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The
Chachapoya culture and people were in the region for thousands of years before they were conquered (like the rest of South America) first by the Incas and then shortly after by the Spanish. It is thought that the Kuélap fortress was inhabited for over 2000 (possibly 3000) years.
They were great warriors as they constantly had internal conflicts and were later used by the Incas as a kind of SAS (or cannon fodder depends on how you look at it). They left hundreds of now ruined cities in the Chachapoya region. Some estimations go as high as 500 cities. It is likely that this figure is even higher as the region is not well studied (only Kuélap was really studied so far) and the sites are in remote corners of Peru where not too many people live.
It was estimated that at one point there were more than 500.000 people living in the region but they were later decimated by 98%!b(MISSING)y diseases and illnesses brought by the Spanish which swept through South America.
As I mentioned in my precious blog I was quite lucky to be able to join a 6 day trek as there are only 10 or so per year by this tour operator (and I doubt that there are many more). In the beginning I was a bit concerned as the guy who organized the trek couldn’t tell which guide would be ours and how good his Spanish would be. In the end it worked out well again as we got “Don Carlos” the owner himself. He is really a character and seems to know anyone even in remote villages. If you imagine a mix between a freedom fighter, landlord and daddy for everyone then you have a fair picture of “the Don”.
The first day was mainly driving to get to the remote burial site of Karajiu. There they have a many Sarcophaguses hanging high up in the cliffs. The Sarcophaguses are made of mud, painted and contain as you would expect a mummy. Quite fascinating that they got all the building material and the mummy up there.
The day ended in the very pretty Belu valley where we slept in a hut in the middle of nowhere.
The other days were quite uniform as you can expect when you go trekking. Once we got up, which was at various times as “the Don” didn’t have an alarm clock, we started walking for a couple of hours and then stopped at some ruined city to have a look around.
Many of the trails we walked on were built by the Chachapoyas and used for hundreds or thousands of years. For some reason they built those paths always over the highest mountain which meant that we walked uphill for hours on end just to walk downhill at the end again. A good workout for the legs and bum but I had enough after the six days. The worst day was day 5 where we walked up from 1600m to 3200m in 6 hours. Luckily it did only rain only once but even that was enough to transform the trails into gigantic mud slides.
The ruined cities are all very similar as the houses are all circular and built in the same style over and over again. They range in diameters from mere 3 meters to gigantic houses with 12m diameter. The walls were with up to 5 meter also quite high. All that was done using stones and a mortar of mud.
One nice feature about the region is that not many tourists come here. Even Kuélap the main tourist attraction receives only 2000 foreign tourists (plus 8000 Peruvians) and we didn’t see any other gringo during the six days. The sites are mostly in the state as they were found in as not many excavations are going on. Often we had to get the machete out and clear the site before we could have a look at the ruins.
We normally slept in little villages which were built recently as Peru experiences a population growth unknown to western countries. As far as I remember 30%!o(MISSING)f the population is under 18 years old. Most of the villages we visited do not have electricity or tap water. Saying that the villages are quite nice and the inhabitants seem to be quite happy with what they have. Recently some of the villages even got a satellite phone. One of the houses we stayed in had one and this phone was the only phone in the area and was used by 1300 people!
An interesting excursion was to a “newly” discovered ruined city. We later found out that there were only three other gringos at this site ever and not many more Peruvians. The site itself looked fantastic as everything was overgrown by lush rainforest. One highlight was when we climbed along a steep hill where I found one intact and one broken stone pot. Those pots haven’t been touched by humans in a few hundred years and I found them laying around on our trail!
The last day was spent visiting Kuélap the great fortress of one of the Chachapoyas groups. The Chachapoyas were never a united nation and local lords were ruling. One of them decided two thousand years ago to build a fortress to control the valleys around it. The site itself was extended three of four times over the centuries, contained 400 round houses and up to 2500 inhabitants lived in it. The walls surrounding the city are up to 20 meters high and a feast of engineering as they are still standing after a couple of hundred years without maintenance and surviving a few earthquakes which destroyed many modern buildings.
After Kuélap and another four hours of walk we visited Dr Peter Lerche a German and one of the few archaeologists in the region and considered the expert of the Chachapoyas. It was very interesting to talk to him about the region and he could give me finally an answer to my age old question “Why the hell do they always build the cities on top of a mountain”. The explanation is quite simple. It is not as you would expect to make it easier to defend the city; it is done to store produce more easily. Down in the valley the harvested corn, potatoes and other organic material is more likely to rot as it is warmer, more humid and insects crawl everywhere. The top of the mountain is basically a gigantic refrigerator.
Oh before I forget it the guinea pig was unlucky as it ended up as dinner for us. Guinea pig is a local food source and was used for thousands of years. Most of the round houses had a special section just to raise guinea pigs. I just got a quarter of a small one which was a bit fat and I presume died of old age as it was quite tough. Have to try it again soon.
Next stop Trujillo and the temple of Sun and Moon.
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