By Ben Brazil
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, January 18, 2004
Here's a tip for visiting remote ruins in the cloud forests of northern Peru: If someone offers you a donkey, take it.
I am not sure exactly when I realized this. It might have been early in my first day's hike, when I noticed that calf-deep mud sprinkled with horse manure was the rule, rather than the exception, on the mule trail leading into the high Andes.
It may have come later, when Sinecio Garro Gutierrez, my guide, suggested that I fight exhaustion by chewing wads of coca leaves, better known elsewhere for their illegal, highly processed derivative. Certainly, however, my pro-pack-animal feelings had crystallized by the time the second of my quadriceps began cramping, leaving me lurching up the trail like a delusional shipwreck victim.
At least it wasn't raining. I had arrived at Sinecio's home town of Leymebamba at what I believed to be the beginning of the dry season, ready to explore the pre-Inca ruins hidden in the region's cliffs and cloud forests.
But Sinecio had shaken his head at my weather sense and repeated a local proverb: "Abril, aguas mil."
Loosely translated, this rhyme means "April, rainfalls by the thousands." To say the least, it was not the optimal time to visit.
But neither is Leymebamba an easy destination. To get there from the capital of Lima, you must travel more than 400 miles to the north, cross the spine of the Andes and brave the pitted, mostly gravel "highway" linking Leymebamba to the provincial capital of Chachapoyas. Another route exists, but it's even worse.
The trickle of tourists who make the trip have only dented the city's isolation: Leymebamba's streets still have more horses than cars, and few of its residents have access to telecommunications apart from the four pay phones on the town square.
In fact, Leymebamba might have languished in total obscurity were it not for events beginning in late 1996, when looters discovered a stash of 219 mummies in the cliffside tombs overlooking the nearby Lake of the Condors. The Discovery Channel filmed the ensuing recovery operation, introducing Leymebamba to the world (the History Channel filmed another major find in 1999).
The mummies, now housed in Leymebamba's three-year-old museum, are just the most dramatic examples of the archaeological treasures hidden in the Chachapoyas region, a densely forested area that was once home to a mysterious pre-Inca culture of the same name.
The word "Chachapoya" likely derives from an indigenous phrase meaning "people of the clouds," and this is entirely appropriate. The region sits in the area where humid air rising from the Amazon Basin collides with cold air descending from the Andes. The result is a mountainous world of heavy rains, mysterious fog and lush vegetation.
Although the region has enough ruins for a lifetime of exploration, I had only a few days, most of which Iwanted to spend in the backcountry. For advice on where to go, I turned to Rob Dover, a British guide headquartered in the city of Chachapoyas, capital of the Amazonas department. Almost immediately, he directed me to Leymebamba.
After I arrived, one of Dover's contacts sent me to Sinecio, telling me that the going rate for guides was $8 per day, plus $10 for each pack animal. Cyana, an Ecuadorian friend traveling with me, decided that she'd travel by horse.
I, unfortunately, subscribe to a masochistic backpacking ethic that makes me determined to personally lug my own gear. I told Sinecio I would walk.
Sinecio, as he often did, looked worried. He was too polite to tell me I was being stupid.
My introduction to the Chachapoya ruins had come a day earlier at Kuelap, an immense ruin about halfway between Leymebamba and the city of Chachapoyas. As I explored the ruin, Jeynar Rubio Caro, my taxi driver turned tour guide, reached into a rock wall and pulled out a human femur. He replaced it, put his hand back in the wall and pulled out part of a hip. Then came a jawbone.
The pieces for Jeynar's ghoulish game of Operation were the remains of the former inhabitants and/or builders of Kuelap, the best known of the Chachapoya ruins. While such "hands-on" visits are not encouraged by the ruin's caretakers, Jeynar had ably demonstrated one of the interesting facts of this citadel: Some of its walls double as graveyards.
With its misty, ridgetop location and 35-to-50-foot limestone walls, Kuelap often draws comparisons to Machu Picchu, the legendary Inca site to the south. Unlike tourist-packed Machu Picchu, however, Kuelap retains a palpable sense of remoteness.
Standing atop a stone watchtower, I saw clouds pinwheel through the valley like phantoms, their edges lapping against mountains and cliffs. Behind me were the ruins of more than 400 stone roundhouses, several adorned with trapezoidal friezes believed to represent the eyes of pumas and snakes. Soon, a mist began to fall.
The ruin's aura of mystery is matched only by that of its builders. Most sources trace the origins of Kuelap and the rise of the Chachapoya to the ninth century, and the culture flourished until the Incas conquered the area in the 1470s. The Spanish arrived about 60 years later, leaving little of the Chachapoya tribe but their constructions.
When I met him in a hotel lobby, Dover, the guide, spread a laminated topographical map over a table next to the bar. I asked him if he thought there were ruins yet to be discovered.
"This area here," he said, pointing to one region of the map, "nobody goes there. And there's no reason why there wouldn't be anything to find."
I've watched Indiana Jones movies way too many times not to love a place like that.
Sinecio was taking us to Tajopampa, a tiny settlement up a river known as both the Atuen and the Upper Utcubamba.
Traveled largely by mule-and-donkey caravans carrying firewood, potatoes and other crops, the route at first led past cattle pastures and low fields. Soon, though, it entered a steep canyon bordered by rock walls exploding with trees, vines and bromeliads.
As we climbed, the canyon grew more rugged and more beautiful. The river crashed over boulders in the narrow parts, and the wide sections gave way to soggy emerald fields. At one such point, where sheer limestone cliffs bounded a pasture that looked like a misplaced slice of Ireland, I stopped, stared and said to no one in particular, "I can't believe this place exists."
But it did, and the scenery was impressive enough to distract me from my leg cramps and the miserable condition of the trail, a brownish-green bog that seemed as if it might disappear entirely if someone doused it with antibiotics.
After plodding through such muck for seven hours, we climbed a rise above the river and crested onto a small mesa housing two rock-and-mud farmhouses, as well as a squealing pig.
This was Tajopampa.
That evening we cooked dinner on a tiny wood-burning stove and sat on the farmhouse's porch, listening to the frogs croaking in the mountains. The light was fading, the fog was drifting around us and a rain shower drummed on the tin roof. I told Sinecio that this was beautiful.
That was what all foreigners thought, he replied, that this was a wonderful place to think, to reflect on life. "Si," he added quietly. "A tremendous peace."
Sinecio's machete clanged against the brush somewhere ahead of me. It was my second morning on the trail, my legs felt like concrete blocks, and I'd already lost Sinecio in the vegetation.
I found him in a grassy clearing moments later, pointing across a gully to a 1,500-foot limestone cliff. These, he said, were the ruins of La Petaca. I followed his finger to the cliff and squinted.
About two-thirds of the way to the top, the cliff's ledges and crevices were festooned with stone mausoleums, each molded precisely into the contours of its niche. The cliff also had paintings, the most obvious being two large figures painted in red.
According to "Warriors of the Clouds," Keith Muscutt's classic account of his exploration of the region, the paintings depict trophy head-hunting. More specifically, the rays emanating from one of the figures represent blood spurting from a severed neck; the mass dangling from the other figure's arm is a human head.
After ogling this gruesome artwork, we tied our horse and climbed farther into the high grasslands, eventually cresting a hill and plunging back toward the river. Again, Sinecio pointed at the rock wall across the water, this time informing us that we'd arrived at Diablo Huasi -- the House of the Devil.
Although it seemed a bit presumptuous to disturb Beelzebub at home, the view of his abode was spectacular. Diablo Huasi's cliffside tombs are similar to La Petaca's, but our vantage point was closer, and I could see windows, doors and bricks, all filling crevices like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Inside one opening, we spotted what appeared to be human remains, though it was impossible to tell for sure.
We returned to Tajopampa for lunch. Then Sinecio decreed that we had time to visit one last site -- the ridgetop settlement of La Joya -- if we hurried. I could barely walk, much less hurry, but I didn't know if I'd ever return, or if the area would still feel so wild when I did. I decided to go; Cyana would stay behind.
In the rain and mist, Sinecio and I crossed a gully and a series of mountain pastures speckled with yellow flowers. After about an hour, we came to a small stone house where I spotted a boy peering out from a doorway.
"A gringo is here," the boy yelled to someone inside.
"Where?" I replied in Spanish, making a show of looking around suspiciously. "Where's a gringo?"
After Sinecio received permission, we climbed higher into the pastures, passing ruined stone roundhouses whose walls are now used to shelter gardens and potato patches. Farther up the hill, we found another round structure, this one decorated with the same sort of trapezoidal friezes I'd seen at Kuelap. A few minutes later, the land ended.
Ahead lay only thousands of feet of empty air and swirling mists. The entire valley we'd ascended stretched below us, green and lush and mysterious.
Although I was exhausted and developing blisters, I traipsed along the ridge, climbed over boulders and walked alongside the stone wall that clung to the mountain's edge. Finally, Sinecio said we had to go.
The walk back was cold, wet and miserable. Luckily, I had a bit of good news to buoy my spirits. The owner of the land next to our shelter needed us to take one of his horses to Leymebamba. And Sinecio had told me I could ride it if I wanted.
The next morning, I rode out of Tajopampa on a small brown horse named Yegua, whom I loved dearly and with all my heart. I was not carrying my own things, or even my own weight, and I did not care.
I was out of the mud, and that was enough.
Ben Brazil last wrote for Travel on Bolivia's "Road of Death."
Details: Chachapoyas, Peru
Buses are more frequent and reliable, but much longer. Service from Lima generally passes through the coastal city of Chiclayo and takes around 24 hours. Bus companies plying the route include
Independent travelers can save substantially by making arrangements with guides, though you may need to speak Spanish. Sinecio Garro Gutierrez, a local farmer and my hard-working guide, can be contacted at his home, San Agustin 315 in Leymebamba. Although Sinecio is trying to learn English, you should plan to speak Spanish if you travel with him.
Options are more limited and more basic in Leymebamba. I stayed at