Wed 31st Dec: New Years Eve Chachapoyas

I´m woken up at some point during the night and I don´t get back to sleep. I doze intermittently but we´re back in the mountains now. You can feel it. The road is no longer straight and the bus has to twist and turn on the windy mountain roads. The windows steam up with condensation which always happens when we go to high altitudes.

We arrive in a wet Chachapoyas just before dawn around 5am. My rucksack is one of the last to be retrieved from the luggage compartment so most of the taxis have left with passengers by the time I emerge. A loan taxi man looks at me and says quietly "Taxi?". I say "Si" and he takes me to my hostel. Its a cheap, bare bones joint at 15 soles but right now I don´t care. I´m back in bed after a 13hr bus journey, relieved that my stomach has held up. I pop another tablet from Trujillo and try to get some sleep.

When I get up later the weather has cleared. Chachapoyas is a relatively small, compact town of 40,000. Its a busy market town for the region. Its actually the capital for the Amazonas province, the northern province of Peru which extends beyond Iquitos far into the jungle. You can almost sense the proximity of the jungle here. Its green, lush and quite humid. My purpose in coming to Chachapoyas is however not to enjoy the delights of this relatively sleepy backwater. There´s not a whole lot to do in the town itself. I´ve come to visit the ancient city of Kuelap. Its considered one of the greatest ruins in south America and within Peru a rival to the grandeur of Machu Picchu. Yet very few people visit this site.

I go down to the market area looking for a collectivo heading towards Kuelap. I find one guy whos leaving in a couple of hours, around 1.30-2pm. Its a 3hr journey in through the mountains to Kuelap which closes at 5pm so thats no good to me. I decline the offer. I´ll have to try and get up there tomorrow. A collectivo goes up towards Kuelap every morning at 3.30am. I´ll try and make that. In the evening I find a little restaurant caled Tushpa. Its a family affair, run by a husband and wife. The husband does waiter while the wife takes the money. Its nice inside, cheap, and the food is good. I have steak, chips and salad and it hits the spot. Its the first full meal I´ve had in days and boy, does it feel good. Afterwards while buying knick knacks in a grocery shop cum cafe three locals who are having some beers wish me Happy new Year and invite me over for a drink. One is a photographer, some of whose photographs are on the wall. One of the other guys turns out to be an anti-narcotics agent who works with the Americans on raids into the jungle. Apparently one of this guys colleagues was killed on a mission into the jungle. The guys top up my glass and then order more beer I have to insist I´ve had enough. My stomach isn´t ready for a big feed of drink yet. I´m invited to a party in the cops house but I really don´t fancy it. I don´t feel comfortable around the cop who´s a little too macho for me. They don´t have much english and my spanish isn´t exactly conversational. I find a convenient moment to make my excuses and leave. I´m not feeling great, still low on energy. I go back to the hostel and while the New Year is rung in I´m asleep. Over in Cusco crowds are leaving the pubs in the centre of town to run around the central Plaza. Apparently it brings good luck.
Feliz Año.