Chiclayo - Chachapoyas - Tarapoto

By bus from Màncora to Chiclayo. In Chiclayo, we had booked a hostel for the same night as we were supposed to arrive at 3:45 am. However, since the bus was delayed and left over an hour later, we naturally did not arrive on time. The hostel in Chiclayo was a large room in a house with several apartments. The owner only had this one room for rent. It was very spacious with a clean bathroom. Chiclayo was just a place to pass through, as there was no direct connection from Màncora to Chachapoyas, so we continued by bus in the evening and only spent one day in Chiclayo. We think it was a very good decision, as Chiclayo is really uninteresting and strange.

Arriving in Chachapoyas: Totally tired, we arrived in Chachapoyas at 6:00 am and checked into our hostel. This time we had a double room, as it only cost 5€ per person. On the first day, we went to the farmer's market and bought fresh fruit as well as pasta with tomatoes, as we wanted to cook something in the kitchen. We finally took our dirty laundry to the laundromat and booked two tours.

The next day, someone knocked on our door at 6:00 am: "Ladies, your tour to Kuelap is starting". Naturally, we got up in a panic since we assumed we would be picked up at 6:30 am. When we were on the bus and signed our names on a list, we saw that 10 out of 14 people were approximately 65 years old. We took the bus to a small village where we could have breakfast. We waited there until about 9:30 am since our ticket for the cable car was only valid from 9:45 am. Everything proceeded incredibly slowly since the older people had to go to the bathroom and constantly had to buy something to eat. Even after we took the cable car up, it took forever until our tour finally started, which unfortunately was in Spanish. The tour was a complete disappointment and a waste of money. Kuelap is now completely overgrown with trees, and waiting was incredibly annoying! After lunch, we had to wait for another 2 hours in a small, actually run-down village because the road was closed. I was quite disappointed because I had hoped for a lot since Kuelap is actually quite interesting.

Kuelap is older and taller than Machu Picchu. The city was built by the pre-Incas and was established around 700 AD. There used to be about 300 houses here, and 2000 people lived up there. The houses were all round and up to 7 meters high and have hardly been restored so far. The last excavation and research work was only stopped in 2012.

Yesterday, we took a tour to the Gocta Waterfall, which was first discovered in 2002 and surveyed in 2007. It measures 771 meters and is thus one of the highest waterfalls in the world. When we got to the collectivo, six 65-year-old women from the lecture were sitting in the bus, but they waved to us very excitedly. Two out of six walked exactly one kilometer and turned back because it was too strenuous. Two out of six took a horse, and two out of six walked. But this time, we didn't have to wait for everyone, but could freely walk to the waterfall. So we had to walk 5 km uphill and downhill to the waterfall and back again. After the way there, we were directly below the waterfall and had a view of 540 meters of waterfall. Since the waterfall consists of two levels, you could only see the upper half from a distance. Nevertheless, it was incredibly impressive how the water fell down so lightly. The water basin is about 8 meters deep. Our guide told us a quite strange legend that is supposed to be thousands of years old about the waterfall. The funny thing, however, is that there is a legendary tale dating back thousands of years, but the waterfall was only discovered in 2002 😄.

In the evening, we took the bus to Tarapoto. The journey was terrible. There was only one bus company that goes to Tarapoto, which we did not know. The bus felt like it was already 80 years old. Above the door to the driver in the bus, there was a saying "Solo dios con su poder" translated as "only God with his power," which I'd rather not know what it means 😂. We drove for about 8 hours. There was no toilet on the bus. The seats were rock hard, and it was really tight, but the positive thing was that you could open the windows.

Today we will continue driving for another 2 hours to Yurimaguas. But we still have to figure out what happens next and how to get there.