To get here from Chachapoyas is a 200 mile incredible bus ride, over only dirt roads and down and up one of the widest canyons in the world, the Maranon. It took over 12 hours to go just 200 miles (you do the math). This great canyon, about 3 hours into the journey, is about 10 miles wide and 7000 feet deep. This makes this canyon much wider then deeper then the Grand Canyon.
The views are just spectacular as you look out of the side of the bus, straight down over a mile. You would think that it would be quite scary, but the driver was very good and went slowly and carefully. There was very little traffic besides us, so we would rarely pass another car on this one lane dirt road. And it was well graded. It took about 2 hours just to come down the canyon and then another hour to go up the other side.
The 12 hour bus ride was hard on the backside, but it was never boring. The views the whole trip were fantastic as we passed through small villages and just the beautiful landscape. We even stopped for breakfast and lunch. The lunch was $2 and was a choice of either duck or chicharones of pork. Pretty good!
One of the nicest things about this trip has been the friends we have made along the way. During some of our day trips we met travelers from Europe, all on these typical long voyages that Europeans seem to take. There is Martin and Delphine, a really nice young couple...Martin is from Norway and Delphine is from Bergerac, France. They are just the sweetest couple and are on their way to Brazil, where Martin will be working as a chiropractor. There is David, a fellow from Catalonia, Spain, who is on a 9 MONTH WORLD TOUR!!!! He is now in his last week until he goes back to Germany, where he is living now. There is Irene, from Madrid, Spain, a very nice woman who is on a 6 month tour of Central and South America. She worked for Disney, but left them and decided just to travel around this part of the world. We have been having a great time together, going on tours, riding the 12 hour crazy bus ride, and going out to great dinners, drinking Peruvian wine and eating cuy (that's guinea pig!). Today will be our last day together, as we are all going on our separate ways tomorrow.
Before we left Chacha, we went to the incredible ruins of Kuelap. This is a huge fortress, on top of a 10,000 foot high mountain, that has these huge walls, over 1 kilometer in length, 300 meters wide and 20 meters high...
The most amazing statistic is not the size of the walls, or the 900 houses inside, but that this whole thing inside the walls was filled up with dirt...it is all fill inside!! I can't begin to tell you how huge and hard a project this must have been. No dump trucks, not even wheel barrows! This was one of the most mind boggling places I have ever seen. Plus, the archeologists cannot find anywhere nearby where they could have quaried all these stones. The stones must have come from far away, drug up here thousands of feet up this mountain. Sheesh!
The food here is pretty darn good. On the coast we had things like cabrito, baby goat; pato, duck; and of course ceviche. The ceviche was excellent and came in many styles. Here in the Andes there is more roasted chicken, fried pork cracklings (chicharones) and of course cuy. Cuy is otherwise known as guinea pig and most Americans flinch or are totally grossed out since we have all had guinea pigs as pets when we were kids. But, too bad for the cuy, they are quite tasty and have been popular ever since the days of the Inca and before...
Here is one of the little darlings, are fried up crunchy and tasty. They serve it with rice or french fries and although it is a lot of bone and not much meat, it is something you have to try when you are in the Andes.
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