Kuelap

Hey Guys!
After the surf town of Huanchaco, we took a somewhat gruelling 14 hr bus journey to the small city of Chachapoyas. In retrospect, it was totally worth it to experience the ruins of Kuelap, an ancient walled city on top of a mountain! It sits at 3100 m elevation, and was built by the Chachapoyas people between the 6th and 16th Century. The Chachapoyas people (translates loosely to people of the clouds) had built the city up to about 3,000 people- mostly everyday workers, but also military specialists and priests.
The site has about 400 homes, some of them completely excavated, but many still sit under centuries of earth, awaiting further discovery.


We first travelled about 2 1/2 hrs to the site by bus. Along the way, our guide explained to us that many mummies were placed in the cracks in the sides of the hills, as was the practice for honouring the dead at that time.


If you look closely, you can see a bunch of semi-circles in the middle of the face of the hill, which was an outpost for agricultural organization. The Chachapoyas people lived on top of the mountain, but they farmed at lower elevations. The Utcubamba Valley that we were in translates to 'the cotton valley,' but there was also lots of corn, potatoes and other crops in cultivation here.





Here we are at the start of the tour. You can see a worker hanging off the wall, cleaning off some of the vegetation. There is lots of ongoing archeological work happening at Kuelap right now.


Walking along the outside wall to the 'service entrance' where they would have brought in llamas, water, produce, etc.






You can actually see the llama tracks in the soft limestone!









We walked to the northernmost point of the city, this watch tower would have been used as a lookout, but also to send messages to the other 'cloud cities' in the area.


Then we started walking through the city, and learned about how they lived their daily lives, including seeing their round homes complete with a little guinea pig housing area inside each one.








This was one of the walls of the city, and inside one of the cracks was a bone- a femur! They would bury an important member of the family in the floor of their home, but other people were buried in the walls of the city.





A partially excavated home





As the city was perched on top of the mountain, pretty much everyone had an amazing view over looking the valley


Our guide, explains about the symbols on this house, and how it was used to organize the city of 3,000 people into smaller groups.


























The most picturesque part of the tour was the south platform, it has also been restored to the greatest degree.


A face carved into the rock, archeologists think this might have been a shaman with his cheeks bulged out from drinking San Pedro (a hallucinogenic drink made from cactus) or chewing coca leaves.


One hole in the ground was for the mummy of the house, one for food. Seemed mighty risky to have them that close to each other, just saying.


El Tintero, a temple in the shape of an inverted cone. Apparently there is a chamber in the centre of it that lights up during certain days of the year that would have been important to the Chachapoyas people- like when to plant, maintain crops and harvest.






The wall of the city as we exited


Jared walking out, just behind him is a home that has yet to be excavated.


A few pictures to show how deep the canyon we came through was. It was so awesome, the pictures really don't do it justice.





For scale, you can just make out the ruins of Kuelap on top of the mountain, and to the right



Until Next Time!

Trujillo

Hey Guys!
After leaving Huaraz on a night bus we descended a full 3,052 m to sea level, making it to the surf town of Huanchaco, which is just outside Trujillo. We found a really cool hostel and camped there, in such a fun spot



Ours is the little grey one on the right.



The first day, I was pretty tired from the night bus, so I just hung around the hostel doing laundry (as you can see from the picture). Jared went surfing with a German girl, Linda, we had met on the bus.
The next day we went surfing together, and ate ceviche, which is so good. It's raw fish but it's been doused in lemon juice so it kind of 'cooks' it that way. Right on the coast, the fish is so fresh and it's just fantastic.





There are also these little boats here, called caballitos, and the fishermen use them to go out fishing with, then they surf back in on the waves









Sometimes it was sunny.....


Sometimes it was cloudy



Jared on his birthday


We watched a lot of sunsets there, from a beautiful vantage point above our hostel














One day we took a combi bus out to the Huacas de la Luna y del Sol (the Temples of the Moon and the Sun). They were built by the Moche people (pre-Incan) between the 1st and 8th centuries AD. If you're wondering why it took them so long, it's because they built one temple, then completely covered it with a second temple, and a third, until there were 5 layers of temples! This was actually a good thing for archeologists, because the inner layers were protected from the elements and they were better able to analyze what was left behind. The area surrounding the two temples was/is very arid, and sometimes when it didn't rain in this prehistoric society they blamed the fact that their gods were angry with them. The answer to this problem was human sacrifice. Two warriors would fight in a small arena, and the object was to capture/pin down your opponent and you wouldn't have to be sacrificed. If you were getting sacrificed, you would be kept in a room for a few days, drinking a juice made from cactus that made you hallucinate and you also wouldn't feel pain. Something that would come in handy when one of the high priests slit your throat and collected your blood in a cup. I have an overactive imagination, so this was a very interesting tour for me as we walked around the temple and the guide pointed out where everything transpired.


Bone fragments that had been recovered from the site.


The fourth layer of the temple, with the third layer below





At the top of the Huaca de la Luna, looking at the Huaca del Sol. The city sat in between the two temples, and may have held up to 25,000 inhabitants. This was mainly thanks to canals and irrigation that made more land arable.


Ongoing archeological work


The front facade of the temple, the bottom layer has warriors, marching together. The next layer up is priests, thought to be holding hands. Next are two spiders that share one abdomen. The huge hole in the middle is unfortunately from looters. The Spanish conquistadores were particularly bad; they actually diverted a river to destroy the Huaca del Sol in order to get into the tombs inside. Assholes.








This is where the candidates for the sacrifice were chosen.



The city the Moche people lived in, situated between the two temples.


Linda and I standing in front of Cerro Blanco and the Huaca de la Luna


And now some silliness to lighten the mood


I was trying to pose like a queen, but I think I just ended up looking like a b$tch

On the way home we took another combi bus. They are all different colours, and there is a guy yelling out the side door saying where they are headed. So you have to yell back like a crazy person to figure out which combi to get in. Great fun!








Until next time!