No River/ No Canoe

After winding out through the Andean foothills, we have arrived in Tarapoto, our last stop before home. Seems implausible that in 5 days we´ll be home.

I´ve heard Shakira´s ¨She Wolf¨every hour at least. Thank god.

Tarapoto is a bizarre town. No cars, mostly mototaxis and scooters, we´re staying in a little hotel next to the Plaza de Armas. Though our neighbors are a family of 15 circus preformers that screetch like banshees during siésta, I´m pretty positive it isn´t a cathouse, like the last hotel...

Interesting things in Tarapoto:

Laguna Veneia: A small lake that is line with palms and hammocks. Because we are on the seam between mountains and basin, the clouds soars over the sun so fast that it makes you dizzy. Monkeys, agoutis and capybarra POWs. Maegan and I must´ve watched the monkeys for 2 hours today.

Waterfalls: And swimming in them. Reminds me of Hawai'i.

Restaurants: Tonight I had amazing Italian food- wood-fired pizza and artichoke bruschetta. Yesterday we ordered 4 hamburgers, got 5.25, and one made in front of us out of the scraps of meat from our plates by the bizarre older lady running the place...

Children: They try to sell overpriced candy on the street. At a restaurant last night, one of the little swindlers was being persistent, and when we refused, dropped a little cockroach on our table. As he watched, we didn´t react at all, instead we watched curiously to see where the little critter would go.

Chocolate Factory: Orchid Chocolates are made right here, with organic cacao beans, from small-scale farmers. The factory smelled amazing, we got to eat raw cacao, and their chocolate is AMAZING! They use cocoa butter, not milk or vegetable oil to lighten their chocolate, and it also turns out they sell it RAW. Picked up a few kilos a piece...

Tomorrow we head to Laguna Azul, in the town of Sauce. No joke. Then to Lima, then home. But for now, we have real wine, coffee, and chocolate, so it might be few and far between.

Ticket to Ride

Out of the hotel. Into the hot sticky air- ¨Tarapoto? Tarapoto?¨ the taxi drivers ask. Not yet. Mañana.

I catch a mototaxi, a motorcycle that has been retrofitted with a rickshaw-like appendage that is covered, with a seat and cargo rack in the back. The scoot around like little technicolour carriages, charging just one neuvo sol for a ride anywhere in town. I wave my hand in the air, palm down, to flag one down. I ask to go to the Mercado Central, por favor. We whizz through the rain and the hot air down the cracked pavement, weaving between cars and dogs.

After a four-hour car ride from Pedro Ruiz, we are in Moyobamba, the Orchid Capitol of Perú. The taxi from Pedro Ruiz was particularly harrowing, as there had been heavy rains that night and morning, and several crashes were still being swept up. Our driver pointed out a bus that had taken a turn to sharply, and crashed into the steep valley below. I asked if anyone had died, and he said no, that God had been watching that night. The day before, not so lucky. A taxi hit a truck head on, and everyone inside had died, just hours and miles later. He stops again and gets us out of the car, and points to a totaled car down the slope of the cliffs. He said the man and woman were speeding, and hydroplaned off the road, launching their car 500 feet down the side of the mountain. But they have nine lives, like a cat, and they lived. He went on to tell us that in the 25 years he drove the road, he had never so much been in a fender-bender. I believed him, and dozed while we took corners and rain dappled the windows.

We came down the mountains into the Amazon Basin. Moyobamba stands at the gate of the Amazon, and it´s every bit rural, humid and wild. Yesterday we took in a few of the ´sights´ around the town, but have instead been taking in the delicious pastries and confections offered on almost every corner. Elliot is sick today, so I headed to the Central Market to grab some fruit and some juice.

The market in this town is fantastic. Pots, pans, soles of shoes, fruits (one that tastes like cheddar cheese- no joke!) , dried fish, animal skins, cosmetics from the 70´s and 80´s, trashy clothing, twine, vegetables, meat in every cut and creed, pirated DVDS, bones, beads, basically ¨anything and everything a chap can unload¨....even soft-serve ice cream. The smell, basically of rotting meat, fish and eggs, takes getting used to, but it has grown on me. I buy mandarins, apples, haggle over camu-camu, some apricot juice. The rain really stars to pour down, and the stray cats and I are both trying to avoid walking between the stalls and getting drenched, and avoid puddles. I catch another mototaxi to bring be back to the hotel, where Elliot´s fever is breaking, and he has nothing left to throw up. I close the windows, turn on Law and Order, and re-wet the cold cloth on his head. We cuddle up, and could be anywhere in the world right now, in the spartan, tiled hotel room.

Asleep at 10,000 feet

We left Chachapoyas, the quiet mountain town, for the wild jungle and the valleys to the south. I spent a few hours puzzling together a topo map for the journey, pieced from rough Google Maps screenshots, as literally none are available. We took a collectivo (shared taxi minivan) to a town called Lamud. Lamud was a three-car town, set around a red-brick square planted opulently with roses. Nothing much happens there, but in case somthing does, there is a 12´statue of Jesus looking over the city from a hill above. We played cards in the sun, chatted with folks walking through town. We also traveled entirely too far to see a cave that though it was full of human remains, was rather a pain in the ass in the end.

And then the journey began. We had to make a map, because this is not a trek that many, or any people do. It takes an old Inca trail from Cohechan, south, to Choctamal. We had no idea how to do it, how long it would take, but Elliot was our navigator, and we were armed with candy bars (terrible) and a few tins of fish. Little did we know that tinned fish would taste like the finest braised seafood by the end. Tour agencies offer a short version of this trip, that lasts 4 days, but only requires 4 hours of hiking a day, at a price tag of $1,400 per person. But that´s just not how we do it in Alaska.


We started out being dropped off by a cab driver at the top of the hill in Cohechan. He pointed up an old Inca trail, and we went. We walked for 8 hours, and finally began to desecend into the Valley of Belen. This place is indescribable. It sits between two mountains, but is perfectly flat. Impossibly green,the great expanses of clover are mowed by horses--and the most beautiful cows-- that lounge and wade into the river that glitters serpentine through the center of the valley. We camped under bright stars across the river from a herd of horses that included at least three new foals, who proved to be highly entertaining, with their new, wobbly status of being upright. Elliot, Maegan and Eli obviously didn´t have much experience with livestock, and regarded the horses and cattle like they would moose or bears. We passed big, gorgeous Braunviegh bulls blocking the trails, and they froze. A hiss, a click, and a flick of the wrist, and he would move, and I was regarded as some kind of cow tamer.

The next day we began to walk out of the valley and up. And up. We walked up an old road, which was rumoured to be impassible by vehicle. By road, I do mean a 10-foot wide trail. When we got to the top, we heard the sound of large equiptment moving earth, their bleack back-up signals adding to the din. The pass, at 3,000 meters, was about 5 feet deep in the blackest mud, and reddest clay I´ve seen. A dump truck was being pushed by a D-8 with a scoop on the front. No luck. Men and boys doffed their hats and smiled, leaning on shovels.

We walked at the altitude for awhile, but began to descend into the valley village of Colgon. It is mostly a farming village, growing coffee, tea and bananas. We must have walked through miles of coffee bushes. It began to get dark, and camping in towns is always sketchy, but Elliot found a spot under a big tree in a coffee grove. The next day, we sat down by the river eating the tinned fish. It was labeled ¨Filletes de Caballah¨, which at once made me think of Madonna. The brand of fish? ´Jesus de Mar´ ( Jesus of the sea). After 10 hours of hiking, it sure tasted like it.

Then we began an entire day of screwing around being lost. I have a terrible sense of direction, I have ever since I met Elliot and his magically guided self. He is somehow endowed with the ability to read landscapes and apply it to poorly constructed maps. But when The rest of us insist on going one way, he kind of let us. The trail was bad, and the locals we talked to said to follow the river, but we didn´t want to lose elevation, so we climbed about 800 feet before realizing our mistake, but it was beautiful, through sugarcane fields and cloud forests. Orchids everywhere, bromeliads hanging from every tree. Hummingbirds the size of pigeons that sound like choppers everywhere. Also, bright yellow, red, and black milipedes about 4 inches long, so cute and slow. We backtracked, Elliot used whatever super-human sense he has, and we followed a clearcut straight down. It ended in the dark jungle that is commonly featured inmovies: a mass of vines, thorny bushes and wet seeping green. Elliot plunged through it. He nearly dissapeared, swallowed, into it. This is why I wanted to buy that machete a week ago. I followed, literally throwing myself into the bush, as the ground gave way into a steep cliff. As I fell, vines and brambles tangled and wrapped around me, like in a cartoon, making me almost hang legs and arms akimbo. I slowly fought them, descended, dropping foot by foot. I heard Elliot whoop. I didn´t see anything but leaves and thorns and moss and insects. I gained velocity. I started falling in earnest, grabbing the bamboo the vines and branches. Creedence Clearwater Revival´s Run Through the Jungle played on repeat. And then it spat me out, and I saw sugarcane swelling and swaying like the tide of the ocean. Elliot sat on the stone-cobbled Inca road, bloodied and smiling. Trail found.

We went back down to the river, into lower jungle. the river crashed to our left, and the jungled roared to our rights. Flocks or Amazon parrots bickered above, and green exploded from every surface. We came into a forest right as the sun was falling below the mountains, and slept next to a stream, under huge trees fluttering with moths and fireflies.

We pressed on the next morning, after splitting the second tin of canned fish 4 ways, we began to climb. And climb. It was the hardest hiking I´ve ever done, through eroded trails, rocks and sandstone that got between my sandal and my foot and began to grind away. The most surreal landscape surrounded us- red bromeliads, stunted ohia trees, ferns, waterfalls, bamboo, jewel-coloured beetles and bugs. Butterflies and hummingbirds flitted around easily, while we heaved our bags through mud, cow shit, loose rocks and streams. Elliot´s positivity was ridiculous. We talked about food. After hiking up and down 3,000m mountains for 4 days, on 3 tins of fish, we talked about potatoes at length. How do you like to eat them? Baked if there´s salt and pepper. I really like salsa. Who else likes salsa? We all like salsa. What do you look for in a corn chip? Thin or thick? What would you put into yogurt if you had it? What kind of yogurt? How many burritos could you eat right now? Do you like artichokes better than avacadoes? Why is popcorn so good? Oooh, nachos!

We passed a mud-brick house owned by a family that lived on the saddle. They had two dogs, a cat, and an orchid garden out back. The woman invited us in, and insisted that we see her orchid garden, even though it wasn´t blooming. We oohed and ahhhed over the beautifl greenery, and she swept her hand over the vast expanse of mountain her home faced.
¨It is far from things, but look at this beautiful view.¨, she said, smiling. Two of the most healthy looking bulls sauntered past us, motivated by nothing more than a length of rope tapped against their flank, snatching furiously at the clover as they walked.

Just when I thought I would die, Elliot came and grabbed my hand. We were near the top, and he wanted to go up together. This would have been nice, if it hadn´t been for the 3 false peaks we´d reached, then wound around endlessly. The hike became a meditation. Step. Breathe. Don´t look up. Step. Breathe. Cow shit. Breathe. But this one was the real deal. it looked out upon endless rows of mountains. And at the bottom, Choctamal. We were at 3,600m, and heading down for the first time in days. We arrived in the town, and met an old woman knitting. Chickens slept in the trees. The only sound was of animals. A young man on a motorcycle drove past, then took us to his father´s hotel, where we ate like kings, Lomo Saltado- beef with onions and tomatoes on rice and potatoes. We were captivated by Yanni, Bryan Adams, and other ¨Love Ballad¨videos that the owner kindly popped into the DVD player for us. We retired to our room, but the light started attracting....things. Moths the size of my hand pounded their bodies against the lead glass, and several yellow and pink ones slipped under the door, driven mad by the light. Then we heard a low buzzing. Deep, like a Chinook helicopter. It sounded like it was coming from the door. Then a huge orange beetle slowly emerged, hovering at the foot of Maegan´s bed, wings working to elevate it´s girth, legs splayed, stretched towards us. I tapped it with a book, and scooted him under the door. The next morning, he was there, on his back, golden velvety fur of his underbelly showing. About 3 inches long, with a wingspan of 6 inches, he was helpless. I turned him over, and he trodged drunkenly away.

People of the Clouds

    I woke up to the sun rising over the Andes. Riding in a fairly plush bus-cama, with huge windows to either side, the bottle-green mountains rolled and undulated before me. Breathtaking.

     We are now in Chachapoyas, or as its locally known, Chacha. It sits at a comfortable 2,500 meters, surrounded by cloudforest, high-altitude rainforest and hills that are tidily spread like quilts with farmland. The town itself looks almost European; it has a quiet central square (Plaza de Armas) full of roses and palms, overshadowed by a beautiful Spanish cathedral, of whitewashed adobe and red tile roof. The narrow streets are lined with bakeries and shops, and little balconies. We are staying in an old house near the square, with a little balcony all its own. It´s a bright and airy place, but we haven´t been there much. In such a sweet little town, we´ve been strolling the markets and the museums, and guzzling fresh orange juice everyday. The altitude was rough for the first day or so, but some noontime napping fixed that for the most part. It´s cool, but sunny, and cloudy around the fringes of the mountains, and is a lot like Valdez on a sunny day.


   Yesterday we hiked to Gocta, which is boasted as the 3rd-tallest waterfall in the world. In reality, it is the 14th tallest, but the 3rd-longest freefall. As if it matters. To get there, one must hike along the mountains from a town of 200 named San Pablo, about 6 km one way. We were assigned a local guide Albehadro, who was 45, had two children in college and was nimble and fast for his age. The trail passed farms, where sugarcane was being ground by steer power and a stone mill. We crossed grassy, open alpine fields dotted with flowers and butterflies. The trail was lined with banana, coffee and coca plants, as well as wild herbs that perfumed the air as we tramped throught them- sage, cumin, mint, bergamot, patchouli. Maegan found a tarantula! It was teal blue, and slowly abling across the trail, completely unconcerned with us, and about the size of my hand. We eventuallly crossed into the high jungle, which was draped with all account of orchids, including wild vanilla, which bloomed with frilly white flowers. There were so many orchids that I didn´t notice them anymore, from tiny tiger-striped pink ones, to large blue and white clusters. We walked on, past petroglyphs up on the cliff, and a few funerary niches. We found snails the size of apples. Flocks of cock-of-the-rocks and Andean buzzards shrieked overhead. The waterfall itself was of course terrific, but chilly. The ribbon of white faded into clouds halfway down the rock face, grinding the surrounding quartz sandstone  into a white sand. We ate our lunch, and slogged back as it began to rain.

Dancing with the Devils

 On our last day in Huanchaco, we visited the Temples of the Sun and Moon, two Chimu temples outside the city. The detail preserved is amazing-- friezes of beaheading dieties, serpents, birds, skulls. Pretty impressive for a fortress built of mud bricks. We visited the sacrificial altar where warriors were offered to allieviate the horrendous El Niño rain that eventually drove the civilization into the mountainds. I found a few more pottery shards, and added them to my collection.
  After a few bizarre nights, filled with amazing stories in Huanchaco, involving characters like an addict from New York, and an over-priveledged Israeli girl, we left.  We arrived in Chiclayo late, it´s a large market town, and the corridor into the Northern Highlands, and the Amazon. We made a last-minute decision to head to Pimentèl a few miles away; it´s another quiet beach town right up against some terrific waves and a sandy beach. We stayed in a huge, re-vamped colonial mansion, right on the beach, and more importantly, near the churro stands. Maegan and I must have eaten our weight in those golden little goodies in the three days we were there. Our room had the most incredible bathroom ever- all tiled in butter yellow, with an enourmous hand-tiled bathtub and a checker floor. It positively glowed. Especially for those of us who were spending a good amount of time in there...

   The body surfing was good, very good. 2m waves that threw you onshore, or that you could ride then to the dry sand. Hundreds of little sea snails were embedded in the beach, so that walking out to the water was walked on their thousands of soft little tongues. The water was warm enough to stay in untl the cormorants began to circle at nightfall, and then we´d grab another churro, and walk the ancient pier to see the sun dissapear into the dark green water in a shroud of red and pink.

We also checked out the Brunig Museum, which was the largest collection of Chimu gold and atefacts in the world, including the Lords of Sipàn tombs, which were mostly raided by the Spanish in the 1500s. It was very cool- the pottery and jewelry blew my mind. Who knew what humans were capable of when they spent their time creating things? Even the peasant pottery was incredible, with the most sophisticated style and craftsmanship. We spent about two hours in the cold, dark museum, just in awe of it all. And then back out into the hot, desert sun...

   The next night, we planned to leave by bus to Chachapoyas, an Andean town high in the cloudforest. The trip would take 9 hours by bus-cama (very classy bus that has seats that fold into almost-beds, and bad kung-fu movies) but we wouldn´t depart until 8pm. We walked around Pimentèl and heard a marching band. They were playing a minor chord, funerary march, which was both creepy and upbeat. Then a huge procession turned the corner: three young girls in white dresses and tiaras, carrying little brass beds with babies tucked in. Men in Middle-Eastern dress, like kings, in jewel toned turbans and capes. Then bulls, made from bedsheets and PVC piping, and then the devils. Men and boys dressed in rags, trenchcoats and tails. Some wore skeleton masks, others in dried dogskins with holes cut for their eyes. Men in dresses, monster costumes, horns, black faced and hairy. They had colourful ribbons tacked all over their clothing, and the jived and whirled to the music, jeering at the crowd, gnashing their teeth and pulling apart baby dolls. They were dancing with canes, whips, and cuy-- guinea pigs. Once they saw that I had a camera, they were eager to lurch and dance for pictures. Behind the lense, I saw one man approaching us, howling and shaking something. It was a dead guinea pig, about the size of a rabbit. I snapped the photo, then had the dead creature dangled over my face and bare back. It was actually quite soft, and I look forward to eating one. 

The Village of Waiting

We just spent New Years in Barranca, a dusty, run-down little town bisected by the Pan- American highway. Our hotel overlooked the hughway, which was busy and loud without cessation through the night. Plans to go to Huaraz were scrapped in light of heavy rains and crazy bus schedules. So up the coast we go.
We spend 6 hours in a stinky town on the side of the road, waiting yesterday. Buses came and went. Dogs lay in the streets. Not much changed in those hours. We finally managed to get onto an upscale bus making the 8-hour journey to Trujillo; it pulled into the lot, and we ran towards it, along with 20 or so other people, hauling bags of fruit, luggage and children. We all needed to get up the coast, but in the end, the driver picked us, because we were going the whole way- and were able to pay. We pulled out the town with the rest of the crowd still glancing down the highway behind us, hopeful of another bus before dark came.
The coast is windswept and empty- a desert, flanked with blank brown mud hills, all blanketed in changing dunes of sand. After 3 hot, grateful hours on the bus, we were in Trujillo. The town was named after Pizarro´s birthplace in Spain, and stands at the base of the Andes, un a lush agricultural valley that gives way to the barren and sandy coast. We ended up staying is this weird hostel called the Chill Out, run by a Scotsman (Ex-surfer) and his Peruvian wife. It features signs such as "Professional Alchoholic" (I believe him) and "Tranquillo", and we woke up this morning to The Clash, Iggy Pop, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, and incense burning at 8am, and had amaingly strong French-press coffee next to the owner´s hookah collection. Chill Out indeed.

We walked around Chan Chan today, and got burnt to little crisps. It was impressive, but the noon sun drove us out prematurely. Tomorrow we have a full day of body surfing planned. Some Cuba Libres and some fruit from the market will probably involved. After this, we head to Chiclayo, or to the mountains. Depends on how much sun we get here. Our hostel is just a few blocks from a wide stretch of beach, with incredible waves and one of the longest left-hand breaks in the world. Maybe I´ll finally get some surfing lessons?

A Place Without Rain

Maegan and Eli arrived safely (Maegan´s bag, however, did not) and we have been humming along to the beat of Lima for the last few days.

For a city of 8 million people, it is incredibly laid-back and strikingly clean; off the main roads, there are quiet brick lanes lined with food stalls, fruit vendors, and shoe stores. Lots, and lots, of shoe stores. So South American.

Our hotel is located in the city center, near the Plaza de Mayo, the Cathedral de San Fransisco, and the Presidential Palace. Hotel España is on the corner of two lanes, perched above a small cafe. Green vines spill out over the walls, and brush the sidewalk, framing two enormous wooden doors. After passing into the foyer, you are greeted with dozens of master copies of famous paintings- Dali, Botocelli, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Sisley, all in elaborate gold-gilded frames. Plaster replicas of Michaelangelo´s most famous statues stand on Romanesque pedestals, while light and vines drip down from the solarium above. Crown molding and fríezes line the halls, and the entire rabbit warren of five floors is lit with fantasic lead-glass chandeliers. The floors are connected by a series of mahagony spiral staircases and terraces, which look out across the city and the cathedral. It is truly a destination in itself. Throw in four tortises, a cat, dog, scarlet macaw, and Amazon parrot, and you have Hotel España. Where we take siesta, swill rum and play cards.

Today we hiked out in the desert across the ruins of Pachacamac. Nothing but sand lies west of the small town, and it is being moved away to reveal an ancient city of sand blocks and rock that was built by the Huari people in 200 CE. Much of it has been damaged by El Niño events, but it is still remarkable. Also remarkable: How none of us were sunburn. It was crazy hot and high noon.

Tomorrow we take off for Casma, or somewhere like it. Ceviche, pisco and ocean. Sounds good, right?