Chachapayos – Night buses and bed bugs!

Left Chiclayo on a night bus and headed for the mountain and amazonas town of Chachapayos, arriving at 4 in the morning, its surprising how many hostal touts wait for the bus! So in need of sleep we headed off down the road with our hyperactive little tout and booked into a hostal – twin room, on-suite, breakfast (a stale roll) included and bedbugs all for the bargain price of around $4. The main reason for visiting the Chachapayos was to go and see Kuelap, a pre-Inca citadel of ruins built around 1000AD and set in the mountains amongst cloud forest. So after about 3 hours sleep we headed out of town to visit them, the setting was amazing, perched on a mountain edge surrounded by 40ft high stone walls, however the actual ruins did leave a little to much to the imagination, years of neglect and a few wars had kind of, well, ruined them!! The next day we took a taxi out of town to see a nearby canyon, the driver headed straight up this dirt track and into a small village turning up a steep hill, suddenly he stopped and just in time because about 2 foot in front of us the earth just fell away, dropping hundreds of meters into a void and what looked a small river below. We spent some time exploring the area then tried to remember the way the taxi had brought us so we could hike back down dusty roads and through indigenous villages!