Well despite being touted as ´The Northern Cuzco´, Chachapoyas is small, clean, friendly and relatively gringo-free. Due to being high in the mountains it has a beautiful climate and is surrounded by a vast array of pre-Incan and Incan ruins, hence the comparisons with Cuzco. The journey there was pleasant enough - I arrived before dawn and waited until light to find my hostel and sleep some more. After waking I explored the town by foot, introducing myself to other travellers and watching the town-wide water balloon fight unfold. I wasn´t too happy when one bombarded me - I wouldn´t have been so grouchy I think if I could have thrown one back¡
The next day I rose at 330am to catch the bus to the Kuelap ruins, ancient home of the pre-Incan Chachapoyans. I arrived at the designated spot at 355am, but the bus had left already. Awesome. Thanks you nangers. Oh well, sleep a little more and tag along with Claire from Melbourne´s group who were leaving at 830am. After the pre-requisite pfaffing two cars headed down into the valley, winding our way on relatively good roads next to a gushing brown river to the steep ascent to Kuelap. We then tested our cars shocks on the rocky and muddy road through several small towns before reaching Maria, a town with hostels & restuarants, at one of which we got out, was offered fish, chicken or vegetarian, chose but then continued on the further 20 minutes to the ruins - lunch was for after.
At approximately 3000m, the Kuelap fortress was strategically placed to ensure panoramic views of potential siege routes, and as such gave awesome views of the surrounding mountains which were clad in light green cloud forest & checkered with crops like potato and bananas. We hiked a little up to the fortress - the 6 hectare site is protected by a 20m high stone wall, much of which is the original unrestored wall that between 800 and 1300 AD took the Chachapoyan nation hundreds of years to build with the stone being carried from hundreds of kilometres away. Inside were round stone houses, ceremonial ritual and burial sites and shamanic sectors dedicated to different sacred animals such as puma, jaguar, condor and snake. These ruins are in varying states, with entire sections standing in their original state and others being rebuilt with mortar and other unauthentic materials. 40 llamas were introduced `for touristic purposes` by the government but also serve to maintain a trim lawn :) A lot of the native vegetation growing out of the fortress has been retained creating a misty jungle ambience. Our guide explained fake platforms that fell away to the abyss for encroaching enemies, described the shamanic rituals and furtively showed us the bones of Chachpoyan royalty hidden in the stonework because `you are a special group of tourists`. Wow! I knew I was special. A great place to visit, beautiful and peaceful and very interesting. Our guide also informed us we were a few of 4500 visitors to Kuelap each year. Macchu Picchu receives 4000 a day.
The next day we rose early to get to Gotca Waterfall, which makes the claim of being the 3rd highest waterfall in the world. With our friends from the day before including Paul from Norway we journeyed again some 2hrs to a small village whereby we hired a guide to walk us to the falls. The trek wound out through the wooded farmland on the side of the mountains and steadily into more solid cloud forest - at this altitude the temperature was beautiful. On our beautiful hour-long trek we were fortunate enough to spot 3 gorgeous Andean Cocks-of-the-Rock - I took several photos of the orange and black birds but none were very good - see above. Pretty cool, I did find it necessary to use the phrase "Rock out with your cock out", though.
Upon reaching the spectacular (even in low water season) Gotca, Paul and I both agreed we didn`t think it was the height it claimed to be, 768m. Norwegians are notorious for poo-pooing the Gotca claim to its height as Paul found out by reading a newspaper prior to going there, and he stayed true to form. Nonetheless it was insanely high, and we frolicked a little in the spray underneath, ate some lunch and returned to the peaceful village. From there we departed immediately for our connecting bus to Tarapoto from Pedro Ruiz, a small town 1 hr away. The journey passes through an amazingly scenic river valley with steep cliffs immediately above. Paul and I were left in Pedro Ruiz while the others returned to Chachapoyas.
The few days in peaceful Chachapoyas and its surrounds had calmed my inner rage about Peru - I definitely experienced Peru differently in those small towns.
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