Huanchaco & Chachapoyas. And food poisoning...

Well it was going to happen sooner or later - I got food poisoning this week.

I'm not sure if it was the stick of fried chicken hearts I purchased from the side of the road, the vegetable soup which contained bits of meat, or the steak from the restaurant with dogs in the kitchen - either way, I experienced the worst 24 hours of my life this week.

It's swings and roundabouts though - although most of the meals in this country have the potential to kill you, you can buy powerful antibiotics on every street corner.  My drug of choice was Ciprofloxacin and it has fixed me up nicely.  The only reason I've heard of Ciprofloxacin is because, when travelling in Australia, I drove a French girl (with a kidney infection) to the doctors to buy some.  When we got there he explained that she'd have to wait a few hours as they needed central authorisation from Canberra before prescribing the drug.  You can actually buy it from some Internet cafes over here!

The last week has been a blast.  After Huaraz I visited Huanchaco, a sleepy beach town with some great surf.  After a couple of months of high-altitude cold nights it was nice to be somewhere with 35 degree sun-baked days and warm nights.  I met a couple of German girls and two Swedish girls, and we were joined by my Bolivia travelling companion Annemarie, who was passing through on her way back to Lima.

I can't say I did anything particularly interesting in Huanchaco - surfing, lying on the beach, drinking on the rooftop terrace and, of course, playing Shit Head.

After saying goodbye to everyone in Huanchaco, I headed to the small town of Chachapoyas in the Northern highland region.  The town (and the district) is named after the Chachapoyas people who inhabited the region between 500AD and 1,500AD.  Chachapoyas means people of the clouds, not surprising since this area is covered in cloud forest.  In case you don't know (I didn't) cloud forest is the term given to tropical forest regions covered in dense low-lying cloud.  It sounds quite cool but from afar all you can see is cloud.  And when you get inside the forest everything is damp.

What is cool though, is the fact that this whole region is peppered with ruins from both the Chachapoyans and the Incas (who later conquered them).  There are about 20 major ruins in the region, most of which are still being excavated, and more are being discovered every year.  It is like my village of Launton (which probably has about 1,000 people) being surrounded by 20 Stonehenges!

I spent 4 days in Chachapoyas.  On day one I visited the controversial Gocta falls.  How can a waterfall be controversial?  Well it's kinda two waterfalls in one - there is a fall of about 200m, then a step, before another fall of about 500m.

This puts the waterfalls at either 717m or 490m high, depending on who you believe.  I have therefore visited the 3rd or 16th highest waterfall in the world.  Either way it was a good waterfall, and I am ranking 7th it in my top 10 waterfalls (take that World Waterfall Database).

Day two (and the night before) was food poisoning time.  I felt so cold that I spent all day lying in a chair in the 35 degree sun wearing trousers, two jumpers, a hat, thick gloves and two scarfs.  Everyone else was wearing shorts and flipflops - I looked ridiculous.  At least I made some people laugh.  I ate two pieces of cereal all day and drank about 5 litres of water.

On day three I still felt terrible, but hauled myself out of bed and visited the mountain-top citadel of Kuelap.  Massive exterior stone walls containing more than four hundred buildings were built on the top of a mountain by the Chachapoyans over a period of about 1,000 years.  The huge blocks of stone had to be carried up the side of the mountain from about 2km away - no mean feat as they each weigh about 200kg.  Visiting Kuelap requires a bit of imagination - it is not as polished or restored as Machu Picchu, but the sheer size of the place really makes a big impression.  It is estimated that the amount of stone used to build the complex could rival that of the Egyptian pyramids, and that 3,000 people lived within the walls.

There are ingenious defence mechanisms too - entrance passages get thinner as you enter the complex so that any attackers were funneled into an easily defensible single-file line, and they have huge steps to slow attackers down.

My final day was spent visiting caves and some really interesting Chachapoyan sarcophaguses (or whatever the plural of sarcophagus is).  My companions were Japanese and Brazillian girls and a Swiss guy.  We headed into the pitch black caves and saw some bones of Chachapoyan kings that had been buried there.

The rest of the tour was supposed to be spent seeing rock formations in the cave.  It wasn't that easy.  About 100m in, the Swiss guy decided he didn't want to go on any further (it was very wet and muddy), so we left him sitting on a rock and would pick him up on our way back.  We carried on until the end of the cave, which was about 500m, looking at the huge stalactites/stalagmites and ducking lots of bats.

At the exact point, our guide's light ran out of batteries.  Of course he's got some spare...oh, no, he hasn't.  It wasn't even possible to see your hand in front of your face, let alone navigate back through the slippery mud and deep pools of water.  In the end we had to use the screen-light of two small Nokia phones!!  Swiss guy had been waiting so long that he assumed we'd exited another way and was nowhere to be seen when we finally made it back to his rock.  We found him at the front of the cave in a bad mood, he got over it though.

The sarcophaguses were awesome.  Perched up high on the sheer cliff face are six adobe figures, each housing the mummified body of an important person, along with all their best possessions.  It looked like quite a fun climb up to the figures...with ropes and a harness.  I can't imagine how the people who built them worked away up there without falling off.

We headed back to Chachapoyas and saw a nice rainbow.  Next stop for me will be Ecuador, but I think I am going to have fun getting there....  Here are some more pics.

Local Huanchaco fisherman use these surfboards made from reeds to bring in their catch.

The route to the waterfalls was not exactly an advert for good health & safety practices.

Bones of important people stored inside the walls of Kuelap - when I die, I want to be buried in a wall.

Beautiful stonework in Kuelap.

An attempt at a reconstruction of one of the Chachapoyan round houses.  The guide actually said (I quote), "This is a rubbish reconstruction by a Canadian.  The roof is too big and the walls are going to fall down.  Canadians can't get anything right in Peru".  OK...

The remains of many round houses - each has a whole for storage, two stones for grinding corn and an area for guinea pigs.

A mummy from inside one of the sarcophaguses.  They are always put in the foetal position.  I don't think I want to be in this position when I'm buried in my wall.

Climbing and trekking in Huaraz!

I now know what it feels like to be a mule...

Huaraz is the kind of place that was made for me, a small-ish town nestled in between the mountain ranges of the Cordilleras Blanca, Negra and the Huayhuash.  You can see snow-capped peaks everywhere you look and there is climbing and trekking galore.  It's not surprising considering that, other than the Himalayas, the region contains more peaks over 5,000m than anywhere else in the world.

I haven't had the chance to do much proper climbing since I left home, mainly due to lack of climbers and/or gear rental shops, so first on my list was to find a climbing partner.  I toured the climbing walls and met a Peruvian called Rodrigo who wanted to climb the next day.  Between us we had pretty much everything we needed except a rope, so hired one from a climbing shop and headed off to the mountains.  We arrived at a small town in the countryside and I could see the crag from the road.  It looked great but there was just one problem - it was on the other side of a large fast-flowing stream.  Rodrigo explained that this was usually a trickle of a stream but that there had been a large amount of rain the previous night.  We spent 10 minutes walking up and down looking for a place to cross.  The only possibility was a large boulder in the middle of the stream with a good jump on each side!

Our method for crossing was as follows - Rodrigo ran and jumped onto the boulder, I threw him our backpacks and he jumped to the other side. I then jumped onto the boulder (I almost fell in), threw our bags to Rodrigo on the other side and then jumped over myself.  It is the most ridiculous approach to a climbing route I've ever taken!

This wasn't the end of the excitement...  Rodrigo had quite a big fall on one of the routes and was caught by the rope.  When I was about to climb the next route I noticed that the outer casing of the rope had snapped, along with a couple of strands of the core!  I've never seen a rope snap like this in all the time I've been climbing - it was either really old or rubbish quality...  Luckily it was near one of the ends so we cut off the broken part and carried on climbing.

Climbing at 3,400m is really hard! I was knackered after only a couple of hours.  Another fairly unlucky thing happened as I was climbing the hardest route of the day - I reached up a long way to grab a hand-hold, hanging off it while adjusting my feet, when two wasps crawled out and sunk their stingers into my wrist.  This was the only hand I was holding on with so I just had to hang there and watch - ouch!  Well, all of these things made the day more exciting and I went home with a big smile on my face!

I was really looking forward to trekking in the mountains.  The most famous trek here is the Santa Cruz trek, four days in the Cordillera Blanca.  Unfortunately, there was recently a big avalanche which has wiped out the last day's trail so I opted for the Quilcayhuanca trek (not because of the ridiculous name, that was just a bonus).  I wanted to rent a tent and do the trek independently but I didn't manage to find anyone to join me and joined a guided expedition.

This did not end up being a wise choice.  When I arrived at the office to collect the camping gear I was told that the group of six people (including guide) was now a group of four, as two people were sick.  We ditched a tent and two sleeping bags but there was no time to take out two-people's worth of food.  Myself and the guide then picked up the other two trekkers - a 57 year-old Australian woman and a Canadian girl.  They immediately informed us that they weren't feeling too good and couldn't carry much stuff....  Myself and the guide each found ourselves carrying a tent, two sleeping bags, food for 3 people and 3kgs worth of water - about 10kg.  This meant that I had to borrow a bigger backpack from the trekking agency.  It was about 60 years old. And pink.

We arrived at the national park and were greeted by the park ranger.  Entrance was 65 Soles (about 15 quid) but we could pay 50 Soles "if you don't want the hassle of carrying the ticket".  In other words, you could pay 50 Soles and the money would go in the back pocket of the ranger.  This is typical Peru.  The route follows a large valley on the first day, camping at a glacial lake the first night.  The second day you walk over a mountain pass 5,300m above sea level and down the other side (camping near another glacial lake).  The third day is spent walking down another beautiful valley.  As we set off I was in awe at how magnificent the first valley was, with glistening streams snaking down from the snow-capped mountains that flanked each side.

The only non-ideal thing that happened was that, while admiring the stunning scenery, I veered off the trail and walked straight into a marsh, sinking down to my thighs in sticky mud.  The fact that I was wearing a 15kg backpack made it even more difficult to get out and by the time I was on dry land I was wet and very muddy!  We arrived at the camping spot too late to see the lake, as the girls had to keep stopping to rest, so pitched up the tents, lit a fire and had some dinner.  We camped at about 4,200m and it was freezing!  In fact, it dropped to -10 degrees at one point, so I was glad when the sun came up the next day.

Day two started with a quick trip to the glacial lake.  I was slightly dismayed to see that the stream running off it had been converted into a hydro-electric dam, and even more dismayed when our guide told us that the electricity goes straight to Ecuador instead of Peru!  The lake was enchanting though - the sun was shining down on the glaciers that feed it and the water was a glistening turquoise-blue.

After taking a few snaps, we started to climb towards the pass.  We would climb about 1,100 vertical meters, across rock and snow, before heading down the other side.  The girls were really feeling the altitude so we needed to stop every 20 minutes for a breather.  This might sounds good but it was so cold that every time I stopped I started shivering.  I ended up heading off on my own for large parts of the trek in order to find a warm stopping place to wait for the others.

Unfortunately it had snowed the night before so there was lots of deep snow to navigate at the top of the pass.  Due to the weight I was carrying, it was impossible to walk on the snow and I kept falling through it down to my waist.  This was not good for warmth or dryness but it was kinda fun!

The girls were having a tough time in the snow but this meant that I had time to hike up an extra 150m climb to the peak of Mt. Andivate (5,446m).

By the time I got back I was worried I'd have to carry one of them over the top but we finally made it over and down the other side.  My shoulders were killing me (the pink bag had no padding) and I now have sympathy for mules everywhere!

The next day myself and the guide legged it up a hill to see another glacial lake while the girls started walking back down the valley.  This lake would have been even more beautiful than the last, had it not been for another hydro-electric dam which was under construction!

We came across three workers who didn't seem to be doing much work (I saw one make a token effort to screw in a bolt but he gave up halfway through).  They were meant to be securing large water pipes to a concrete surface with big metal horseshoe clips.  They were supposed to place some rubber between the metal clip and plastic tube in order to protect the tube, but had run out of rubber.  Rather than bother to get some more they substituted old gloves for the rubber!

We caught up with the girls and spent the rest of the day wandering along in the balmy sunshine.  It was the perfect end to a wonderful trek.

That's not quite the end of the story.  I had actually paid for a four-day trek through another company (let's call them 'Booking Company') but they didn't get the numbers to run the trek themselves.  I was passed to another company (we'll call them 'Trekking Company') and told that the trek would be the same.  It turned out that the trek was only three days so I went back to Booking Company for a partial refund.  Booking Company said that they'd given all the money to Trekking Company and to come back tomorrow for my refund.  I didn't believe them and was quite impressed with my Spanish arguing skills - I got half back right then and was told to come back the next day for the rest.  Surprise surprise, the next day the shop was closed so I went to Trekking Company who told me that Booking Company had only given them money for a three-day trek, and that they'd done this before.

I was not giving up that easily - the guy at Trekking Company gave me the number of Booking Company guy's girlfriend.  I gave it to the tourist police (who are all hot Peruvian women, by the way) who tracked the guy down and made him give me the rest of the refund.  Simon 1 - 0 Claudio Expeditions.  That was about 30 minutes ago and I have a bus out of the town in an hour.  As long as I don't get stabbed by an angry Peruvian I will have been victorious!  I'll let you know how it goes next time.  Here are some more pics of the trek:

As I was so far ahead, I had lots of time to take timer-pictures of me looking at stuff.

This was about 5,000m above sea level.  I was so hot that I dipped my head in that lagoon.  Then immediately wished that I didn't.

Snow-capped peaks everywhere!

Mt. Chinchay (6,222m).

As we descended from the pass the climate got hotter and greener.

You can't actually see the sunset as the mountains are in the way but the clouds still turn a beautiful orange....

...and it looks like the sky is on fire.

The view from inside the tent when I woke up on day three.  The pink bag doesn't look pink here.

Walking back to town we saw a huge mud slide that had taken out most of the road.  It will be fixed in 26 years.