Daniel And Frieda Travel The World: Chachapoyas, Kuelap, Gocta

by Daniel

Northern Peru, especially the area around Chachapoyas, came as one of the most pleasant surprises on our South America tour. Tucked into the outer ranges of the Andes mountains it is a place of wide green pastures, deep valleys, wild rivers, ancient ruins, tranquil colonial towns, sacred burial places complete with pre-Colombian mummies, and a selection of the world's highest waterfalls. It receives as yet relatively small numbers of tourists although this might change in the coming years as the region is set to develop an ever increasing tourist infrastructure. With only a couple of days to spend we were unfortunately only able to see a fracture of the places that were of interest to us but doing so in pleasant and interesting company made it even better.

Staying in the picturesque colonial town of Chachapoyas with its market, small cafes and impressive churches is worthwhile in itself but the biggest draws are to be found in the surrounding mountains. The pre-Incan ruins of Kuelap were erected by the Chachapoya people (which literally means cloud-dwellers) and were later captured by the Incas. It is an impressive citadel sitting on a massive limestone boulder high up on a mountain above Utcubamba river, literally in the clouds. It is surrounded by a massive impenetrable wall and features a distinct architecture of round multi-storey houses with spacious rooms. It is possible to visit the ruins independently using rare public transport, although taking a tour might even come cheaper (see link at the bottom of article).

Another impressive feat of the region are the waterfalls of which we visited only the Gocta falls. At 771m it is one of the highest in the world although there are even higher waterfalls in the area, like Yumbilla falls at almost 900m. If you wish to visit Gocta you should start from Chachapoyas with the first bus headed to Pedro Ruiz and ask to be dropped at the Gocta/Cocachimba junction. From there you can hitchhike or take a mototaxi to Cocachimba village. It is a spectacular hike to the base of the waterfall and if you backtrack a little bit there is an unmarked path that winds its way along the cliff to the top of the falls. Ultimately you will end up in San Pablo village where you can eat and take a mototaxi to the main road again. If you hate going uphill you could as well start in San Pablo and end in Cocachimba. Just be careful not to stay too long since it might be a problem to find transportation after dark. We ended up standing at the roadside when darkness crept in and had to hitchhike to Pedro Ruiz where we just managed to catch the last minibus to Chachapoyas.

Should you want to continue to Yurimaguas from this region and then take the boat to Iquiotos, there are night busses from Pedro Ruiz to Yurimaguas from where you can catch the boat to Iquitos on the same day.

I highly recommend the Wikitravel article for travelling the region independently wikitravel.org/en/Chachapoyas

Special thanks to Lieke, Majd and Camellia for existing