out of the jungle...into the mountains...

Since Tarapoto, I´ve been moving pretty quickly. I want to get to Bolivia sooner than later, and I was pretty far in the north of Peru, so I´ve made a couple big jumps. From Tarapoto, I got on a bus to Tingo Maria. It was supposed to arrive at midnight, after having left at nine in the morning. However, the road through the jungle is a dirt road that barely exists. The bus crept at a snail´s pace and often rocked back and forth when going through puddles or uneven ground. Sometimes it seemed to be on the verge of tipping over, and other times, the bus would stall out a good 4 or 5 times in a row just trying to get through a big puddle. I should have known when I saw the condition that the bus was in to begin with...it looked like it had gone to war. Unfortunately, there is only one company that makes the trip so I had no other option. At about 10 pm the bus stopped in its path, behind a couple of big trucks. Here, one of the big trucks had gotten stuck right on a curve and on the edge of a cliff. If they would have tried to push it out, it is likely that it would have gone over the edge of the cliff. So they had to wait for a truck to come in the opposite direction that could pull it out.

The bus driver told us all to use the bathroom so he could shut the door for the night, because that is where we were going to stay. Everyone got off the bus and found some place along the road to do their business and then got back on. People were a little upset, so the bus driver decided to play a cassette of romantic music to calm everyone down. It was pretty comical. So we slept, sitting up straight, until seven in the morning, when a big enough truck came to pull the stuck truck out of the ditch. We ended up arriving in Tingo Maria at two in the afternoon.

Tingo Maria is just as hot and humid as Tarapoto, maybe even more jungly. The first place that I went to ask about a room, I pulled back the sheets to find two big fleas, a stone and an obviously slept-in bed. So then I got to wander to the other side of town looking for another place. Finally I found a hotel with a very nice owner and clean rooms and bathrooms. After having gone out and walked around town, I was back in the room practicing and I saw two huge dengue mosquitos. It was too surreal. I decided to go back out and hang out on the street until as late as I could. I met a couple guys who are students in the universidad. They took me around town and then we hung out in the Plaza until about 11 pm. When I went back to the room to sleep, I first bathed in mosquito repellent and then slept with all of my clothes on and the blanket, sweating like a pig.

Needless to say, I left the next day for Huancayo, where I am now. In the seat next to me was a woman with her 5 yr old and 1 yr old baby. That means that between two regular bus seats were four people and a cello, aka uncomfortable. At 4:30 in the morning we arrived in Huancayo to freezing cold weather and an obvious change in altitude. Breathing is still a little weird (here is 3300 meters) and I feel that I have a good case of chapped lips coming my way. All the concrete and lack of vegetation is a shock too, I don´t really like it, but I´m sure that here are a lot of things that are lacking in the jungle...

The best hotel that I could find in Chachapoyas seemed more like an ice rink. It had wood stairs and cement floors and in order to ¨prevent termites¨ they dump a ton of ¨petroleo¨ on it all. I think petroleo must be diesel fuel by the smell. Regardless, its super slippery and I couldn´t walk anywhere but at a snail´s pace. Then the light bulb in the bathroom burned out. I asked the guy at the ¨desk¨ if he would change it, and he straight up refused. As some compensation, he asked if I would like to use his flashlight, as long as I returned it to him right away. When I thought my patience had run out, I went to take a shower in hot water (after hiking over 60 miles in 3 days, my muscles were crying for a hot shower), which was the only reason I stayed at this hotel to begin with. The catch was that you have to pay extra for them to turn on the hot water. I swallowed my pride and paid, and in the end, the water was barely warm. I tried to find a better hotel, but its a pretty sad situation in Chachapoyas. In the end, I didn´t even stay 24 hours.

I went to where the combis (vans) leave for Pedro Ruiz, the next little town along the road. I had to sit there for three hours waiting for there to be enough passengers. Finally, we left at about 5 pm, only to arrive halfway to a big road block. They recently started paving the road and close it down all day while they are working. We had to sit there until 7 pm, when the big dumptrucks and steamrollers started moving out. Finally, we arrived in Pedro Ruiz when it was already dark.

Pedro Ruiz is a funny little town. It is situated around a river and the only paved road is the highway which cuts along one side. The rest is dusty dirt streets. The town is small, a couple hundred people maybe, but everyone is out on the street all the time. The climate is very very hot, and there are tropical plants, palm trees and banana trees everywhere. Everything is also very cheap. No tourists come here, so people reacted a little funny when they saw me. The nine-year-old kid at the hotel would stand outside my door with his macaw anytime that I was practicing. He would try to get it to sing and talk until I opened the door. Then he would watch, without saying anything, and looking at my cello from every direction. Whenever I stopped, he would ask to pluck the strings. It was pretty comical, he´ll probably talk about it for a long time.

Saturday, I decided to go to Gocta, the third tallest waterfall in the world. It is fairly close to Pedro Ruiz, the only problem being the road block. I convinced a kid on a motorcycle to take me to Cocahuayco for five bucks. Cocahuayco is the village along the main road that is closest to Gocta. I figured that is anyone could make it through the road block, it would be a motorcycle. We had to sweet talk a couple of police officers and construction workers and they finally let us through. From Cocahuayco, I had to hike up a mountain trail to Cocachimba, another little village. In Cocachimba, I signed the visitor book and the woman asked if I wanted a guide to go to the falls. She told me that the trail was pretty easy to follow, as long as I always stayed to my left. I decided to be adventurous and go solo (or sola, better said).

As I left, a skinny little dog stuck right behind me. The woman at the sign-in told me that the little dog would be my guide, that she knows the trail well. I laughed and started up the trail. I followed a couple of trails that were on my left, but obviously were not the correct trail, they led me into chakras (farms and plantations). After two good wrong turns, the little dog finally took the lead and I just followed him. We hiked along a mountainside above corn and sugar cane plantations and then quickly dropped into thick jungle. The trail descended with a bunch of switchbacks, crossed a valley, and then rose again. Occasionally I could get a better view of the waterfall in its entirety (771 meters- 2, 467 feet). It was more impressive from closer.

Finally we arrived at the base of the falls. From underneath, only the bigger, bottom part of the falls was visible. There wasn´t a ton of water falling, but since it came from so high up it seemed to fall in slow motion. There was a pond at the base and a mist was constantly coming up. All around the valley was bright bright green vegetation. Standing underneath was pretty intense, the immensity of it all. I gave the dog a few crackers to thank him for not leading me astray into some weird area of the jungle and then we started our hike back.

Halfway along the trail was a small house and store. I stopped to drink some guarapo. Guarapo is a drink made of boiled and fermented sugarcane juice. Its not very strong (in alcohol content), but it is good after hiking five hours!!! The couple who lived in the house stopped whatever they were doing to talk to me. They said that about half of the tourists arrive to their house and don´t continue to the falls, they get exhausted along the way. Soon however, they will widen the trail to make the falls accessible by horse, so that more tourists can come in. They told me about how they have found lots of human bones around the area and that they were from really tall people. They claim that the ancient inhabitants were over 2 meters tall and lived 200 to 300 years...who knows, I wouldn´t doubt it.

I arrived back in Cocahuayco at about 5 pm. I bought a bottle of water at a little store and sat out front, along the main road to wait for a car that would be going to Pedro Ruiz. At about 7, the van came by, just in time that we didn´t have to sit and wait for the road to open.

Now I am in Tarapoto, a big city in the jungle. There are no tourists here either, and it is even hotter than Pedro Ruiz. I have been sweating nonstop, and have been reminded of everything that I forgot about tropical climates...that you have to shower a million times a day to try to maintain any kind of normal body temperature, you can drink green coconuts whenever you want, wearing flipflops all the time, all of the transportation is via motorcycle (or mototricycle, they even have moto-colectivos, or motos that work like buses picking up and dropping off people!), the weird way it gets dark, the rains that come and go quickly, mosquitos, annoying ants, fruit juice...the regular stuff that you miss when you haven´t been in the jungle for a while...

Tomorrow I will arrive in Tingo Maria, 15 hours to the south, but still in the jungle.

hens, mud, trout and a milk truck...

Four days in Celendin. No one told me that buses only left twice a week, so I was stuck until Sunday. Celendin is pretty quiet, a small little town. The surrounding mountains and plantations are pretty, but don´t leave much to do. Saturday morning, I woke up at 5 o´clock and couldn´t fall back asleep. I laid in bed with my eyes closed until 6 and gave up. I got out of bed, brushed my teeth and went to the bakery across the street for breakfast. The owner of the hotel, Francisco (who is addicted to playing chess), had told me about some thermal baths that are in the valley below. The drive is about an hour and a half, but only because of all the switchbacks. In reality, he said, you could probably arrive walking pretty quickly. I decided to test his hypothesis, so I took off walking to the valley of Llanguat.

From the plaza, it is only about 5 blocks until the town ends and houses are scattered farther and farther apart along the road. For the early hour, there were a lot of people out, starting to work in the fields or walking to the market with their goods to sell. As I walked along, I occasionally asked someone just to make sure I was on the right road. Finally a woman told me that if I saw a little trail off the road, I should take it, otherwise it would take me a very long time. ¨Have a nice walk, gringita...¨ she said as I walked away (in these parts, people say gringo in a very nice way). With those vague directions, I continued and when I saw a little trail I took it. I figured that as long as it went downhill, I must be going in the right direction. The vegetation grew thicker and it was impossible to see where the trail was leading to on the mountainside. I have always felt very small when hiking in the mountains, but when you are by yourself and have some doubts as to if you are on the right trail...or that maybe some rabid dog is going to jump out of the woods and go crazy...well, then you feel really really small. At the worst though, I would just follow the same trail back up and out.

Just at that moment, after about an hour on the trail by myself, a old campesino suddenly appeared behind me. ¨Are you going to the Valle?¨ he asked. I said yes, and he said ¨Let´s go to the valley.¨ He had a mouthful of coca leaves and was almost impossible to understand. Occasionally, when he asked me something, I would have to ask him to repeat himself two or three times. After so many attempts and still not understanding his mumbling, I would just respond any little thing, like what the weather is like in the states or how many brothers and sisters I have. He seemed just as content with my nonrelated responses that the strange conversation continued.

The man was very old, and was going to work in the plantations down below in the valley. He flew down the mountain, making it very hard for me to keep up with him, but I was so glad to know that I was on the right path that I followed. He had a funny way of going down the mountain, stepping on just the large stones instead of in between on the dusty path. It was like crossing a creek stepping only on stones. I caught on after a little while and before I knew it, we were in the valley. We split paths and I went in the direction of the the baths, and he went towards the plantations of sugarcane.

The baths were in the middle of a thick green forest, alongside a large river. There was one large bath with hot brown water that smelled a little weird, a col water pool that looked like it never got cleaned, and a bunch of people bathing in the river. At this point I realized that I was in the most conservative place ever. The women all bathed with all their clothes on...and unfortunatetly, I had on jeans and a long sleeved shirt...the clothing that takes the longest to dry. I didn´t feel like being the talk of the town, so I opted for a private bath. You pay 60 cents, and get big room with a little pool and a spicket that shoots out hot thermal water. It was a much better option, and I sat in the hot water for a good hour until my fingers were wrinkly.

Sunday was finally the day of the bus. At one of the other companies, I was told that buses left at 9 in the morning. I arrived at 8:30 so I could get a good seat for me and the cello. Unfortunatly the bus that I wanted doesn´t actually leave until 11, but there was a 8:30 bus going to a town close-by, seven hours in the direction of my destination. I decided to take that bus instead of sit around. The woman selling tickets insisted that I buy a window seat. I kept telling there that I needed an aisle seat because of the cello, but since I am a ¨tourist,¨ I needed a better view, and plus ¨the bus never goes full.¨ So I get my backpack up on top and go find my seat, leaving the cello in the seat next to me...and of course, a young guy comes up with the ticket next to mine. So I stick the cello on the empty seat behind me, which was the last seat on the bus. Next thing I know, two young guys get on with three live hens...two in a box and one in the guy´s arms. The had the seats next to the cello. So then I have to fight with this guy because he thinks his hen should get the seat next to him instead of my cello, afterall I hadn´t bought the seat for the cello and he had bought the seat next to the empty seat, which obviously made it more his that mine. I tried to convince him that both the cello and the hen could have the seat, but he didn´t want to hear anything of it. Finally a woman sitting next to him who was a little spastic, started to complain that the hen was going to poop all over and that it was already cock-a-doo-da-dooing and that he needed to get a box. And the guy next to me claimed that the cello was his big guitar and that it was very fragile and was going to ride there whether hen-man liked it or not. So the guy with the hen shut up, got a box and shoved the hen under his seat and the cello made it without any problems.

At about 4:30 pm, I arrived in Leymebamba. I got off the bus to find myself in an even tinier little town. There wasn´t even a bank or a market, mostly just houses and, of course, the Plaza de Armas. I found a hotel, dropped off my stuff and started to walk around town. It didn´t take me more than 2o minutes to see everything and I arrived in the Plaza. There I met Egdar, a tour guide from Chachapoyas. He told me that he was taking an American girl and a French guy to the Laguna de los Condores the next morning, and that I could tag along, as long as I threw in some money for food and paid for my stay at the refuge. Since I didn´t have any other plans, I agreed.

Monday morning, we met in the plaza at 7 am. It would be five of us (including another guide), plus a horse. The horse would carry the food and the girl from Wisconsin. After eating arroz a la cubana (rice with fried eggs and fried plantains), we started our walk out of town. As soon as we had arrived out of town we started walking along a smaller dirt trail. It took us on a long ascent up a mountain, through jungle with tons of amazing butterflies and colorful birds. The bird calls were the most amazing, all so distinct. The hike continued on and on, and when I started to feel exhausted (after having gone uphill for a good two hours at Peruvian pace...really fast without stopping), I asked how long of a walk it was to the refuge. Only eight hours, 25 miles, they responded. Of course they always neglect to tell you those little facts. The path then started to cross pampa, immense rolling grassy plains between the mountains. There were stone forests on either side of us and sometimes the grass was really spongey and made it difficult to walk. We stopped to eat lunch half-way there and continued our path.

The rest of the trail was more pampa and then a final descent back into the jungle and through a ton of mud until we arrived at Don Julio´s refuge. The guides had brought boots for themselves and Eric and Anna...the kind of rubber boots that comes up to your knees. However, they also neglected to tell me the little fact that we would be going through a ton of mud. I got to practice my art of jumping on stones and pieces of wood. Sometimes you get going fast and then end up balancing with one foot on a tiny little stone with no where to go, just teetering there trying not to fall over. It was pretty comical. Thankfully, over the 60 miles that we walked in three days, I only took one dive into the mud, just up to my elbows, and there was a river close after that I washed off in.

Don Julio´s refuge is in the middle of the jungle where he cleared a large area of all trees and vegetation for his cattle (yes, this is why I don´t eat meat). Not only did he destruct the land, but before, amongst the jungle were intact Pre-Incan ruins which his cattle have now destroyed almost completely. I quickly gained an intense hatred for Don Julio, but unfortunately, there was no where else to stay. He had built a log cabin with several rooms with bun beds and a rustic kitchen with a wood-burning stove and no chimney (aka, the black room). The floors in all the rooms were packed down dirt and there was no electricity. The only water shot out of a pipe from a spring in the mountainside and made a muddy mess next to the house. Regardless, after walking 25 miles, I was thrilled to arrive and take off my backpack. We made dinner and went to bed by 8 o´clock.

The next morning we slept in a little bit and woke up to have coffee and bread with jelly for breakfast. At about nine we left to hike to the Laguna de los Condores (Condor Lagoon). It was about a half hour walk along the cleared mountain ridge until we had a view of the Lake. The lake is huge and black and lining the other side were stone cliffs almostly entirely covered with thick forest. We hiked down the ridge and to the lakeshore. We crossed a skinny part of the lake on a log to find a trail on the other side. The trail took wound through the jungle (only passable with machete) to a little open area on the shore. Egdar had brought a fishing line and we dug up some worms and these other gross-looking grubs and we took turns fishing until we had caught 11 good-sized trout. We cleaned them, put them in a bag, and left the bag in a little pool in the river that was coming down the mountain.

From there we followed a trail even farther up the mountainside and deeper into the jungle. There were several parts of the trail with rustic wooden ladders and ropes to pull yourself up. We also arrived to a couple places where we had to cross under waterfalls and across logs. The final part was the scariest, scooting across a wet cliff with water falling on you. We finally arrived to the ruins. They are under a rock overhang and included several small stone buildings with windows. There were paintings on the buildings and on the stone cliff and several skulls laying around. Most of the skulls still had hair and teeth. There were also pieces of woven fabric and random ceramic pieces scattered about. This was a burial ground of the Chachapoyas (Pre-Incan) culture. It is intense to be in a place like this knowing that only a handful of people will ever arrive there due to the difficulty in arriving.

That night we had trout soup with noodles. The next morning we woke up at 6, ate breakfast and were hiking by 6:40. The plan was to arrive in Leymebamba as early as possible. The hike back was exhausting, especially since our ¨guides¨ had badly planned the food, and there was nothing to eat along the way. Eight hours and 25 miles of hiking with just coca leaves and water (I remembered why I never go on guided tours). We arrived in Leymebamba exhausted and hungry and went straight to eat a big lunch.

After, we asked around about transportation. The only buses that go to Chachapoyas leave at 4 in the morning and a taxi wanted to charge an absurd amount. We sat in the plaza, exasperated, until a large truck pulled up. In the back it had a gigantic steel cylinder. Egder asked if the guy would give us a ride to Chachapoyas. He agreed for a small fee. Eric and Anna rode in the cabin, and Egder and I rode the three hours in the back of the open truck with a huge cylinder of milk blocking most of our view. It was a long bumpy ride to Chachapoyas, and very very dusty.

I will stay here until my legs stop feeling like rubber.