Kuelap Ruins

We wake early to beat the rush in the Hostal kitchen, another perk of our accommodations, we enjoy some oatmeal with mango and fresh coffee. We also figure this will give us plenty of time to pack up and check emails before we go pick up our SOAT policies at ten o’clock. While putting the luggage Brenda’s bike I noticed that a bolt had worked its way to freedom, of course it took the threads with it.

A little street-side maintenance is needed and once again I am in need of a drill. Jose has one and I kept the drill bit from the first bolt incident, I drill out the hole with the intention of putting a bolt through the subframe. The bolt selection I brought did not include one long enough for the task but lucky for me there is a hardware store just down the street with the required bolt. All this put us behind about an hour as it is now 11 o’clock and we have not picked up our insurance yet, no biggie just a few block walk in each direction and we are set to go. Jose wants a pictures of us with our bikes in front of his Hostal and we oblige willingly. He had shown us pictures of a Dutch couple that had stayed with him a few weeks ago, they were riding F800GS’s that did not have a spec of dirt on them. Did I mention that our bikes are filthy with mud, sand, chain lube and I’m pretty sure we ran over some manure that has sprayed up onto the front of the bikes. 

Anyway, we have some serious stuff to do today. We planned on going to the ruins at Kuelap which is about 2.5hrs ride from Chachapoyas and the last 1.5hrs is on gravel so it is really just a prediction as to how long it will actually take. The paved part of the journey is fantastic, the road has long winding turns and for the most part we are following a river and there are no other vehicles on the road. We come to the town of Tingo which is the turn-off and start of the dirt road. We make ok time on the road in even though the road is very twisty, with switchbacks and narrow spots and of course a few photo stops. There are times when the road just drops off the edge to nowhere, we have to be careful not to loose focus or we might drive off the edge.

We make it to the Kuelap ruins at about 2:30, it is about a 2km hike to the actual ruins and along the way we meet up with a fellow tenant at the Hostal, Thomas Charles or Charles Thomas, either way we have a quick trailside chat then we carry on up to the ruins. They are quite spectacular to say the least, they are perched up on a ridge at about 3880m above sea level. The significance of the ruins:

This fortress is the largest stone structure of South America. It contains more than 450 stone houses. It is located on a mountain higher than Machu Picchu, is much older than the Inca Empire. This Machu Picchu of the North was found in better condition than the one in the South. The Kuelap complex remains relatively unknown in this remote zone, which only thirty years ago took two months to walk out to from the nearest road. The fortress is filled with a million air plants, bromeliads and orchids, high on a mountain top, in this mysterious cloud forest.

The Altar

There were guides but none spoke English, oh well we will have to research more later. We made it back to the bikes at 4:30 and it seems to get dark about 6pm so we had to get off the mountain and down the road to the next town big enough to have a hotel which happens to be about 100km from Tingo. We blitz down the mountain moto-cross style, the only time we slow down is for the really tight outside radius turns as they have the nastiest consequences. We make it to Tingo and pavement in record time and boogy South along the nice windy river road, again it is like we reserved the road just for us. It is kinda freaky in a way, the little villages and farms along the way have a Spanish look to them with Adobe brick fences, lush green pastures with livestock of all sorts and lets not forget the donkey’s, they are mostly on the road though. Thankfully we make it to Leimbamba just before dark and check into Jose’s friends place which is right on the town central park. Another action packed day completed after a supper of spaghetti with meat and rice.