Mishaps around Leimebamba-Chachapoyas

---

OK, a confession: on that last trek I lacked a good topo map. But it really wasn´t that big of a deal since I had GPS, only got lost a couple of times, asked for lots of directions, and was traveling through a well-settled area... Besides, there are other gringos down here doing crazier things...read on.

From Cajamarca I caught a local bus to Celendin, and promptly missed the twice-weekly bus to Leimebamba. Frustrated but determined, I hired a car to take me almost half way there with plans to walk the rest. After negotiating for some time, I managed to move the price down from s/200 to s/150 (about $50 US). I probably could have moved him lower but I was grumpy and constipated and wanted to make some miles.

Four dusty hours later, I was deposited at the bottom of the 3.3 km deep, mighty Rio Maranon canyon, one of the principal headwater tributaries of the Amazon River. What is striking about the upper Rio Maranon is that it is desert, owing to the rainshadow effect of Cordilleras Central and Oreinte to the east. You wouldn´t expect to find desert at the headwaters of the Amazon, but it´s there.

My trek started in the scruffy little town of St Vincente de Paul, passed through Choquibamba, went over a 3960 m pass to Atuan, and then downvalley to Leimebamba - approx. 33 km in 2 days and 2 hours. The route followed a well-preserved Inca trail AND I had a map. OK, well sort of...I lost it along the way! Here´s one that sort of shows the area, and one that shows my recent Cajamarca and Leimebamba-area treks.

In Choquibamba, I met Gilmer A. Vergaray Jauregiji and we dined on his freshly-caught trout from nearby lakes. Trout so fresh their spines made curly-q´s over their bed of rice and papas. Yum! Gilmer´s father provides the opening inscription for Keith Muscutt´s book Warriors in the Clouds, about this area´s Chachapoyan archaeology. He let me look over his copy and I noted a few locations on my map.

Walking up the Rio Chacahuayco, I passed from desert into equatorial dry forest, then cloud forest, then paramo, before descending into the montane rainforest above Leimebamba. I was serenaded by pairs of green jays, and caught glimpses of parrots, a white-crowned cincloides (dipper), large yellow-breasted flickers, mountain caracarals, among others.

Below Atuan, I stopped briefly at a cliff-embedded burial ruin, La Pataca, and was left boggled at how the pre-Inca Chachapoyans ever reached these tombs. La Pataca is perched about 300 m up a sheer 500 m cliff face. Just down the trail I met Rob Dover, a limey transplant helping to promote and interpret the area for visitors. Rob doubts the Chachapoyans used rope, more likely natural erosion has eaten away at narrow perches in the soft limestone or else they actively destroyed such paths during the Spanish conquest to thwart grave robbery.

Arriving at 7 p in Leimebamba, I set out the next morning for a brief stop at the local museum and then onto Laguna de los Condores. It was Sunday, and the local government office was closed so without the required permit I plowed on for the Lake and it´s cliff tombs... Plowed on through 9 hours of rain and ankle-deep mud before learning from the site steward that I would not be allowed entry without both a guide and a permit. I tried pleading, cajoling, begging, then resorted to good old-fashioned bribery. But, alas, no amount was great enough to win entry.

So it was 9 hours back through more rain and mud, my only consolation being a lovely montane peat bog with strange plant associations, and the area´s montane rainforests with lots of trees in the Ericacae family (which includes our familiar rhododendron and huckleberry among others).

Along the trail my thoughts turned around:

1. Whether there are more chickens or eucalyptus trees in Peru - both exotics but also both well-integrated into Peruvian culture.

2. The strong tradition of walking and the numerous trails, part of the Andean culture originating with the Inca and their predecessors. Tying together diverse social and ecological networks. Still strong today even as new roads destroy ancient trails and further fragment the landscape.

3. Horses, currently the most popular pack animal in the Andes. Why? They are flighty, tear up pasture and trails, and go lame on a whim. The alternatives strike me as much more hardy, reliable, and sustainable for the landscape: llamas or burros. The popularity of horses probably comes down to their rideability, ability to pack more, and a cultural association of horses=power (left over from the day when the conquistadores rode horses to victory over the Inca).

Back in Leimebamba, I met two fellow yanks, Gregg and Deia, who have set out to hike the Andes from Ecuador south to Tierra del Fuego. Meeting Gregg and Deia was fortuitous because I had been ruminating on the feasibility of thru-hiking the Andes but was put off by the idea of doing it solo. We swapped some stories & emails, talked about linking up down the road, and shared a ride to Chachapoyas, complete with delicious fruit ice given to us by a local. You know - fruit ice - the kind of stuff you are told never to eat down here because the water in it could be contaminated?

After two uncomfortable days in Chachapoyas recovering on antibiotics, puntuated by fainting spells on the toilet and at the front desk of the doctor´s office, I made a quick day trip with a group up to Kuelap, a prehistoric Chachapoyan fort. A strain in my left foot and a leaky tent were all that was keeping me from joining Gregg and Deia right away. And a couple of bumps on my head from the fainting spells were my little reminders to take more care with my food choices!

Note: I have upated my Wayfaring.com Northern Peru Travels map with locations visited in this latest blog installment. When you click the above link it will take you to a static map of northern Peru with location markers. If you click anywhere on this map, it will automatically take you to a Google Earth-like interface so that you can pan, zoom, and gain more info on the markers. Sorry, I forgot to explain this until now!!! Wayfaring.com is cool because it allows one to create maps without fancy software, share them with others, lets others alter or add to the maps, and it takes lat/long coordinates from GPS!

---