There is no bus heading straight to Chachapoyas, so we stopped in Tarapoto. No bus from there to Chachapoyas either, not after 4pm. But at least we could still make it to Pedro Ruiz, a little village placed in a stunning setting, surrounded by green mountains. Even at 1am we still found an open hostel, slept a few hours and booked two seats in the colectivo to Chachapoyas. Finally, there we were.
As
the organized tours to Kuélap had already left, we had to pay for a private cab
to bring us to the ruins. It wasn’t that much more expensive than an organized
tour, the transportation would cost us 140 S. A tour would have been 50 S per
person. Not too bad.
Unfortunately,
no one had told us to take our student cards with us; they would have saved us
some 7 S on the entrance fee to Kuélap. But well, a normal adult pays 15 S,
plus 20 S for a guide. At least we had our rain coats with us; we would need
them later on.
Kuélap
is advertised to be the second Macchu Picchu, but not as well in shape as its
big brother. The walls are still intact and pretty fascinating with their
height of up to 21m.
The
ruins are to be found next to the village Maria, at an altitude of 3.000 m, and the overall space taken is supposed to be bigger than Macchu Picchu. They
were built once upon a time by the Mochi,
a tribe ruling the North-Western coastal region of Peru for some 700 years
between 100 and 800 past Christ, before they were defeated by the Chimús. Those
again were beaten by the Incas in the 15th century. (Btw.: Did you
know that the Incas only ruled for around 100 years? Not really much time,
but obviously enough to build up an impressive empire…)
Today,
there is not much left of the fortress. But our guide knew to interpret the
remaining stones pretty well: Three different levels could be explored within
the surrounding walls. The more important you were the higher up you lived. The
Mochi lived in round houses, the foundation stones of which could still be
seen. Some of the houses have been partly, one has been even fully restored.
The
Inca would later on add their quadratic buildings
to the remaining Mochi constructions.
The
three entrances into the fortress were pretty wide, but narrowed down to a
meter the higher you got up the stairs. Attackers could easily run up the first
steps, but would squeeze together after a while, making it easy to holding them
back. Somehow, the Chimú still took the place over.
Two
thirds into the tour we met one of the organized tours, some 20 tourists
following one single guide. Guess who was amongst those tourists? Sarina! She
had decided not to travel with us through the Amazon basin as she had a flight
from Lima to catch on the 23rd of April, and thought our jungle
adventure would take longer by far. Well, she was wrong. But anyhow, it was an
exciting pleasure seeing her again. If one does always meet twice in life, this
would have been the second time. But sometimes, I guess, paths cross more
often. :)
We
learned a little more about Mochi gods, their habits and their way of life. But
after an hour and a half fully packed with information, it just becomes more
and more difficult to listen and save all that information. And one gets tired
of listening. The llamas standing around were a welcome distraction. ^^
Our
cab driver Marco was expecting us down at the ticket office, and the ride home
wasn’t any less spectacular than what we had just seen.
Back
in Chachapoyas, we didn’t waste any time to organize a bus ticket for that same
night. We’re in travel mode at the moment, loads of sightseeing has to be
accomplished.
A
really delicious dinner at a local polleria (roasted chicken restaurant) was
digested in our bus towards Chiclayo…
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