We found a jewel of a hostel to stay in (called Izhcayluma and ran by a German guy) - slightly above our budget but it included a delicious and huge breakfast which set us up for the day, so I guess we saved what we would have otherwise spent on food during the day. The views of the surrounding mountains were amazing. They also provided us with detailed maps of treks you could do locally, and we chose a lovely, varied one which took us on the ridge of a high hill - very nice, if a little bit scary.
The next day we did another trek on horseback and it was fantastic. Gary is even starting to get a taste for it!
Next, we headed off to Peru - setting off from Vilcabamba on 22/8 at 6 am. First of all we took a bus to Zumba, which was meant to take 6 hours but due to the state of the road (unpaved, up on the side of a mountain, with road works and rain) it turned into a 10 hour journey. At one point the bus couldn't go up a steep slope because the rain had turned the road into mud, so we waited two and a half hours there waiting for it to dry out a bit. We were amazed to even make it to Zumba!From Zumba, we took this funny looking open-sided local bus:
Once we got on the mountain road that led us into Peru, we were glad that a) the bus had wide, sturdy front wheels which looked like you couldn't take them off the ground if you wanted to, and b) that the driver was over 50 years' old, which means he'd survived a few years driving on this mad, windy road hanging off the side of a mountain so he would hopefully get us there in one piece.We got to La Balsa (the border between Ecuador and Peru) at 7 pm and entered Peru on foot in the dark. We were welcomed by a very friendly Peruvian customs officer, but unfortunately had to spend the night at the border because there were no taxis to get out of there. So we booked ourselves into the only "hotel" there and shared a room with a couple of huge beetles (which had taken residence in the shower), scary giant moths and God knows what else.
The next day, we woke up at 4.30 am and managed to find a taxi to San Ignacio, which we shared with a couple of very nice locals. After a couple of hours we reached San Ignacio, and from there we once again shared a "public taxi" with a couple of friendly locals to get to Jaén. We reached Jaén in a couple of hours and from there, surprise surprise... we took another public taxi to Bagua Grande. Which we also reached in a couple of hours, and where we took another public taxi, the last one (!) in the direction of Chachapoyas, our final destination. When we got there at the end of the day, we had to lie on our stomach on the bed for a couple of hours as our backsides were hurting so much from spending the past 48 hours in narrow seats and on bumpy roads.
Anyway, it was worth it! A not so straightforward but exciting way of entering Peru, and also a great opportunity to chat with the locals we were sharing transport with. Peruvians are generally very, very friendly and happy to listen to our broken Spanish and converse with us, which is the loveliest feeling.
The next day in Chachapoyas, we walked for a couple of hours to reach the 800 metres' high canyon of Huancas (chuckle chuckle... if you don't understand why I am saying this, read "Huancas" out loud...). It was stunning:
On the way there we met Fabio, an Argentinian architect from Buenos Aires who is travelling around Ecuador and Peru for a couple of months. So as well as doing a lovely little trek, we chatted away in Spanish with Fabio for 4 hours. Hopefully he enjoyed the conversation as much as we did, as we agreed to meet up for dinner that night. He told us all about the corruption of the Argentinian government in a very passionate way, hard to follow but once again very good practice for us! Anyway we exchanged e-mails and are hoping to see him when we reach Buenos Aires in the next couple of months.The next day, we took a day trip to Kuélap, 'a pre-Inca walled city' discovered in 1843 and apparently built over a period of 200 years, between 900 and 1100 AD. The mountains around it were really spectacular, too:
On the same day, we took a very comfortable overnight bus to Trujillo, on the coast. We stayed there for a day and a half and visited more archeological sites:- Huacas De La luna, a huge Moche pyramid which consists of several levels. Each level, inhabited by an emperor, was covered in bricks each time the emperor in question died (it was basically turned into his tomb). This means that the decorations and paintings on the walls, which were uncovered throughout the 90s, still have their colours pretty much intact. It was amazing to stand before these walls and think that the colours were applied to the walls about 1500 years ago!
- We also visited Chan Chán, which our Footprint guide tells us is the remains of the largest adobe city in the world, built by Chimú kings. The archeological site where they have been uncovering remains for the past 20 years or so is amazingly big (something like 28 square kms). Once we entered the one adobe site where visitors are allowed, we almost had the impression we were in Egypt...
I even started to 'walk like an Egyptian'... ah ah... erm, ok, not.
A few kilometres away from Trujillo, thereis a little seaside town called Huenchaco where you can see both surfers and local fishermen on traditional canoe-like boats braving the waves. We enjoyed a lovely sunset on the pier.
Finally, we took another really nice and comfortable overnight bus to Huaraz, where we arrived six days ago. We had a lot of fun going on a trek in the past few days, but I think I will write about it separately as this is a really long entry...C.
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