Blogs from Kuélap, Amazonas, Peru, South America

Do Chachapoyasu jsme dorazili brzy rano a hned se shaneli po minibusu do vesnice Tingo, kde jsme se ubytovali v mistni hospedaje - hospoda s bydlenim. Okamzite vyrazili smerem ke Kuelapu, misto asi 4 hodiny /podle mistnich 2-3h/ vzdalenem, vystavenem kmenem Chacha, pozdeji obydleny Inky. Cesta byla kruta - prekonali jsme prevyseni celkem 1500metru- coz znamena porad do kopce a navic nam nepralo pocasi, tedy hodne svitilo slunce...Stalo to ale za to. Na celou stavbu se pouzilo 3 x vice stavebniho materialu nez na velkou pyramidu v Egypte. Je postaven z vapence a jeho obranne zdi jsou asi 20 metru vysoke. Bylo zde asi 200 kamennych domu a z nich se dochovaly pouze zaklady, i kdyz se mistni snazi alespon cast rekonstruovat a jeden dum je na ukazku hotovy cely i se strechou. Kolem i vevnitr ... read more

We only stayed on night in Celedin in transit to Tingo, which takes 9 hours over the mountains on pretty sketchy roads. Celedin was a pleasant town, quite quet and not much to see in the evenings. The bus route to Tingo though provided the most beautiful panaroamic views of the mountains, it really made the 9hour trip worth it. When we arrived in Tingo, we found one hostal, two restaurants and roughgly ten houses, it was a pretty small village, situated right on the river. The next day we got up at 6am to have a cold shower, before setting off to walk to Kuelap. We could have got a taxi which would have takn a hour, but intstead we chose to walk 9km, up 1200m, for 4 hours, to get to Kuelap. IT WAS ... read more

Our final destination in Peru is Chachapoyas. Chacapoyas is the town which serves as an access point to Kuelap, pre incan ruins beaten in grandeur only by Machu Pichu. Twenty seven hours after we left on what should have been an eight hour journey, we arrived in Chacapoyas. To get there we encountered land slides and had to spend a whole day holed up in a very unexciting town called Pedro Ruiz. When we finally arrived the taxi driver of course ripped us off driving us to the hostel, but at least he had the decency to drive around the block a few times to pretend the journey was longer than it actually was. We spent the first day in Chachapoyas just wondering around shooting the breeze. We booked our tour for Kuelap assured that our ... read more

July 9 Wow. Wow wow wow. I've only been in Peru for about six hours but it is a different world. Seriously, right now I am lying in bed with a pair of long underwear and pants on, a nightshirt and a sweater and wool socks and I'm still cold. We are in winter here. When we arrived, we were led in ritual opening ceremonies. We had to each take three coca leaves and smell them, and make three wishes for our time in Peru. Then we had to drink this ghastly liqueur that I swear was 90 proof. I did plenty of choking; it was really embarrassing. Then we went to the houses with our families. My mom's name is Martina and she has three kids, two girls and a boy. We had dinner ... read more