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.