn:
We will get up at cockcrow to unsettle the hens and collect the eggs, while helping the women make bread for a typical highland breakfast, so plenty, healthy and tasty.

Participation at tourist orchards and hiking to Las Torres viewpoint:
Tourists may participate directly in the sowing and harvest of vegetables and other foodstuff in the TOURIST ORCHARDS which will later feed other guests. Therefore, the very tourists are sowing their own food.
Then we will go to Las Torres viewpoint where we will take notice of a wonderful landscape.

Lunch
The “lunch at noon” will be, of course, of a different menu this second day. Afterwards, a deserved relaxing rest will come contemplating the landscape.

Watching the rural people’s handcraft expertise:
Making the most of this ecstasy, the tourists may have the opportunity to see the textile and handcraft skills of the Encañadino people, and test their own in these arts, thus sharing and receiving new knowledge and experiences in a truly intense and friendly exchange.

Hiking to Tambo Mayo:
We will undertake a walk to Tambo Mayo where we will be able to visit a trout fishpond, a water mill, and the town graveyard.
Dinner time will be the beginning of our storytelling experience, with local tales, legends, myths and traditions, as well as anecdotes and rural jokes that generally are filled of an amazing, naïve candor.
Thanksgiving Ritual to the Apus and Pacha Mama.
After dinner, a mystical ritual will be held in honor to the sacred Apus (hills and mountains), and to the Pachamama (the earth mother), ancestral Andean gods that have not been eradicated from the souls of the rural people despite the western religious dominance. These rituals have been adapted and blended in their own earthly and sacred vision. We will walk through a ravine, listening to the sounds brought by the night, and there, we will light a fire to start the ritual. Later, the time for chacchar (to chew) the holy coca leaf will come, always followed by the drinking of cañazo (sugarcane spirits), the smoking of the traditional INCA cigarettes, and we will recite some chants and auguries. This whole experience will let us feel nature and understand the Andean vision of the cosmos a little better.
Bedtime.

Day 3

Breakfast and farewell:
We will have the last breakfast with our hosts including cachangas and a comforting chupe verde.
We will walk around the chakra doing the final tour of our host family’s property, while we help in the morning farm work or with the cattle.

Visit to the town:
Later, we will make our way to the town of La Encañada where, if on Sunday, we will be able to participate in the Sunday livestock fair. City tour.

Return to Cajamarca:
We will follow our way to the city of Cajamarca where you will have a free afternoon to go shopping.
Eventually, at the scheduled time we will pick you up for transfer to the bus terminal or your hotel.