Kuelap!

Thursday March 6th, 2008

Waking up at 5:45 AM in our hostel high above the valley floor, we strapped on our packs and headed out into the darkness on the only road out of Maria, which would take us up to the Kuelap ruins. All the people in town assured us it was only an hour hike up the road to the Kuelap.

So we assumed 2.

It took 2 and half.

I yearn for the day I can expect an honest answer out of someone. I understand optimism, but this optimism borders on the destructive... Despite this, the hike was one of the highlights of the trip so far. As we set out from Maria I initially groaned under the weight of my 45 pound pack, but after 15 minutes of adjustment I fell into a rhythm becoming one with pack like I had countless times in boy scouts as kid. In the early morning light we trodded up the road, passing small homes with clay tiled roofs, the smoke from breakfast billowing through the cracks. From these houses no larger than my kitchen, families of 5 or 6 lived. The father, most likely a farmer, had already loaded up his donkey and headed to the fields to farm and plow a 20% grade by hand. The sun rose over the farms and casted a clear line of orange along the higher mountains to our back, while we still hiked in silence and in shadow. Clouds hung a thousand feet below flowing through the assorted valleys like a river in pause, and the air was moist with evaporating dew. For anyone who is an early riser, you know this morning smell, when the water that has sat along the edges of leaves or on blades of grass, and absorbed all the oils and smells throughout the night, now rises into the air with the heat of the sun and brings with it a deluge of aroma, a unparalleled freshness.

2 and half hours later we arrived at the entrance to Kuelap, greeted by a pack of Llamas, the first I had actually seen in Ecuador or Peru, it might have actually been the first time I had seen a Llama up close in my life. Llamas are funny looking creatures of long shaggy fur, and a thick neck, twice as high and long as the stout legs they stand on. They greeted us where the road to Kuelap stopped and the dirt path began. By this time Stewart and I had hiked 4-5 miles, and climbed several hundred feet, topping out at about 10,000 feet of altitude. Although it was still cool in the morning air, we had broken a nice sweat and were more than eager to reach the top.

Notice road behind Stewart that was taken out by landslide. This is the same road that led to bottom of where we would hike.

The Kuelap ruins were pre-Incan ruins, meaning that they were built by people before the height of Incan Empire of the 1400s, who are most famous for the ruins of Machu Pichu further to the south. The people who built Kuelap were known as Chachapoyas, a name derived from Sacha Poya, which means Cloud people in Quechua, the language of the Incans. The Chachapoyas civilization lasted from 800 AD until the 1470s when they were sacked by the Incans, and then killed off by Spanish disease in the 1500s. The massive city fortress of Kuelap was constructed on top of a mountain, and would have been the capital of the empire, supposedly with more stone than it took to build the pyramids of Egypt. It was "discovered" by Peruvians in the middle 1800s but remained largely untouched or excavated for over a hundred years. Its significance, size, and integrity have really only become known to the international community in the last 20 years, and still it is relatively unvisited.

The base of the fortress is wrapped by stone walls 30-60 feet high, 1300 feet long and about 300-400 feet wide. It has been able to withstand the numerous earthquakes over the last millennia because the design of the outer walls and most of the inner structure is all in waves. Thereby the earthquakes simply pass along the fortress in sine waves approximately that of the structure. All of the shrubs have been removed from the outer walls so you get a clear idea of how large it is.

Stewart and I roll up on the scene and walk right up to these ancient walls, still not having seen a single person having to do with this place. We walk around just trying to take in the sheer size of the place for about 10 minutes, still the only people here. Then we spot a man carrying water down the hill, and it turns out that this is the guy in charge of the place. He leads us into a tiny wooden hut which is the "ticket office" and we each pay a student fare of about 1.50 USD to see the place. As we sign in to the logbook, we look down and see that we were the first people there for the day, and yesterday... they had two visitors. The day before that when the road was open? 8 visitors. They said that they usually don’t have any more than 15 visitors a day! Here we have ruins just as impressive as Machu Picchu and they only have 15 people as day! We inquired about a guide, and he said he could call one. Sounds great as we walk outside back out to the hillside beneath the behemoth of Kuelap and all of a sudden the man starts yelling "Riccaaaaaaaardo, Riccaaaaaaaardo, Riccaaaaaaardo" across the valley. This is what he meant by "calling" a guide. Sure enough in a tiny hut a mile across the valley, a small Peruvian man came out and waved his arms. The ticket office man informed us that we would have a guide in 15 minutes and went back to carrying water.

Our Guide Ricardo

For three hours Stewart and I strolled around the ruins with our guide Riccaaaaardo, who as it turns out, had lived beneath the Kuelap ruins his whole life in that small house. For three hours we toured this massive city on a mountain, a thousand years old with a guide who had lived there his whole life, completely by ourselves. I mean there was not a single other visitor, tourist, or worker, just us and this hands on tour. By far, the most impressive feature of this place was that it was really only explored 20 years ago, and so unlike Macchu Pichu where turn of the century archeologists cleared and excavated every square inch, this place remains largely untouched. As we climbed beyond the outer walls through one of three entrances, we arrived to first of 4 levels and I could have sworn I was on the film set of an Indiana Jones movie. Hundred year old trees grew up from the ruins between the circular houses and created a canopy of shade where llamas, parrots, and other creatures thrived. Every tree branch, trunk, or twig was covered with some unique colorful type of orchid, and small plants and moss grew out of the stone work. This place was truly as the first people found it.

Passageways to all stairways between levels were only wide enough for one person, so that in the event of attack, the attackers would be forced into single file line, easier to decimate.

Designs on the rockfaces were often symbols of a family and you would find this on all the products they used

After Kuelap, we foolishly decided to hike down the 10km 4,300 foot trail to save 15 soles (5 dollars) Hey its downhill, it’s going to be easy right? Wrong. With a 40 pound pack on back, Stewart and I hiked down what has got to be the steepest, rockiest, and muddiest trail I have been on in recent memory. Three hours, two hurting feet, two trembling quads, and two cramped calfs later, we were on the bottom at Tingo, where we started the same time the day before. After an hour waiting in Tingo, we hitched a ride in the back of a throwback station wagon. So what could happen now? Stewart, I, and packs sqeezed into the trunk of the 1997 Toyota Corolla with no room to move, and then… my quads start cramping like a fat kid running the mile in high school. Then a bump sends my head flying into a screw in the ceiling. It continued like this: head between knees to keep from hitting ceiling, bottom numb from potholes in road, and massaging quads constantly to keep from cramping. Stewart commented on how it must have felt to be a slave crossing the Atlantic from Africa, I concurred.

It continued like this for an hour and half, until... the radiator decided to quit and the car overheated. So we paid the driver his 2 bucks, grabbed our bags, and stuck out our thumbs, actually somewhat relieved to be out of the car. 30 minutes later a mini bus came by with 5 or 6 tourists on their way to Chachapoyas. Where had the tourists come from? Kuelap. They had arrived just as we left and we made our way down the hill. At this moment I was a little envious of tour groups with their personal bus. They got up two hours after we did, saw all of Kuelap in relative seclusion, and had their bus take them back to their cozy hotel all without pain or discomfort. However it is the pain that makes the summit that much sweeter, and the journey that much more memorable, so I am glad we did what we did even if we didn’t save the time.

Arriving into Chachapoyas at 5 or 6, a few pisco sours, and time for bed.

Leymebamba to Tingo to Maria

Wednesday, March 4th 2008

Still reeling from the 6 hour trip up and down the mountain in the dark, in the rain, on a junky road, in a junky car, with a 16 year old behind the wheel; we awoke to the small peaceful town of Leymebamaba. This town, like others we had come through in the last two days, rarely sees visitors over 6 feet with sunburned faces, white socks, and blond hair, and so I was the subject of many, many stares and glances. Apparently it is rude to point here so as not to single anyone out, but it is not rude to stare at gringos. Several times Stewart and I have walked into a restaurant to sit down and have every single person at every single table staring straight at us. No hiding glances, or discrete one at a time looks, NO, every person stops whatever they were doing, stops talking at their table of 8, stops eating and drinking, and just stares at you. You think you are ready for it, but wait until the day you are singled out like that, however I have good news: eventually this too can be grown accustomed to. I returned the favor and walked around town that morning getting some images of the people who live here, what they do, and who they are.

Leymebamba is a town of about 2-3,000 people with a usual gorgeous town square, lively friendly townsfolk, small one lane streets spreading out for 4 blocks from the Plaza, and crumbling yet loved 2 to 3 storied buildings of semi-colonial facade. Outside of town for 2-3 miles are small farms dotted with the occasional shack that passes for a house. Making up for the meager living arrangements of the majority of the inhabitants are gorgeous views of rolling fertile green hills as far as you can see. Flora was lush, wet, and green again after we crossed the 10,000 foot pass between Las Balsas and here. It was increasingly feeling like a jungle as we moved east away from the Andes and towards the massive rainforests hundreds of miles away surrounding the Amazon. Leymebamaba became semi-famous in 1997 when they discovered 3 perfectly preserved mummified pre-Incan bodies on the cliff above a lake about a 12 hour hike outside of town. Even with all this notoriety, we were the only tourists there on this particular day.




As much as we were encouraged to hike up to the ruins, mummies, and museum, we had tunnel vision towards the ruins of Kuelap, the town of Chachapoyas, the Ecuadorian border, and Quito. The last two days had taught us that the longer you wait to get where you are going, the higher the likely hood was that you would never get there. This is not true if you travel between the larger cities with planned bus fare and decent road, but we were in the sticks, the boonies, nowhere Peru, where the roads were a step below fire roads, and our transportation consisted of farm trucks and people with empty seats in their car.




So after haggling with a local driver, we procured a ride from Leymebamba down the valley to the town of Tingo, about 1 and 1/2 hours away (he said), for 7 dollars a piece. 2 and 1/2 hours, 3,000 potholes, 1 inch of mud and dirt, and 2 worn bottoms later, we arrived in Tingo. Fortunately this road followed a river down a valley and was surrounded by blanketing jungle; there were no 2,000 foot drops on either side of us, and so I really didn’t care about the other problems. Rounding the bend into Tingo, I noticed a village up on top of a hill about 100 meters above the river and another village. This, the driver kindly explained to me, was Nuevo Tingo, and Viejo Tingo, or New and Old Tingo. Here again we have an example of what the cataclysmical rain of El Nino in 1990´s did to Peru. The entire old town was completely flooded for weeks at a time, forcing the people who lived there and subsisted off the land to build a "new town"

When we asked were Kuelap was when we arrived into Tingo, everyone pointed to a trail that said 10 Km and a mountain that was 1,300 meters (4, 300 feet) higher from where we stood. Originally we were going to stay in Tingo and hike (with packs) up to Kuelap, but now staring at what would have been a long, long hike up for me with 45 pounds on my back, we decided on alternate means of ascension. Sure enough not less than 5 minutes after we arrived, we were able to flag down a water truck going up to Maria. Maria was about a 2 hour hike away from Kuelap, but only 900 feet or so below the summit. So this is how we got halfway up the mountain until... A landslide. As I have said earlier it was the rainy season here in Peru, and despite it being like this for a third of the year, EVERY year, the Peruvians haven’t figured anything better than just waiting for one to happen and then trying to fix it. The driver let us off, where we were able to scramble over rocks and dirt taking care not to slip and slide the rest of the 1,000 feet down to the bottom. On the other side, we snagged a car up to Maria, again just by nightfall.

Maria, a town of 500, is perched at the top of the valley and with only one road in and out, we were the only visitors in town that night (the others not willing/able to scramble over the landslide). Again more stares from the townsfolk, but I was getting used to it by this point. As sun set everyone in town loitered along the main road to catch up with a farmers as they came in from the fields to close the day’s work. The closeness of a small town is the same in Peru as it is the States and elsewhere, something that bridges cultures. When the town was built, they must have seen what happens when you try to build a flat road in landslide territory, so the entire town is sloped about 10-20 degrees, even the town plaza.

Our Hospedaje

After dinner, Stewart and I went and played with the kids in the town square, who were gathering giant beetles off of all the bushes and putting them together in a giant pile where they would fight each other. It took a while to absorb the cultural differences and similarities between kids here playing with beetles and kids in the US playing... video games? maybe. The interbeetle skirmish was all fun and games until one of the kids got the great idea to start throwing the beetles at us. Yes, you can hurl a 4 inch wide beetle through the air and it will stick and grab to your shirt. My initial reaction of surprise and fear of a giant beetle only inches from my face encouraged more kids to throw beetles at us. IT WAS WAR. A beetle hurling fight ensued for about 5 minutes until the beetles were gone.

Celendin to Las Balsas to Leymebamba...

Tuesday March 4th, 2008

Awaking in Celendin at the Hostel Reymi Wasi, we peered out of our window knowing that the next leg of journey would be a true venture into the sticks of Peru, as the few who had travelled this way had written. There were busses that ventured towards Leymebamba and Kuelap on Thursday and Sunday, and we had arrived into Celendin on a Monday with no intention of waiting here in this two horse town. So before breakfast or even brushing teeth, we loaded up our packs and headed to the one roundabout in town where anything and everything that came into or out of Celendin stopped. It was here that we learned that a few trucks sometimes stopped here in the morning on their way towards Leymebamba (a stop along the way to Chachapoyas and our objective of the Kuelap ruins that is about as far as you can get in a day).

Stewart and I spent about two hours asking every single truck that rolled into town where it was headed. With no luck, the sun rising higher in the sky, and an increasing sense of disillusionment, it looked like we might be there another day. And then... a 12 foot tall, wooden slatted, 20 year old farm truck rolled into town on its way to Las Balsas. Our map showed that Las Balsas was a city on the way to Leymebamba, and we said: We’ll take it. For 5 soles (1.50 USD) a 5 hour ride, we climbed up the metal ladder on the side of this giant onto a perch on the front of the bed. There with about 5 other Peruvians we held on for dear life as the truck rambled on down the road. I was holding onto the 3 inch wide bamboo pole running the length of the bed supporting a thick tarp, and Stewart was sitting on top of it. Looking down into the dark recesses of the truck bed, we realized that we were not the primary passengers on this journey, but more important was a 3000 pound pregnant cow... with Horns!

Celendin as we climbed out of the canyon

Guy from Celendin who rode on top of farm truck with us to Balsas, he was 21 and studying to be a police officer. Here he was telling a story.

The sharp lines carved out of the mountain and through the road are ruts scarred into mountain by weekly torrential downpours that often put this road out of service.

Climbing out of Celendin it quickly got cold, as we crossed the first of two mountain passes within the hour, and we were sitting on top in the wind and rain. The pass brought us to 3,200 meters, high in the clouds without much to see, but as we cleared it and started our way down the clouds dissipated revealing a truly massive expanse of space. The cow got off about an hour after we cleared the pass, so we could stop worrying about out bags down below getting stepped on!

Foaming at the mouth with the distended abdomen of a pregnant cow, it was just us and her for 3 hours on the back of this truck, mono a mommy.

Notice nice fall off to left...

For the next 3 hours we descended from our briefly held perch down into the valley, and it passed like 30 minutes, because this was some of the most amazing scenery I had ever seen. Sitting on top of the truck, we truly had a 360 degree view of everything that we passed around us. We were looking at giant valleys that might be 10 miles wide and slowly rising up and up to the mountains forming them. It was like someone had a giant ice cream scoop and carved giant swaths between the mountain ranges. Shorter spires of rock rose all around us, some 1,000 to 1,500 feet high, and all along their side you could make out the now vertical twisting layers of time. The road was rough, but just as rough as the one we took from Cajamarca to Celendin, however this road often had 2,000 foot drops next to it as it was notched into the side of the stone, which made it interesting from top of the truck. Stewart and I figured that if the truck started to roll off the side of the mountain, we would have time to jump from the top to avoiding rolling with the truck down the hill.

Notice nice fall to the left, no trees to catch you like they did for the girls driving up 41 last year...

The valley finally widened out some, this gives you an idea of how they just built a road where there should be no road.

The further we came down, the hotter and drier the air became that rushed against our faces, and the land around us began to change in time. We had descended from a semi lush alpine valley into a dry, red, and sparse desert. Cactuses spired next to the green remnants of vegetation from above, and the hills around us were now brown and dusty. At the bottom of this savage scene we saw the river Maranon and the small town of new Las Balsas and old Las Balsas.

Theme from the bottom: down at the bottom of this canyon we had descened again from lush cloud forests to desert heat and rivers. The town of Las Balsas is actually a reference to the boats they used to use to cross the river, made out of? Balsa wood.

Interesting Side Note: Many of the river towns in the Andes along Ecuador, Peru, and Chile have a “new town” and an “Old” town. The new town is almost always perched on a hill several hundred feet higher than the old town, which is usually right on the river. When El Nino was at its peek in the early to mid nineties, it caused massive flooding of most of the major rivers in the Andes on a scale never ever recorded. So all of the towns were forced to relocate to higher ground, but they still use their old town now, so they all have two ¨towns¨

If Celendin was a two horse town, Las Balsas is a no horse town. Total population under 200, it was here where the bus let us off. We were assured by the driver that cars came all the time, and it would be no time before one came along to pick us up to go to Leymebamba. This was at 12 o’clock. So there at the bottom of a desert canyon in a dry and dusty town, where the only visible means of employment was to sell fruit to passing tour busses, we waited. We walked to the corner store (or just the store because there was only one store) and bought a cola, and we waited. We talked to two basuco or pasta (cocaine sulphate) addicts who were waiting too, and we waited. We chewed some coca leaves, and we waited. With an hour of sunlight and faced with the reality of spending a night in this outpost of humanity, Stewart and I ponyed up the 200 Soles (65 USD) and found the one man in town with a car for hire to take us up over the mountain and down into the more populated Leymebamba.

View from the road climbing out of Las Blasas, the mountain we were climing was not that different from the ones you see.

Let me just say first that we had no idea what we were getting into, for the dangerous part that often shuts this road down in the rainy season was the part we were fixing to climb. Leaving Las Balsas in another one of these 1990´s throwback sedans with not more than a foot of ground clearance, and more give in the power steering than a friend of mines Jeep Grand Cherokee I wrecked graduation morning (another story...). Coming out of Las Balsas for extra cash we picked up a man who needed to go to the doctor (broken jaw), and a father and his daughter, both needing a ride. The first hour of the journey was absolutely spectacular with views trumping those over the entire trip, and the warm orange glow of the setting sun drawing retreating lines of light on the mountains.

And then... the sun set... It is one thing to be on a junky ill kept road in the middle of nowhere Peru, when the edge of literally thousands of feet is 2 feet away, in the daylight. But at night, suddenly the vast emptiness of black that occupies the entirety of your window becomes something more. The black represents you careening around a curve and over the edge, it represents the car blowing a tire and the driver loosing control to go off the edge, it represents an unseen rock hitting the tire and sending the car flying to edge. One thing I forgot to mention: our driver was the 16 year old son of the owner asleep in the back. As if the darkness was not enough, as we approached the top it began to get wetter and wetter (the town at the pass is actually called the ¨city of black mud¨). As if the darkness, rain, and mud were not enough: then a thick soupy fog enveloped the car, as thick as the thickest one I have ever seen at Sewanee. Oh yeah, and mudslides every half mile would force the car to drive over giant piles of dirt at a severe angle towards the abyss on our right.

So let me retrace: Stewart and I with 4 strangers in a junky old car headed up the side of a mountain, at night, in the fog, in the rain, with mudslides every half mile, several thousands of feet to fall on our right, along a narrow road, with a 16 year old driver. (I found out later that 16 year olds are actually not allowed to drive here).

In honest sincerity Stewart and I had our doors unlocked, seatbelts off, and hand on the door handles the entire time. For 3 hours we sat like this, on the edge of our seats, completely ready for our world to end. Our fears were confirmed when we crested the mountain and headed down the other side out of the fog, and our driver gives out a big sigh and says: Its a good thing we have passed the most dangerous part, right! This, this from a person that lives on this road, in a culture where they tend not to value their own lives as much. You rarely here a Peruvian call something dangerous, so we were both relieved we were not the only ones scared, and at the same time terrified that he had been scared as well!

Sleep came easy in Leymebama that night after a 4 hour adrenaline binge.

Blog Point:
1.) If a South American tells you to wait 10 minutes, assume he means one hour. If he tells you that the hike will take 1 hour, assume he means 2. If he tells you the bus ride will take 4, it will most likely take 5. If he tells you that it will be un ratito (a little bit) it could take all day.

Cajamarca to Celendin

Monday March 2nd 2008

Cajamarca is a town of about 100,000 people set on the western edge of the Andes. After a little difficulty finding our way around town, we wound up at the Hostel Prado. Upon arrival we wound our way from the bottom to our fourth floor room, through stairs that were located at a different spot on each floor, with only small signs directing you through twisting hallways. It was here that I finally understood how conscious people died in building fires, and I thanked god for American building codes. The shared bathroom had a door more akin to a horse stall, and the sink was a glorified eating trough, but it was totally worth the 4 bucks a piece we spent here.

Children Playing in Cajamarca

The next morning we woke up and checked out a local treat, Los Banos del Inca, roughly translated the baths of the Inca people. The Andes, with their wealth of active volcanoes and plethora of rain, probably boast some of the best hot springs in the world. About 5 km outside of Cajamarca, we hopped a combis or shared minivan to the springs, where for 7 dollars we got hot showers, hot tub time, a walk on hot rocks designed to massage your feet, a weird multi headed shower, and a back massage.

View from hotsprings, the steam you see is coming off of pools of 70-76 celsius water straight out of the mountain

With that over by lunch, we turned back to our original mission: Crossing the Andes to make it to the pre-Incan ruins at Kuelap. The first trip we had to make was to Celendin, about 5 hours away and further up in the mountains. This was supposed to be the easy part of the journey along this route, but easy is a relative term. Instead of taking one of the tour buses that leave for Celendin 4 times a day, we opted to try and save 3 to 4 dollars and catch a ride in a shared car. We went to the ¨bus stop¨ for Celendin, which was really nothing more than a curb on the side of the road and a bunch of people sitting there. The only way we knew we were in the right spot was by asking people if this is where cars for Celendin left. So we waited, and waited, and waited some more. There were 15-20 or so people sitting around waiting for something going to Celendin to stop, and then suddenly a car stopped up ahead, and the driver leaned out and yelled ¨CELENDIN¨ This a perfect example of how in South America they don’t believe in lines or colas . Because as the driver spat the words out, it was a mad dash of old men, children, women, burlap sacks, fruit, and the occasional chicken or other small animal towards this car. Stewart and I made it to the car in time to claim a seat in this early 1990s throwback of a small station wagon. The more people the driver could fit in the car, the more money he made, and so the middle of this tiny car is often 4 or 5 deep. I snagged the front seat, but Stewart was not quite as lucky, and had to sit in the trunk with the entire luggage. I couldn’t count them all, but I think that there were 5 Peruvians in the middle seat, one of which was a small girl about 6 who would give me a dirty look every time I turned around.

Climbing out of Cajamarca at 2 or 3 that afternoon, it was smooth sailing. The paved road gently climbed out of the valley and into the range beyond. Happy and content, Ipod playing to drown out the horrible music the driver was blasting (see comment below), we were clams in a clamshell. It continued like this for the first hour, and then... the pavement stopped... and the dirt began. The driver looked over at me and smiled just before we nailed a huge pot hole that sent me and my sunburned head flying into the ceiling. This would be the last stretch of pavement that we would see for the next 3 days and 15-17 hours on the road. The dirt road continued like this for the next 4 hours until we reached Celendin. If the pot holes weren’t enough, the driver was swerving from one side of this two lane wide dirt road to the other, nearly constantly, to try and avoid the pot holes. The problem was he was really bad at it.

The one solace of this trip was that we were rolling through some of the most gorgeous countryside I had seen to date. High up in the Sierran landscape, we wound through rolling hills (we would call them mountains in Alabama, but here they are just hills) covered in green and farmed from top to bottom. One advantage to still using Ox and people to plough your fields is that you can farm just about anything; we saw rows of corn on 20 to 35 degree slopes!

The final fall down into Celendin was literally along the side of a mountain on this skinny one lane path and through two adjoining cities; the road that hugged the side of the cliff was so skinny that when we ran into oncoming cars, we would have to back up 300 to 400 meters to find a spot wide enough without sliding off the edge of the cliff and down 2000 feet. This was all because the main road into Celendin had been taken out by a landslide the day before, as would become a reoccurring theme on our journey.

Getting into Celendin at nightfall in the pouring rain was also an interesting experience. After checking in with the local police and getting one of their officers to show us around town (it was a small town less than 10,ooo so it didn’t take that long), we found a hostel three blocks up from the Plaza de Armas.

Entering the Hostel Reymi Wasi, we were escorted back to our room, and along the way we passed what looked like a miniature bull fighting stadium buried and set 10 feet down from floor level, about 30 feet wide. What was it? It was a cock fighting ring! Apparently every Sunday this entire hotel is packed out as the townsfolk all bet on their weekly cock fights. We were both kind of sad we missed what would have been a true cultural immersion.

Cock fighting ring in our Hostal

Blog Point:

1.) After months spent in South America, I still find myself unable to appreciate the music. It is a mix of nasal singing, pop progressions boiled down to about 4 different variations, lack of imagination in instrumentation, and lyrics that rarely veer away from 20 or so different common rhymes. Thank god for Steve Jobs and the Ipod.

Trujillo to Cajamarca

Thursday March 6th 2007, Chachapoyas, Peru

We made it! Stewart and I successfully made it over the course of the past three days from Trujillo to Cajamarca, Celendin, Leymebama, Maria, Kuelap, and now we have bedded down for the night in Chachapoyas Peru. It has been a long, fun, hot, sunburn, tired, and scenic four days and I dont even know where to begin, as this is the first time I have found internet since I left Cajamarca on Monday.

I think I am going to go back and post my journal entry for the bus ride from Trujillo to Cajamarca on Sunday:

11:30 a.m. March 2nd 2008

Despite having a wealth of Pre-Inca culture in Trujillo, and a few sights nearby, Stewart and I knew we had to move on if we hoped to make it over the Andes in time and into Peru for our flight on the 13th out of Quito (will explain later). So, we bought tickets Sunday morning for a bus to Cajamarca leaving at 11:30am that morning, the same morning we arrived at 6:00 am from Lima.

Nonetheless, Trujillo was an incredibly neat town for about 5 hours, and the colourful colonial coastal architecture we found here was like no other. (see earlier blog, pictures to come as soon as I find a fast internet connection next Tuesday in Quito)

When you think of Peru, you think of the Inca race, jungles, Alpacas, and maybe the rainforests, but to generalize it in this way is to call California just a land of sunny beaches, suburban sprawl, and L.A. smog. We found this out for ourselves as we left Trujillo. We had come into the city at night, so we didn’t realize that in addition to being a coastal town, Trujillo was firmly planted in the middle of the driest desert this side of the Sahara. If it were not for the poverty and the Hispanic culture of the people we passed, we could have just as easily been in southern New Mexico. The mountains in the distance of this vast sea of sand actually reminded me of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico.

Stretching out for an eternity, after two hours of driving from Trujillo we finally began to climb into the sandy hills we had seen in the distance. The brown bushes that dotted the landscape and rushed past my window gradually began to gain color. The valley narrowed and from the bottom a flood plain of green grew around the river we were following up into the hills. It now blanketed the valley floor and inched up the sides of the hills.

About halfway along the trip, the river we had been following inland from the desert emerged from the bottom of a giant hydraulic dam. The dam formed the base of a semi-alpine desert lake that expanded across the hills bridging the gap of miles of land. This lake set against the backdrop of still rocky and barren hills was about as out of place as the two gringos travelling inland into northern Peru.

The lake gave way to the river feeding it and the green grew back around the floor of the valley, and now the hills too were covered with a thin green flora. From a distance the green was the same green of any plant life you could find at home, but up close the bushes and trees were not exactly the same ones you knew and had grown up with; they are slightly foreign and out of place.

Just as soon as this forest emerged from the desert, it was obscured by the afternoon rain clouds descending from above. The road continued to climb into the mountains, hugging the sides while we stared off into the foggy abyss.

The clouds cleared by the time we reached Cajamarca, just in time for us to watch a purple sunset behind the hills of this alpine outpost of a town. As the sun set, the lights were turned on throughout the city, bathing it in the orange sulphur glow characteristic of most Peruvian cities at night. Above the city, a giant statue of Jesus with open hands was lit and looked down on the people below.

Already we could feel the altitude, and at 8,000 feet, this city defined the beginning of the true Sierrian Andes. After a pizza and sangria, and a visit to the local club, we called it a night and prepared to head for Celendin on Monday.

Blog point:
1.) Only here in Peru does a pizza with pepperoni cost much more than any other pizza on the menu. Apparently it is hard to get pepperoni here!

Trujillo, Cajamarca, and Celendin!

Cajamarca, Peru March 3rd 2008

Well the bus ride to Trujillo was a sucess, we left Lima about 9:00 on Saturday night aboard a bus-cama (bus-bed). I just want to go ahead and say that the South Americans know how to bus it, as this was the nicest bus I have ever been on in my entire life. The bus has two levels, and most of the passengers are on top, with our seats being in the very front of the bus, giving us a full panoramic view of the nightlife as we drove through Lima. The seats themselves are reminiscent of ¨1st Class¨ on international flights back when they had three classes, a first class, a buisness class, and a coach. Our wide leather seats reclined until you were almost horizontal (hence the name of the bus). We did however have to lower a protective screen in front of our window because the poorer neighborhoods of Lima have been known to throw rocks at the buses.

Our 20 dollar ticket got us into Trujillo, a small colonial town about 30 minutes off the coast, at 5:30 Sunday morning. We had to wait in the bus station for the sun to rise at 6:00 before it was safe to walk around Trujillo. Once we did, we meandered into town about 6 blocks from the bus station to the Plaza de Armas (a common name here for what would be the town square with courthouse in Alabama). As our ultimate goal is Chachapoyas, and Kuelep ruins buried deep in the northern Andes, we were itching to get inland to our first stop, Cajamarca. Eventually (after driving around town to 4 different bus companies) we found an 11:30 5 hour bus up into the western Andean city of Cajamarca, where we arrived last night.

Trujillo has the origins of a classical spanish town, with 2-3 story colonial archtitecture. The streets were dusted with a layer of sand and dirt, and 20 foot high trees lined some of the major walkways. You could feel the desert heat, mixed with salt from the pacific ocean as it rose with the sun. What is neat about Trujillo is that many of the older colonial buildings are painted with bright blues, oranges, and yellows that make them stand out from the other tarnished finishes. I suppose this is a tribute to the coastal origins of this 500 year old town.

Our 5 hours in Trujillo were great, beginning with the walk to the Plaza de Armas at 6 in the morning on a Sunday, with a big backpack on. I was acosted by no less than 15 taxi drivers offering rides, some twice. We actually explained to one we were just walking 5 blocks, and sure enough, 4 blocks later there he was again asking to give us a ride. I suppose there really is just not a lot going on in Trujillo at 6 in the morning on a Sunday.

We got to witness the raising of the flag at 730 in the Plaza de Armas. This was a huge spectacle, where all of the soliders posted in Cajamarca (about 500) march into the square in full regalia, and go through this long (about an hour) ceremony of pomp and grandure to the background of a drum and brass band. We were one of maybe 100 or so spectators to watch this elaborate ordeal, and we asked another guy how often they did this. Every Sunday. Can you imagine? Stewart was talking to the guy next to us who had been in Cajamarca his whole life and this was his first time to see it, and why now? He lost his cell phone the night before at a party and he was there to pick a new one up, but the store hadn´t opened yet so he figured he would hang around and watch the parade.

In the middle of the ceremony as they were walking out to bring the flag to the flagpole there was this awkward pause for about 15 minutes. 15 minutes and 500 soliders at attention with all the city officials there too! There was a podium set up for some speach the mayor was going to give. The reason for the pause? They forgot one of the flags! They have been doing this for years every Sunday and they forgot one of the flags! I will never ceased to be amazed by the nonchalance down here.

The 5 hour bus ride to Cajamarca was incredible, but I dont have time to talk about it now since we are trying to get into Celendin (5 hours away) by nightfall. This is a small town probably without internet so I wont be able to update from their either. From Celendin we are hoping to hitch a ride along the notoriously rough 14 hour 90 mile ride to Chachapoyas. The buses arent running because the rainfall at 8,000 feet up in the Andes has put this road in bad shape, and it hugs 2,000 foot cliffs at times. We are hoping to get a ride with a local truck or car that still travel on this road... It could take several days to make this journey, so if you dont hear from me this is why. Wish us luck

Merrill

Lima Pictures

City of Lima, Miraflores, Pacific Ocean

Paragliders over Limas Coast