Chachapoyas

Our bus clearing the 'road' four hours later

The 13 hour bus journey turned into 17 hours when we became stuck about an hour from our destination at 5am due to a landslide on the road. But the road was eventually cleared and I finally reached Chachapoyas, my base for exploring the pre-incan culture of The Chachapoyas, or 'cloud people', who lived in the cloud forests of the  Amazonas region of Peru until being conquered by the Incans.

Sarcophogi of Carajia

A bus trip the next day took me to some amazing Sarcophagi up on a steep ledge in the mountains and a cave scattered here and there with human remains.

One of the impressive entrances to Keulap

The following day I headed out to the ruins of Keulap, my main reason for heading out this way. Keulap was a fortified city inhabited by The Chacapoyas and is known as the Machu Picchu of the North.
Located at over 3000m above sea level on a ridge overlooking a valley and containing ruins of over 400 mainly circular buildings, the site was pretty impressive. And with only about 20-30 tourists on the day we visited we could explore the site in peace. Definitely a highlight of North Peru.

Ruins nestled in the cloud forest

Remains of circular houses overlooking the valley

It was then time to head back to Trujillo on another overnight bus (luckily no landslide this time) for a quick stopover and day trip to the beach town of Huanchaco before heading back to Lima to meet Josh at roughly the halfway point in my travels.