The Road To Cocabamba July 22-25

Well, it started like this. One night we were at La Casita, a discoteca in Chachapoyas, and we ran into a great couple. The guy, I didn't remember his name at that point, threatened to kill me if I didn't go and visit Kuelap. I held on to my life since I have been there a couple of days before. Thank God! But they were great, we shared beers and had a great time. A week later, we ran into them again, only on my turf, The San Jose bakery. We talked and they invited us to go on a horse trip to some place where Janet had to go to work. . . the name of which could not remember for the life of us when our friends asked. We jumped at the idea.

It was 4am on Sunday. We dragged ourselves into the cold dark street and played Backgammon as we waited for the car of our new friends to pick us up. I am embarrassed to say that at that point I neither knew the names of our new friends or the place where they were taking us. But all jokes aside we threw the idea of "Don't Talk To Strangers" out a long time ago. So when the car pulled up we exchanged smiling faces and "Holas" and jumped in. A few minutes later, Sasha and I were out.

We woke up in a dark room tied up and with bags over our heads. No, just kidding. Ha-ha!

Let me start again. We woke up in Maria, a small town, just outside of Kuelap. And it was freezing! I guess me and Sasha didn't really understand when we were told, dress warm. But our compadres, Pedro and Janet prepared for us. They gave us extra pants, sweatshirts, hats and whatever we needed; we happily, but reluctantly accepted, had a cup of coffee and hit the trail on our horses.

I of course, was a born rider. Sasha was... uhmm, she was my princess.
Pedro and his princess were great as well.

And before we knew it, we were in the clouds, literally . . .

The views were incredible. The weather changed from hot to cold in a matter of minutes. And we had an 11 hour ride ahead of us. But there was a price behind all this beauty and fun... pain. Pain in the groin, pain in the back, pain pretty much everywhere.

But we persevered. And made it. It was dark, we were tired and hungry. The whole ride there, I was planning to take a car back because I didn't want to face another long trip like that. Unfortunately, that was the road and it turned out that Cocabamba is not accessible by car. OK. When we arrived, Janet and Pedro immediately offered us their room and we were greeted by the town. Yes! As a mater of fact, we had the mayor and all important government people come and visit us and drink beer in our little room that night. It turned out that we were the first non-Peruvian tourists EVER to come and visit this little town! Wow!

We were fed every day, shown around town, and were treated with the greatest hospitality possible. We spent our first day recovering from our groin pain. We walked around the town meeting practically EVERYONE! It was a small town, dirt roads, one plaza where locals came to play cards and schoolkids were gathered to practice marching for the upcoming celebration. The town was located on a hill so everything was basically uphill ALL THE TIME! There was a river next to the town and its a good thing because electricity was practically free for the town. But above all, the best thing was the people of Cocabamba-- so kind to us and so generous. On one such excursion, every person we saw offered something to take as a gift. . . By the time we came to our room, we were loaded with avocados, yellow bananas, red bananas, fresh beans, and eggs (of course Mishka managed to drop one)! How can you beat that!While getting to know the town, we walked by "The Animal Jail" where animals were put if they were wondering around without their owner. Animals beware! Go to Jail!Just kidding about the kitties, I couldn't help taking a picture.

And of course the little waterfall/pool we visited was both refreshing and lots of fun!

The following day, we felt our groins could take a little beating so all of us ventured into the mountains after a "local" ruin.

Thank god we had Inca Man to guide us!! Long live Pedro. . . the INCA MAN!

Three hour ride by horse, and then a three hour climb up a mountain. Here are some great shots:It was the first time for us to visit an untouched ruin . . . skulls, ribs, ropes, teeth . . . even the skull of an eagle! The ruin was obviously a burial ground and located in a very hard-to-reach place. Here are the highlights:



The ruin was absolutely remarkable! The most amazing peace of history we´ve ever seen . . . partially because we were the only people there, we don´t even think it was touched by archaeologists!

The following day, Mishka and I had to go back to Chachapoyas and so we parted with Pedro and Janet, who are forever in our hearts . . . .

and began the long way back. . . OUCH! Next stop . . . Chachapoyas for my birthday and then Celendín. . . where we will see our first bullfight, a Spanish tradition, to honor Peru´s Independence from Spain . . . hmmm?!