Northern Peru: Ancient cultures Windswept Coasts

Bienvenidos to Peru! 

Back to the travel sauga! We left off our Corrammon tale back at the border, after the bus debaucle in Ecuador. The good news was that after crossing over into Peru we had nothing but kilometres and kilometres of paved roads, and no more clay. There was only the odd rock-slide or river wash-out, but as long as you have at least one clear lane to drive on you are A-OK right? We knew this was going to be a more convoluted way into Peru, but with Chachapoyas ahead we knew it'd be worth the trouble. We carried on our journey with our new buddy Tess, because there's nothing like sliding off the road on a bus together to bond new friends together! The epic day continued, and we all shared a cab to San Ignacio, and then took a collectivo van to Jaén, in the northern interior in Peru. After our previous marathon travel day, this one was yet another doozey, and it wasn't until after 7:30pm that we finally made it to Jaén, and took a TukTuk motortaxi to a little motel. There was nothing touristy about this town, just a stop-off point on our journey south, and a place to grab some Chifa (Chinese food) for dinner and a nice coffee in the morn.

Kuelap's welcoming committee

Chachpoyas town

One more 5 hour bus ride, this time along a road that weaved along the river, through rock-cuts and below towering cliffs, and at long last we'd made it to Chachapoyas, a quaint town high in the mountains. Through Tess' good graces we landed ourselves a place to stay at Chachapoyas Backpackers, and were able to find a place with a few tours around the area. The draw for us to this town was Kuélap, a Pre-Incan walled city high up in the hills. Until a few years ago this was only reachable by a very long and tricky road in, but our good timing meant we were able to head up via the new Teleferico, a gondola that took us first down the valley, and then back up to the mountaintop. Here we explored the beautiful site, packed with the ruins of stone circular house foundations, and even some rectangular remains of buildings made after Incan conquest. Kuélap was a beautiful sight to see, with it's 8-10 metre high walls surrounding it, not for fortification but to stabilize the site against earthquakes. There was a temple there as well, where archaeologists found evidence of Incan offerings showing even after conquest they incorporated the local customs into their own. Of course by the mid 1500s, after the Spanish arrival, everything changed for the worse. Although they initially united with the Chachapoyas people to overthrow the Incas (which is how they gained their stronghold in much of Peru), it wasn't more than 30 years later that the Spaniards came back to burn Kuélap to the ground. Sadly, the story is much the same throughout so much of this continent... 

 

                      

                     Main temple at Kuelap

 

     

Brian and Tess shooting up rocks
as offerings at the moon temple :) 

Carajia Sarcophagi

Onwards to more ancient sites- we visited the Sarcophagi at Carajia, which are clay anthropomorphic figures which hold the remains of important chiefs high on up the mountain-side, always facing the sunrise. Walking along the base of the cliff there were also some bones scattered below from earthquakes that sent some of these figures toppling to the ground in the last 100 years. These were some of the best preserved sarcophagi, and we were also able to see others from afar in the surrounding area. We were lucky to see some petroglyphs carved in the rocks which date back thousands of years, and even visited a huge old cave that used to be a burial place where you can still see human bones at the entrance. Yikes!

                      

 We had a few lovely evenings with Tess in Chachapoyas, found a cozy restaurant/cafe on the main square, and had an overall chill time in this out of the way corner of Peru. From there it was time to part ways (sniffle), and make our way to Leymebamba for an overnight stop-off to break up the drive. Here there was a neat little museum which had a few hundred mummies that were brought there to be preserved from another burial site at Condor Lake. So many mummies! It was an all-around cute tiny town, and we loved our hostel balcony right on the main square. 

Next morning it was off in our squishy Collectivo van for the long journey to Cajamarca, the cheese capital! Brian and I had a low-key time here, walking up to the viewpoint over the town, eating some cheese of course, and exploring the streets. I was here way back when with Joanna and Amanda C., and being in the main square there brought back some sweet memories! 

One lane roads through the mountains all the way to Cajamarca

Next stop, Chiclayo on the coast. Here we booked ourselves an AirBnB with the wonderful Katian and her mom, Gloria. We made fast friends with these two sweethearts, who were incredibly kind and welcoming and made us feel just like family! Katian we hope to see you in Canada one day! :D  We took time out in the day to visit some more museums, the most impressive of which displayed what was excavated in the tombs of the Lord of Sipan from one of the many pyramid temples in the area.

Leaving Chiclayo proved tricky, and spent about an hour running from terminal to terminal trying to find a bus south to Trujillo, only 4 hours south. We ended up getting a ride as far as we could 2 hours south, and while waiting in a crazy long line for the collectivo van got caught in the middle of a band of hooligans tearing through the parking lot after a soccer game. They were mostly throwing rocks, but police were in hot pursuit and the line of people just scattered! It was kind of a crazy moment, but it meant we got right on the next bus that came- eeek! It ended up being a great little bus ride in the end- crammed with people- but a couple asked if their grandson could sit on our lap, and so we had a great time with little 6 year old Marvin. He was a chatty little guy, who was giving us hugs by the end and ran along our cab as we drove off from our stop. 

Caballitos de totora- reed boats used by fishermen back in the day

We were grateful to finally make it to our beach destination! We had to cab it from the city of Trujillo to the Huanchaco, and met up with Tess again at a cozy hostel a little ways from the beach. Yay!  We loved the pier, the old reed boats, but not so much the garbage all over the beach.   We'd now moved far enough south along the coast that the seaside waters weren't so great for swimming with the chilly southern current flowing up to shore, so we mostly hung out on the beach watching the surfers go wild over the crazy waves. We decided against lessons here, the waves were just too big for us! It was a nice place to lay low for a few days though! 

We also visited the archaeological site of Chan Chan, which are the ruins of a mud-brick walled city of the Chimu culture, built around 1300. There were mostly the remains of the walls, some still over 8m high- with temples, canals, and various alters all with different friezes carvings to honour the various gods, all in an area over 25sq kms. Went went to a few other temples as well, and loved the friendly hairless pups we met on the way. One more day on the beach and we were off to the mountains, inland to Huaraz! 

Rainbow temple

Hairless viringa dogs, indigenous to the coasts of Peru