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We spent a few days in Moyobamba, enjoying some real food (I found lasagna! It had palm hearts and olives and it was yummy!) looking at orchids and relaxing. We headed east for a day hike to Lahuarpia, where there’s waterfalls and swimming holes. It was gorgeous. All we did was take a combi bus towards Tarapoto and got dropped off on the main road in the village of Lahuarpia. The trail head is to the left of the road past the first set of houses. There’s a little booth set up for the sl. 1 entrance fee and the trail is well-maintained, with a stone path through most of it. There’s arrows and signage about animal conservation! The first waterfall is easy to get to and takes only about 10 minutes. The waterfall is big and intense but I was able to swim behind it onto a ledge filled with soda bottles. The water was refreshing, but not glacially cold so it was a nice balance for the warm, humid air. The trail follows the river and there’s a fun rickety bridge and a picnic area near the second waterfall. The third one is the smallest but has a flat rocky area for picnicking. The whole place reminded me of the gorges in upstate NY and VT. Funny we’re in the jungle, near the Amazon and we find a river that reminds us of New England, except for the rain forest birds flying overhead. And the owl butterfly we saw munching on some fallen fruit. We’d only seen that butterfly at the Seattle Science Center, so it was fun to see it in the wild. It was a beautiful day and we definitely enjoyed swimming and hiking around. Carry a stick, though, the neighbor dogs think they own the picnic area.

We eventually ended up in Tarapoto, which is a bigger town filled with noisy mototaxis. We spent a lot of time relaxing and eating well. We found a restaurant, Cafe d’Mundo that has Italian food that’s pretty good. Adobe oven wood fired pizza (thin crust) with blue cheese and spinach raviolis were our favorites. We rented a scooter one day and wandered around town, trying to find the tourist info center but never did. Matt drove most of the time and I went around the block successfully and drove along a dirt road and rolled it into a ditch (very slowly). I’ll stick with 4 wheeled motorized vehicles. But it was fun to ride on back and be among the crazy traffic for a few hours. Traffic is crazier here, but everyone pays attention while disobeying traffic rules. I’ve seen very few accidents and they were all minor, but people here run every red light and turn left in the right lane. But, they all pay attention and it seems to go along just fine.

I have good news, I have finally discovered dark chocolate NOT made by Nestle. The chocolate is locally made in Tarapoto from Amazon cacao. We visited La Orquidea Chocolate factory, which seemed like someone’s house. We got there on a Saturday afternoon at 1pm, and the lady told us the workers left at 1pm and she couldn’t show us anything. Too bad. It was a trip to find it, behind the hospital on some muddy torn up road under construction. We were able to buy a few chocolate bars at price (sl.3 for 100g). They only have two non-milk chocolate flavors and they are both 60% cacao. The milk chocolate flavors seem fun (coconut, coffee, quinoa, peanut) but the milk chocolate is kind of blah.

Matt just came down with the flu or some virus so we’ve been laying low watching movies and eating pizza. It’s nice to take a break in a more modern town and watch some sitcom reruns (a lot of Friends, Scrubs and the Simpsons). It does make me more homesick but it’s a little re-charge of TV space out time that I’m ready to tackle more traveling. We hope to go to an ecolodge meditation retreat later today if Matt feels better.

We’ve discovered that the more you ask around, the more varied the answers you get are. The road from Chachapoyas to Pedro Ruiz is closed from 6am to 6pm everyday, making getting out of Leymebamba a pain, unless you want to spend another full day in Chacha (which we do NOT). Talking to one of our students the other day, she mentioned that the road is open on Sundays! We double checked the info around town and some said it’s open, some said it’s closed. We made our escape plan and spent Saturday packing and saying our good-byes. Luckily the new volunteer arrived and we were able to give her pointers and a tour of town (note to all: the only green vegetables in Leymebamba are found uphill from the cemetery by a nice guy named Max. I bought his spinach crop in one day, but he also has swiss chard and broccoli. Score!) In the morning I taught Cely (the only good cook/restaurant in town, also one of our students) how to make tofu and her family loved it! They ate it raw with honey from sugar cane. I also taught her how to make coconut milk and she treated us to lunch.

So, another kink in our plans surfaced as the usual 3am/5am bus out of town doesn’t happen on Sundays. The big market in Yerba Buena throws everything off and we bargained for a shared taxi to the market (1 hour, sl. 4 per person) and then found a combi to Chachapoyas (2 hrs, sl.8 per person). We arrived in Chacha, once again (but luckily not all day) and our bus driver told us he was going to Pedro Ruiz, but wanted to stop and have lunch and we could leave our packs strapped to the roof and to meet him in 30 minutes. We trusted this man, went and had lunch, came back to the plaza 45 minutes later (peruvian time, folks) and sat on the bench for 20 minutes. I was trying not to freak out that all our stuff was gone and people were buying our underwear in another town…but Matt wrote down his license plate number and we just waited. Matt took off and went to look for the combi station while I waited in the plaza, and as usual, within 5 minutes of him gone, the guy showed up! So eventually we were all reunited and inside the combi to leave town…but not yet. We went to the driver’s house to get his family (and they do NOT live in town). Then we went to get his friend and his family, then a stop at the drugstore and a stop at the market and finally (less than an hour later) we were on the road.

We got to see the construction they are doing that makes the road inaccessible 6 days out of 7. They are making one narrow dirt road into 2 lanes and most of it involves blasting at a mountain. When almost everyone uses hand tools, this will be quite a long project. But the scenery is beautiful and there’s a few caves to go through. Sooo we ended up in Pedro Ruiz, where the big bus companies pass through who knows when. You just have to wait on the road and flag them down and if there’s room in them, they’ll let you on. Matt did a little investigative work and we instead took a shared taxi to Nueva Cajamarca (with a child sleeping on my shoulder most of the ride) and then a combi to Moyobamba. The guide book says the big bus takes 5 hours (steep switchbacks, narrow roads) but in the car we were in Nva. Cajamarca in 3 hours and 30 minutes later in Moyobamba.

So now we are in Moyobamba, enjoying the jungle. It is a humid here, but not too bad and I’ve only seen a few mosquitoes. (We’re taking the malaria pills…it’s a risk zone) Moyobamba’s a pretty big town with a movie theater and lots of stores with modern clothing. We’ve been eating lately at the Olla de Barro, which has a lot of jungle-style food like ocopa (a creamy peanut sauce on potatoes), cocona juice (sweet but refreshing, it looks like a giant persimmon) aguaje juice (ok…kind of chicha like but looks like giant lychees). And they have lasagna that’s not only vegetarian, but has broccoli, mushrooms and hearts of palm in it. Hooray!

We’ve been hiking around town, looking at miradors and botanical gardens (lots of pretty orchids and bromeliads). We visited a coffee factory (Rio Mayo) and took a tour and drank some good coffee (me! liking coffee!). We made it to the hot springs today, which I’m happy to say is all outdoors and there’s about 5 pools with varying temperature of hot water, some pipes cascading cold water and 2 lukewarm pools. It’s quite beautiful and they have a semi olympic pool (it was drained) and a jungle gym as well. There’s a restaurant (all meat) and it’s only sl. 1 (30 cents us) to get in and soak. It’s sl. 1 more to rent a locker, which is necessary. It costs sl.3 to take a mototaxi there from town, or you could walk…it’s pleasant and an orchid preserve and the coffee factory are on the way. So it was beautiful and relaxing (except for the typical extremely loud non-stop cumbia music and my bathroom experience (you thought this post would be without a rant…ha!): I went to the bathroom to pee and there was a hand written sign that says I have to pay, but no one manning the door (all I knows is that it’s a guest making money)…so screw that, i go in, pee, get out and a woman is walking towards me demanding money. All I’m wearing is my bikini and I point to myself, how shall I pay you? oh, i keep change in my top….please. and she was like, you have to pay and I told her I’m not paying to pee. Why can’t they up the entrance fee by 10 cents or something and let people use the bathroom? A situation like that only ENCOURAGES people to pee in the pool…which I hope no one was doing…but I also didn’t see anyone else going to the bathroom while I was there. The place is set back in the forest, at least there’s plenty of trees to use if the bathroom police gets too pushy. But I’m proud to say I didn’t pay her and I didn’t get beat up or yelled at. But really, that irritates me. You pay to enter then you have to pay for a hole to pee in?! Ok, I’ll stop talking about el orinar.) There was this lovely woman at least 90 years old at the springs, hobbling between the hot water and cold water. She made me smile, as well as the butterflies doing their thing around the pools. There was a tiny tunnel between two pools (for the water to pass through) and at one point a guy surfaced! He shimmied through the tunnel which was about 10 feet long but 10 feet under the ground…and it’s all hot water! We didn’t try his stunt, but I was impressed.

Moyobamba is a pretty town and we’re enjoying it a lot. Tomorrow we’ll head to one of the waterfalls (more swimming!) and go to Tarapoto, deeper into the jungle. The newness of travelling is upon us once again.

After relaxing from our wild New Year’s this year, we tried to make plans for our last few days in town…which turned out to be a headache but it was all for the best. I keep forgetting about the way of life here…I adjust then I forget and get disappointed when people promise things and don’t follow through.

A few weeks ago we planned to go to the Laguna with Estefani and Omer (son of the owners of Hospedaje de los Condores and the land around the laguna) as our “free” guides in exchange for English lessons on the trail. Two our of our students gave us their horses for the trip (one at half price, one for free…thanks!). We were able to get the lodging waived because we are volunteers. So, roughly a $100 trip plus food ended up being $10 plus food (plus tips). Not bad, eh? Except the day before we left, Omer told us he couldn’t go because they were putting the roof on the restaurant. So we were crushed and they recommended we find a guide in town to take us (even though a week ago we confirmed everything with them and realized we only had enough money to get out of town after the trip…if we had to pay for a guide we would have been stuck in Chachapoyas again) but anyways, everything turned out all right because the wife of the caretaker of the Laguna (Elena) offered to take us with Estefani so we had an all-female crew! All the men in town were worried…perhaps our trip is a step forward for equality in the little village. Did I mention here the women are 2nd class citizens? Men ride the horses, the woman walk alongside, usually carrying a child or firewood.

The fact that it’s the rainy season luckily doesn’t mean it rains ALL the time…but it does seem to rain MOST of the time. We planned to leave at 7am, but one of our horses didn’t arrive until 8am (typical sense of time). We saddled up and began the looong journey. The horses here aren’t any of that fancy cantering kind that are in shows. These horses are TOUGH. and strong. and full of endurance. Our 3 hour horseback ride in Ecuador our horses were covered in sweat and panting. These horses barely panted and just kept on going…up through steep rocky gorges, through a muddy swamp (where one horse fell up to it’s stomach in the mud…luckily no one was on the horse at that time) and over a 3800 meter pass (almost 12,000 feet). Parts of the trail were so ugly or so steep that we got off and walked, which was a nice change and helped balance out the ache at the end of the day.

It rained on and off and we discovered that no type of rainwear really keeps the rain off except pure plastic. I had a nice hooded poncho (borrowed from a student) and not even half way to the lake I was wet…great timing for me because we started to go over the pass and I got major altitude sickness. I don’t really know how to describe it except that I feel like I’m in a bubble, dizzy and want to pee. The girls wrapped me in a chalpa (a traditional woman’s shawl, made of sheep’s wool) and a plastic bag. Estefani held my hand and we went over the pass together. The sickness passed as we went down in elevation, then it came back again. I hate that feeling. Matt doesn’t mind it but he doesn’t feel bad, just a little silly from the lack of oxygen to the brain. I ate a chocolate bar and was wrapped up and kept going down the mountain and eventually got better. Did you know they sell pills for altitude sickness? Apparently I didn’t read that part of the guidebook. I may need to stock up on them for the future.

We had a few river crossings and no one fell down, horses or people and at about 6pm we arrived at the refuge with sore throats from yelling at the horses all day (they are quite big babies and need to be yelled at to give them courage to walk forward). The refuge is nice, it’s all Chachapoyas ruins (yay!) that used to be forest and is now grazing land for the horses and cows. There’s about 4 rooms with bunk beds and a common area with a wood fire for cooking on. We made spaghetti with our new favorite avocado lime sauce and shared that while they had some roasted potatoes to share. The fire boiled water faster than I imagined and we hung our clothes over the fire and went to bed.

The next day we hiked to the Chullpas (funerary towers in the cliffs by the lake) with Elena’s husband and their child, Sandy. Sandy is 8 and can speak a little English and is full of energy and strength (she led us on the hike back to the house). During the hike we experienced rain, sun, wind and hail, not necessarily in that order or in equal amounts. The hike to the chullpas made us realize we were in the jungle/rain forest. Everything was overgrown and covered in vines. Our leader had a machete and hacked the whole way up the mountain. The hike started on a rolling ridgeline along Chacha round house foundation ruins, down a steep slope in the muck, across the river outlet for the lake, along the lakeside, then straight up the mountain. There were a few spots where there were slippery ladders and ropes to climb and a few waterfall crossings. It was a wet wonderful adventure. Their 3 dogs came with us and they are tough, too. I don’t know how they made it up all the steep parts where we needed ladders and ropes, but they joined us when we lunched at the chullpas, 100 meters above the lake.

Chullpas are funerary towers built into the cliffside. These ones were discovered in the early 90′s by some guys that worked for Omer’s family. They didn’t tell anyone at first, though, and ransacked the area and sold some of the mummies and booty to collectors. Once it was discovered by Omer’s family, the guys were put in jail and most of the stuff was recovered. In order to protect it from further looting, an Austrian woman helped fund a museum in Leymebamba to house the mummies and the artifacts. So, most of the easily accessible stuff was hauled out and put in the museum but there are still a handful of intact funerary sites in the cliffside (which are inaccessible and no one knows how the Chachas even made it up to the sites, let alone carrying their dead on their backs). The funerary sites are interesting, they are located in shallow caves with steeply overhanging rock faces above. They built some house-like structures with walls and windows and some still retain a red pigment on the walls. We’ve seen photos of what the site was like before the dead were taken down and it was FILLED with mummies, mostly in the fetal position wrapped up in burlap-type sacks. The high elevation and dryness was a perfect environment for mummification. Most of the mummies still have hair, skin and nails. One mummy we saw at the museum had the straightest teeth I’ve ever seen. Amazing…no dentists, no braces, but beautifully straight teeth. The sacks wrapped over the mummies were stitched with thread of a face shape over the face. Some skulls and bones were found in the structures of the buildings. Overall very fascinating, kind of creepy and quite beautiful. The funerary sites looked over the lake, onto the ridgeline where all the house foundations are.

The hike back was fine except for the hail storm, and we relaxed the evening with some tea and Matt and I made lentil soup to share. The next day we woke up early and left at dawn because it wasn’t raining. We made it all the way to the pass before any rain hit us, so the going was pretty good for a while. Elena’s husband is a coquero (coca leaf chewer) and he taught Matt and I the finer points of chewing coca…we needed the activator to make it work, it’s called Cal. He gave me a little bit for the trip out and I must say it’s magical. I was worried about crossing the mountain pass again, but I ate a candy bar, chewed my coca wad and had a shot of Julio’s homemade firewater (aguardiente) that had rosemary and uña de gato in it. And I crossed the pass without even a headache! Hooray! I chalk it all up to the coca. It is renowned for helping with altitude sickness. It also helps you focus, work longer and eat less. When the Spanish took over the Incas, they banned the use of coca until they realized they could use it to their advantage.

Chewing coca leaf here is different than chewing tobacco or doing coke. The leaf is used perhaps more like we drink coffee to wake up in the morning. Not everyone does it, but it’s definitely part of the culture and part of the way of life here. I didn’t feel like I was out of my head or anything while chewing the coca. I felt focused and determined to get over the pass, and I did sucessfully and safely. I felt more loopy crossing the pass the first time without anything. So I find it even more interesting that coca growing/consumption is legal in Peru and Bolivia but illegal in Ecuador. The whole coca controversy is very interesting here, and is actually dangerous in central eastern Peru, where there’s guerrila groups controlling some of the coca growing/distribution/cocaine export. Don’t worry, we’re not going to that region of Peru…but it’s much safer now than in the past.

Anyways, after the pass we encountered more wind and rain and deeper mud. At one point my horse sunk in the mud up to it’s belly (with me on him) but I encouraged my horse and screamed and kicked until he swam his way out of the mud. Estefani was very proud of me. Thank you, UConn horseback riding classes. It was exciting and scary…but these horses are strong and can go up and down steep slopes that I would fall over on. We made our way back to town, with a little bit of sun at the end of the day for a total of about an 11 hour return trip.

It was beautiful and adventurous and treacherous and tiring, but I’m glad we went. We saw amazing scenery, waterfalls and ruins. This trip is not for the comfort-seekers or the lazy. But it’s worth every minute and I’m glad we had competent guides that were also our friends. What a nice send off for our last days in Leymebamba.

We tried not to expect too much from New Year’s this year, which is sad because I always try to do something different or go somewhere fun. We were told there was a BIG dance in town with a live band and Estefani said she was having a party in the restaurant as well.

The evening rolled around, I taught my last adult class in the evening and we waited for the clock to toll. On a few street corners in town, people made straw dolls out of real clothes and set fire to them at midnight. We couldn’t get anyone to explain exactly WHY they do this, but everyone was excited to burn the dolls. The dolls on our corner had cigarettes in their mouths and beer bottles in hand. I’ll pretend it’s an out with the old theme. It rained, but eventually the dolls burned up, people randomly aimed fireworks (mostly in the air) and loud music was everywhere. Estefani made a little bonfire on the street in front of the house and some people came to warm up in front of it. Not believing in said party, we went to check out the dance. The music was live, but it was mostly cumbia, which is awkward to dance to. Neither Matt or I feel comfortable doing it…it involves shuffling some feet and usually not holding hands or looking at your partner.

So, we decided NOT to do the dance (the room was about half-filled with shuffling folks) and headed back to the house, where some people lured by the fire came into the restaurant and sat in chairs. Social situations in this town are very interesting. We have been to a few parties and people don’t really talk, they just sit on benches and stare at each other. Conversations do pop up, but rarely and it feels like a junior high dance. I bought a box of wine to share with Estefani and Omer, but since people showed up we shared the box among the crowd, a toast was made and the music (cumbia) was turned up on the CD player. We danced a little in a circle which was fun, then some partner dancing, then more of the bench sitting. The CD was actually a DVD played through the TV and it kept shutting off (perhaps because it was at max volume), so Omer went to a neighbor’s to borrow their CD player and 4 speakers. We figured this would take at least an hour to set up, so we went to bed instead. Apparently everyone stayed up until 5 am “dancing,” but I had an interesting evening enough and was glad to get a decent night’s sleep. At least I didn’t have to work this New Year’s eve doling out soup. I was able to spend it with my husband and watch straw dolls burn while dodging fireworks. Hope your New Year’s was good!