We last left you in Lojas, or that's where you left us. From there we bused to Piura, Peru. As we arrived at midnight, we decided to stay the night. Our cab driver told us we could get a direct bus to our destination of Chachapoyas at noon the next day, ut that bus line had moved its terminal and once we found it we learned that they no longer offered that route. Instead, we found a bus to Chiclayo and picked up an overnight bus to Chachapoyas from there. (I'll state for the record that I just wrote a much more detailed account of this journey, but the laptop I'm using inexplicably turned off and I lost it all, and I don't think it's important enough to write again. Save your work regularly!)
Chachapoyas is a mountain town and the capitol of its region, though it very much has a small town vibe. Apparently not too many gringos go there because we got lots of open stares, especially from kids. One little boy froze in place and stared, slack-jawed, at Eric until his mom started laughing. It was pretty amusing. Nonetheless, I'm pretty surprised more travelers don't go there--it's a jumping off point for some great ruins, treks, and more. We were there to visit Kuelap, the oldest ruins in Peru, but for our first day in town we mostly relaxed--recovering from too many buses--and did a small walk up a hill to a viewpoint over the city.
We booked a tour company for our visit to Kuelap and went with a group of about 15 people, most of them Peruvians and Argentinians. Our tour was in Spanish, which was just fine. I got the broad strokes, and Eric was usually able to fill me in on what I didn't understand. Kuelap is about a 2.5 hr drive outside of Chachapoyas along really narrow, curvey mountain roads. Fortunately the weather was great because we had heard that if it's really rainy you sometimes can't get to the site by car. Of course, our guide also told us that only about 30 people visit the site each day (at least in the low season), even though this Kuelap's size and quality rival that of Macchu Piccu, which as hundreds of visitors each day.
Kuelap was contructed by the Chachapoyas, a pre-Incan civilization. The city sits atop of a mountain, overlooking valleys and other mountains in the Andean range. A huge base was contructed for the city and only two narrow passageways existed to enter the city. Good luck trying to attack this place. Kuelap is also intersting because it was actually a city. Macchu Piccu was really just a religious center that was still under construction when it was abandoned. Kuelap's ruins mostly consist of circular houses built one right next to the other. Jungle-y trees have grown in and around the ruins, so especially in the sections that haven't been too excavated, you sort of have the feeling of being in the Jungle Book or Indiana Jones or something. We took lots of pictures, which we will share as soon as we can.
The city of Kuelap itself is smaller than Macchu Piccu, but when the other ruins in the area are considered, many of which have not yet been excavated, Kuelap can be considered much larger than the Incan City. After at least seven campaigns, the Inca eventually defeated the Chachapoyas and brought them into the Inca Empire. Not long after, the Spanish arrived and conquored the Inca Empire. There are some rectangular buildings in Kuelap, which likely demonstrate the influence of the Incas, but possibly also of the Spainards. (Otherwise the Chachapoyas only used circular construction.)
I thought Kuelap was really impressive, and the fact that there's hardly anyone else there while your visiting is just amazing. There are several treks possible in the area, so if anyone is looking for an alternative to the Macchu Pichu hoopla, I suggest visiting Chachapoyas.
We left Chachapoyas on Monday and arrived in Trujillo at about 4AM Tuesday morning. We had called ahead to make reservations at a hostel in Huanchaco, a small costal resort town just outside of Trujillo... nonetheless, they didn't answer the door when we rang at 4:30 AM, so we tried another a few doors down and got in there. We hung out on the beach Tuesday afternoon and hung out with a few other guys at our hostel that evening (back at the one we originally made reservations with).
Today (Wednesday) we toured a number of archeological sites around the Trujillo area with an organized tour. We started with Las Huacas del Sol y de la Luna (the Temple of the Sun and Moon), just south of the city, which were built by the Moche Empire. Huaca del Sol is Peru's largest pre-Columbian structure, and it's scheduled to start full excavation in April. You can't currently go in it, but they believe that it was a political center for the city which is burried in sand between it and Huaca de la Luna, the religious temple, which we were able to tour.
Huaca de la Luna is its own sort of pyramid in that every 90 years a new temple was built overtop of the old one, the old one first being filled in with mud bricks. There are seven layers to the temple now, which makes for interesting excavation: you can't get to an inner layer without destroying the outer layer, but the inner layers are incredibly well preserved because of this practise and a fair about of the original piant still exists on the extensive frescos decorating the walls.
After stopping for lunch we headed towards Chan Chan, the ruins of a Chimu city between modern day Trujillo and Huanchaco. Driving down the road, it looks like just huge dirt piles in dirt fields, but once to realize that their ruins, you start seeing the walls and the mudbricks. Chan Chan was built in about 1300 and was defeated by the Incas about 150 years later. The city contained 9 royal compounds or palaces and we toured one of them. The walls and terraces were built with mud brick, which were carved into intricate designs and painted. Where it's been preserved or restored it's incredibly impressive, and where it's been erroded it looks like a melting sandpile. Some of the walls originally stood as much as 10 meters high. Really, it's impossible to describe the huge scale of this site--the palace itself and the city as a whole.
We're planning to take an overnight bus to Lima tomorrow night after just chilling on the beach all day. That way we'll have a night in Lima and can explore some of the things we missed when we were first there -- the sea wall and possibly some ruins within the city. We fly back Saturday night at midnight, and should be back in the Cities around 10 Sunday night. I'm terrified by the thought of winter weather (and we saw coverage of that storm on CNN down here!!), and I just can't believe two months are already come and gone. If I have time to load pictures in Lima I will, otherwise, I'll get them up once I'm home.
