We arrived at around 6am in Chachapoyas and found this small town totally asleep. A guy tried to sell us a tour to the ruins of Kuelap when we got of the bus (S75 all included, later went down to 50) but we decided to wait for the other agencies to open so we could compare the price. We had a nice breakfast on a bench on the main place with only a few people going to work passing. Finally the shops and agencies started to open after 7am and managed to book a tour to go to Kuelap (Turismo Explorer, on the main place, 51 soles lunch included). The tour was supposed to start at 8.30am but we left the town in a small van only at 9am. We were in a group of 12 people, very nice Peruvians but we also had 5 annoying English. It took us 2h30 to reach the ruins, 20min on a asphalted road and the rest on a very bumpy dirt road. But the painful trip was worth it as the ruins of Kuelap are beautiful, thanks to Wout for the tip! Kuelap is a temple built by the Chachapoya people around the 7th century. It looks more like a fortress with his very high walls and his location at the top of a mountain. The walls are up to 20m high and are very impressive. Inside there are two parts, the low pueblo and the high one. Archaeologists are not sure which one was for the important people and which one was for the normal people. Circular houses were built on successive terraces, but nowadays only very low walls remain and trees have grown on the ruins. The site has three entrances, all very narrow and impressive. The site is very peaceful and very nice, you feel like staying and relaxing. There are also some Lamas around the site. Our guide was very nice and helpful. We arrived at the site around 11h30 and left only 3h30 later, so we had a very late lunch at a nearby restaurant. The drive back to the town felt very long but we finally arrived at 18h30 and we just had enough time to do some shopping and catch our night bus back to Chiclayo at 7.30pm. Having a chat with our drivers we found out that tomorrow there is a census in Perou so there won't be any bus between 8am and 6pm. Our plan was to catch a bus to Trujillo when arriving in Chiclayo in the morning, hopefully we will make it!
