Kuelap (day 17)

At 6am Tuesday we were picked up by a taxi for the approx. three hour drive to the Chachapoyan fortress of Kuelap, at an elevation between 9000 and 10,000 feet above sea level. Kuelap is located near the town of Tingo (but about 1 km straight up from the town, so the road takes a winding route over several mountains and passing through several towns on the way, the largest of which is Maria. The taxi cost 170 soles (ouch!) from Leymebamba to Kuelap.

The fortress encompasses 15 acres (6 hectares) of area, with huge walls, and is back-filled, so the slot like entrances lead you up some rudimentary stairs to an elevated platform at the height of the walls. The interior contains hundreds of stone houses, some with stonework freizes. (Some restoration work is being done at the main entry area.)

One of the entry passages (steep, and you really feel it at that altitude):

Round houses within the fortress (entry "slot" at center of photo):

There is a secondary wall within the fortress, leading to two higher platforms:


At the other side:

We had a pretty easy time getting up to Kuelap, but arranging transportation back down to Tingo was a little trickier. We had thought that there was an afternoon combi at around 4pm, but this was not the case. The last combi is at 12pm, and combi service is spotty at best. So, we had to find some sort of p rivate transportation. Although there were taxis at the site, they were all spoken for. We actually almost got a ride in two separate taxis, but got kicked out when they had no room.

Eventually we got a ride down to Tingo in a tourist van. The driver's skills on this mountainous road left a bit to be desired... it was the kind of situation where you can imagine the headlines: "Tourist van plunges over mountainside in remote region of Peru, dropping over 3,000 feet. Driver sole survivor" Or something like that. We paid s/10 each for this pleasure, wondering the whole time if our backpacks (which were on top of the van) were going to fly over the side and down the mountain, never to be seen again.

From Tingo, it was easy to catch a car for the 1.5 hour ride to Chachapoyas (s/8 each), where we checked into the Hotel Revash.

Overall Opinion:
Kuelap: 10. Absolutely worth the trouble of getting there. Getting back was a little hairy.