Trip to Huánuco 14-19 Jan 2024

Huánuco is a town nestled between the mountains in the Sierra of Peru.  The climate is cool and has a rainy season and a dry season.

We were there during the festival of the negritos.  A festival that is unique to Huánuco.  It is a celebration in honor of the baby Jesus with origins in slavery.

The festival runs from Christmas Eve to January 19. It has dances and colorful costumes.  It is the legacy of  devotion to the baby Jesus, slavery and the liberation of slaves.  You can see these themes in the ceremony which features the baby Jesus, the slaves and the slave owners.  It is truly ubiquitous throughout the city.  There are many groups all over the town.   Some of the groups are older people and some of the groups are younger people.  (They start very young as you will see.)

Each group has a band, the baby Jesus,  the slave owners (a well dressed man and woman), the slaves and ‘clowns’.  Not sure what the clowns represent.  My first encounter was from the rooftop of the building we were staying in to see a group marching through the street.  All the groups marched to the town square where they performed their dances.  All the dances and music were the same.  The day we arrived, we followed one group to the town square and watched a bunch of shows.

The negritos below

The second day we toured Huánuco.  We went to an iconic bridge over the Huallaga river, an archeological site ( Kotosh) , and a place call Santuarío Las Pampas (Pampas means each of the extensive plains of South America that do not have tree vegetation. ) except … it was definitely not plains!

Kotosh - the picture is from the internet.  Notice the two terracotta crossed arms.  If you look closely you’ll see the arms are crossed differently (one left over right and the other right over left).  In each, one arm is male and the other female.

 Irma’s and my arms

Sanctuary - just a very beautiful place!

The third day we went to Tingo Maria.  It was a three-hour drive from Huánuco over a winding mountain road in the rain.  Tingo Maria is on the jungle side of the mountains.  It was a beautiful drive over.  We climbed up into the clouds and through a tunnel in one of the mountains.

Tingo Maria - jungle plants and beautiful views.

The last day of our visit there we went to visit Irma's friend's father's house in the country.  It was a couple of hours ride over narrow, winding mountain dirt roads, some partially washed out.  The farm was a steep hillside.  The stove was a grill over a wood fire.  We had fresh chicken and potato soup.  It was delicious.  We toured the farm.  It has many different kinds of fruits, coffee, pomegranates, vegetables, and medicinal plants. We sampled delicious, fresh mandarin oranges right off the tree!

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The final day we left around noon with the morning spent buying stuff to bring back: that was pretty much all food, bread and cheese from the market.  We packed up everything and shipped it by bus since we didn't have room in our luggage to take it on the plane. We picked it up the next day after returning.