The trek to Kuelap pt.2

Day 2 - we get up and set off across the hills around the river. My knee had been gradually getting worse throughout the first day and now starts to worsen. We trek across land and into the cloudforest walking along pre-columbian paths made from rough, pointy and slippery ancient stones. I end up walking with a knee support and a stick like an old man... We climb and are able to scramble into covered areas of the jungle to see unexcavated stone constructions hidden away on the hillsides! The ancient stones are covered in moss and climbing around them is about as close as being Indiana Jones as you'll ever get. We descend down a torturous path towards a tiny village where we can eat & sleep.

The next day we continue on horses, which turns out to be one of the most nerve-wracking experiences in a while! The path we take is up and across the mountains across roads that have been used for so long that the hoofs of the horses have, over the years, gouged the track into giant ruts. These ruts are full of rain water and mud. Our horses are knee deep and struggle over the hurdles, sliding and scrambling up and down steep banks, while we are battered with thorny bushes. the occassional shout of "cap!" indicates that someones lost a hat to the trees.

We pause on the hillside and eat lunch before continuing, occassionally disembarking so the horses can tackle the trickier parts without extra weight and we follow, jumping from mudd lump to slippy rocky after them, pulling ourselves up steep banks with our hands. We visit more hidden jungle ruins and eventually arrive at our next lodge where we are promised a beer and a hot shower... we get neither...

The trek to Kuelap pt.1

From Chiclayo we travelled east to Chachapoyas and booked onto a 4 day trek to the huge pre-Inca fortress of Kuelap, reached by foot and horse through cloudforest. We borrowed a camera from the nice folk at the hostel and donned rainponchos and wellies along with Brad from Colorado and Tom from Canada and set off..

We drove out towards Karajia but after meeting our guide soon hit a problem - locals in a village were digging up the only road through. After a few minutes the 30+ villagers came to the agreement that our driver could push 2 rocks over the divide and try to pass over the top of them in the car - it worked! At Karajia we could see a set of 8 sarcofogi on the cliffside - oddly primitaive clay figures painted in red paints with flat faces and some with skulls attached to the top - sons or trophyheads we were told... Bones lay around the path and our guide warned us legend has it they have a strange wasting disease that affects anyone touching them...

Back at the car we set off and shortly after this we hit the mud! After sliding around in the sludgey road we ground to a halt. Being good little travellers we all jumped out to help push to vehicle. I was soon sprayed head to foot in thick orange mud. Then it started to rain. We finally managed to back out the sliding car out and the driver refused to go on - it was on foot from here for another 2 and a half hours before we got to our lodge through the beautiful Gran Vilaya and the Valle de Belen with its huge snaking river. We passed the evening laughing with the 2 lads and gazing up at the incredible view of the stars above.

Chiclayo

Chiclayo in the North West is best known for the many ruins around and we went out to visit some of them - One tomb is the Lord of Sipan - a massive collection of torquise & bronze including huge earplugs that looked like they weighed a ton, masks, headdresses and other stuff including gigantic necklaces decorated as cats heads and nose rings so big they covered the whole of your mouth - probably to disguise the wearers expressions and teeth - they were supposed to be half animal-god with pointy teeth! They were also buried with a selection of warriors and women for the afterlife. We visited a site where there were 26 pyramids from the Moche culture and also the Sican cultures museum in which the lord was buried in a fetal position upside down with his head disconnected - in similar but less lavish bronze and gold. This time buried with 22 young females... popular bloke.

We visited the huge markets later in Chiclayo and saw chickens, guinea pigs (they eat them here - an Inca delicacy) and loads of other stuff including weird fruit (mangos the size of an apple) & Shaman goods and herbal remedies. I very nearly bought a genuine voodoo doll! Sadly I actually relaxed my gaurd a little too much here and took a few pics - then conveniently in a cramped isle a fat man in front dropped a load of change on the floor and blocked the way trying to pick it up. In the following crush of people, someone knocked me and stole my camera... I knew it immediately and swung around but there were too many people and it could have been anyone... grrrr... thank god I backed up my pictures 3 days ago... phew

Pucallpa - Central Amazon

We got a flight out to Pucallpa and zipped off on a mototaxi (3 wheeled motorbike) to the little village of Yarinacocha. We trudged aroundwith our bags for a bit getting super sweaty then hauled ourselves into a hospedaje. Yarinacocha was ace - a small harbour on a lake alongside the river Yucama which joins the Amazon. We ate fresh fish grilled and yuca and sat eating it, when we were approached by a small girl. We asked a few questions and she tried to sell us some bracelets, eventually introducing her aunty and then her grandmother. They were from the Shipibo tribe who live up river in San Francisco. Laura, Laura and Maura then asked us to stay with them the next day and the elder Laura gave us both necklaces as gifts.

We then chatted to a friendly boatman and spent the day out on the water spotting sloths in trees and looking at the tiny stilted huts along the water. Next day we found Maura and got a boat out to San Francisco and stayed with Oscar - little Lauras uncle and his wife Sonia for the night. They were all Shipibo tribespeople and once back home got back into flipflops and t-shirts from their more traditional selling gear. The community mostly are artisans making textiles and pottery and although they wear normal clothes back home they live in simple wooden huts with earthen floors and basic beds, cooking outside. The day after we walked out to the neighboring village of Santa Rosa to visit more of Oscar´s family who had a pet monkey.

We wanted to go out to Puerto Bermudez to visit the Ashinika people but there were no planes, no cars or buses and it was 3 days by boat... we decided to buy a ticket by plane back to Lima then head north.

Back in Lima we popped into the museum of the spanish inquision which was actually pretty uneventful then shot off on a bus overnight upto Chiclayo