Chachapoyas

From Chiclayo, I set out to Chachapoyas - an area in the "Ceja de selva" (the andes mountains on the way to the jungle). Chachapoyas is a small town that is just recently becoming touristed due to the great number of archaeological and cultural sites in the area.

My main reason for going was to visit the site of Kuélap, an enormous fortress built into the top of a mountain and apparently constructed with more stones than the pyramid at Giza.

The whole fortress is ringed with walls that must be at least 20 metres high and within they built a city of round stone houses on various levels depicting the family's social status. The jungle overtook Kuélap after its inhabitants fled from smallpox and it was rediscovered in 1847 by a local lawyer who was charged with marking out landclaims of local farmers. (this means it was "discovered" before Macchu Pichu). Today, trees and flowers still grow among the house foundations and llamas graze in the grass, but it's possible to understand the grandeur that the site once had. Unfortunately, because it's at least 42 hours by bus from Cuzco, it is infrequently visited, but I am hoping to change that - if you are planning to come visit Peru, make sure to head to Kuelap!

A house as they think it must have looked 600 years ago

The following day, we decided to visit the Gocta waterfall, another place that has only recently become touristy.

After hiking for two hours through woods and farmers fields, we arrived at the site, where the spray from the falls hit us with a great force - since it was dry season, I can't imagine what it would be like when it's raining. The falls are 771 metres high (as a reference, the tallest falls in the world are 948 metres high) and rank as one of the highest in the world. Because of the height, we couldn't see the whole falls on the one trip, but we were able to appreciate the first drop, which was stunning.

The waterfalls in full

Our day to the falls was wonderful overall, with our guide picking local fruits (guava, passion fruit, chirimoya) for us to snack on and showing us his artesanal sugar cane press, from which he makes chancaca (or pilloncillo, a sugar product that is similar to molasses paste). I'm now on my way back to Lima and then on to Bolivia to meet up with my friend Kelly. Time is flying by!