We cannot give enough credit to those who have preceded us in our South American adventures. We owe them a huge debt. They have come here from many other countries and have visited South America in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions. They have traveled many a small, dusty road and have visited places you’ve never imagined possible – and they write about it: in blogs, on websites, in messages sent home to friends. One couple, Don and Kim Greene, has even written a book, recently enough that the material in it is quite valuable to us. (Most books are either in a foreign language or were written so long ago that they are not overly useful.) We try to gather as much of this material together as we can, and from these postings we create our own route. It would be so much harder without the writings of those who have gone before us.
The Greenes have become friends. They are American, and are currently in Europe, having shipped their rig over from Baltimore. They are headed for Senegal. Try that one on for size! We met them in Guatemala, and have stayed in touch ever since. Their book, Americas Overland, is great. The point of this discussion is that Don and Kim encouraged us to enter Peru by a different route than that taken by most overland travelers. And we are so delighted they made the suggestion.
It was a beautiful, clear day, the first in quite awhile, and we were jazzed about our route. Immediately the land started to flatten out, curiously. Were we heading toward the coast, in spite of the map? We knew that the Peruvian coastline was very flat, dry, and boring, and were working hard to stay clear of it. We finally figured out that we were close enough that the geography was indeed influenced by proximity to the coast. Soon we entered a long, green valley (at about 1800 feet) filled with large rice plantings. Folks grinned and exchanged waves with us (we always do a lot of waving; it seems to break the ice); the countryside was very pleasant. We were now following the Rio Chinchipe, which provided plenty of water for the agriculture.
The road was pretty bad, and we were glad when it turned to dirt for awhile. More rice, joined by bananas, palm trees, mangos and coconuts; then lovely pavement: striped! With signage! Now going 40 mph! Awesome! Yes, Peruvian roads are supposed to be pretty good; our first was truly splendid!
The first town we hit was a rude awakening from the serene and quiet last several days we’d spent in Ecuador. Jaen is a market town and regional center, full of bikes and tuk-tuks buzzing around at top speed and disregarding all the normal rules of the road. There was a festiva underway and the entire town was mass confusion, including a brass band marching around the central plaza that said “Virgin of Macarena” on the big bass drum. We did a little shopping, grabbed some internet, and beat feet out of town.
By the way, the noise wasn’t our only rude awakening in Jaen. You may remember that fuel prices in Ecuador had been very low; well, not so in Peru. Back over $4.00/gallon for diesel again. Sigh. This, of course, was the main reason we were now back in tuk-tuk and motorcycle land. Far fewer cars on the roads.
We tried, leaving Jaen, to avoid a certain amount of backtracking in order to get to our road into the mountains, and so followed a line on the map that looked like a shortcut. Ah, no. It took us into a little town, Bagua, that was supposed to lead to Bagua Grande and would put us on our way. Buzzer sounds; no; pick another door! Road washed out, bridge not working, whatever. So back we go, back through Jaen (buzz, buzz), and finally got to our right road. Oh, but one delightful, new Peruvian experience. In Bagua, asking for directions of a handsome older gentleman, I immediately got a kiss on the cheek, a smile, and then the delivery of the discouraging news that we would have to turn around. Yes! Absolutely worth all the lost effort! (Wasn’t the only kiss on the cheek I was to get in Peru, either.)
(Two other ways to know we were now in Peru: the men whistle as they ride along on their horses, just for their own enjoyment. And…in the towns and cities, for traffic control (?) the cops use whistles. So, much noise!)
We ran out of daylight in Pedro Ruiz, where we would turn off the main (beautiful, paved, clean) road and head for Chachapoyas, the site of some relatively unvisited ruins which interested us. After a quiet night along one of the town plazas, we headed south, made our turn and started climbing higher. Then, hmmm, a roadblock. It was 9:15 am. Road closed until 4:30 pm. Blasting and working on a section washed out by spring floods. Well, okay. A forced day of rest. No big deal; we always have so much computer work to do that a day off is a blessing. At 4:15 all the vehicles in line started up, the blasting/repair crew came by going the other way, and off we went.
And what an incredible, stunning ride we had. This is truly remarkable country. Steep canyons, fast rivers. We were still following the Rio Utcubamba, and went right through the area where it had torn away the entire road and much of the rock canyon that supported it. The road crews were working had to repair the damage, and to keep it from being repeated, blasting huge sections of canyon back from the roadbed. Quite a sight.
But the ruins were truly cool and Augusto, our guide, was just great. We had done the right thing. He spent 3 hours with us (some of it in a drizzling rain) showing us the importance of this fortress, both to the Chachapoyans and then to the Inkas who eventually overpowered them. By the end, we really understood what had happened here, and how the two cultures became intermingled. It was a magnificent site, on top of a ridge, and quite fascinating. It is suggested in the guidebooks that Kuelap is second only to Machupicchu in grandeur, but that while the much better known ruin sees 2,500 visitors per day, Kuelap sees about that number per month. Indeed, on the day of our visit there were perhaps a dozen others present.
We were on good dirt road, and were on a well-known route, heading for Cajamarca. This road would take us down to the bottom of the canyon through which travels the Rio Maranon; at its lowest point we would be down to 2800 feet, at Balsas. Here we would find real desert, with lots of cactus; it reminded us of the Baja in Mexico. And then, 2 hours and 57 miles later, we would be back up over 10,500 feet. Quite a canyon, a wonderful winding road and quite a day!
We finally reached the Pan American highway, which runs along the Peruvian coastline. As we got closer, there were large rice fields along the bed of the river we had been following. Again, we saw how poor the people were and what a dismal life it appeared they were leading; hopefully we were wrong. At the coast, we turned south. We were giving up several interesting museums along the north coast, but felt our time would be better spent if we started south toward Lima, as we had a big detour we wanted to make, to visit the Cordillera Blanca.
The Cordillera Blanca was an area we refused to skip. These are the highest mountains, the ones covered with snow. We weren’t going to hike them, but we wanted to get close enough to enjoy them. We had email friends we wanted to catch, and they were in Caraz. This was a very strong incentive. And Lima was calling (sigh).
So we trucked on down the Peru coast. Mile after yucky mile. Dry, sandy, full of wasteland (some of which was actually being farmed – in the sand), and very boring. Other than the crops, it reminded us of the Mojave Desert. At Santa we turned up into the mountains, on Highway 12, following the Rio Santa. And soon it got better again. We climbed and climbed, through rugged and dry mountains, on a very rough, dirt road.
Emerging at the end of the tunnels, we were in a lovely valley and then soon into the mountain town of Caraz, with an incredible view of the snow-covered peaks above. We found our way to the Los Pinos Hotel, where we met up with Doug and Stephanie Hackney. We spent two days sharing experiences and travel tips; they were moving north (and we were going south, of course) so we had lots of “goodies” to exchange. They are now in Ecuador; we hope to meet up with them again next year some time.
So we kept on. Our road took us south from Caraz through a fertile valley with jacarandas in bloom (March in September), through Huaraz which was in the middle of a parade (floats decorated in pink, with pink-clad princesses on top), up over a pass at 13,500 feet, and then turned west and started down toward the coast. At the top it was very barren; the entire area, including snow-capped peaks, reminded us of Wyoming and the Grand Tetons.
Garua is the gloomy fog-haze that settles over the Peruvian coast for about half the year. It includes occasional mist, but mostly just dry cloud cover. No sun. Lima is famous for it. We drove down the coast and into Lima, found the hotel where we would stay and leave La Tortuga while we flew to the Galapagos, and started packing for our flight. And you know the rest!
Rick, Kathy, and La Tortuga
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