After leaving Cajamarca we headed for the coast, where we had planned to rent an apartment in Huanchaco so I could get some work done. We found a nice campsite a block from the beach and spent two days relaxing and visiting local sights, as well as starting to look for a place to live for awhile.

The drive down to Trujillo led us from the lush green highlands to a desert coastline. Here rice paddies fed from a river contrast with giant dunes.

Our campground featured a pool as well as pet turtles.

The beach at Huanchaco was busy on the weekend when we were there.

We visited the pre-Incan ruins of Chan-Chan. The Chimor people who constructed the city worshiped the moon and believed the sun to be evil. After an hour of strolling around the site we tended to agree.

Melanie made yummy stuffed peppers for dinner one evening.

After a couple of days we decided that we didn’t feel the love for Huanchaco, and proving once again that we’re more mountain people than beach people, we decided to head southwest into the Cordillera Blanca for our work stint. So we packed up and headed for the hills with our friends and travel companions, Melanie and Justin.

The first part of our drive took us south along the coastal Pan-Americana. The landscape and the towns were dry and dusty.

Soon we turned off the highway and headed inland. After an hour the road turned to a bone-jarring corrugated dust machine.

After a couple of hours creeping along at 15mph we stopped for the night. The temperature was pleasant, and we grilled and ate outside.

The next day, after a stop to wash our cars, we arrived at the Llanganuco Mountain Lodge, which borders on Huascarán National Park.

Two conventional adults and one conventional child, please.

We enjoyed a beautiful hike in the park the next day.

The trees in the park have very strange bark that comes off in thin sheets and feels like plastic shopping bags.

After exploring the muddy caves near Lamúd, we headed for what is billed as Peru’s second most important archeological site after Machu Picchu. Kuélap is a large hilltop city, similar to its far more famous cousin farther south. There are currently two ways to get to the site. The first is via a trail that leads 3 hours and 1300 meters almost straight up from the main road. We chose instead to drive the 30km dirt road, which also took 3 hours.

I found Kuélap almost as impressive as Machu Picchu, but without the crowds. Peru is working to develop the site and is putting in a gondola that will make access much easier.

Kuélap was first built in the 6th century AD and was occupied until the early colonial period. The circular structures are houses which originally had thatched roofs, like the reconstructed one you can see on the left side of this picture.

Every Peruvian ruin needs a llama wandering around in it to add authenticity.

The Sparks with Justin and Melanie exploring the ruins.

When we got to Kuélap we realized with dismay that we had left our backpack containing Quinn’s allergy medicine at a restaurant were we had eaten breakfast in Lamúd. That was a 5 or 6 hour drive back from where we were along some very slow roads. We called Roxana, the tourist guide we had met in Lamúd. Fortunately she speaks excellent English and knows everyone in town. She found our backpack and agreed to meet us in Chachapoyas the next afternoon.

We said temporary goodbyes to Justin and Melanie the next morning (after spending the night in the Kuélap visitor’s center parking lot) and headed back to Chachapoyas. We spent the afternoon catching up on email and shopping, and took Roxana and her 6-year-old nephew out to dinner to thank her for rescuing our backpack.

The next morning we were back on the road. We stopped at a small but excellent museum outside the town of Leymebamba. The museum was constructed in 1999 to house discoveries of pre-Incan mummies in tombs near Laguna Condor. Farm workers discovered the tombs in 1997 and reported them to archaeologists who found them in excellent condition and moved the mummies to the museum.

Our next stop was to be Cajamarca, where we planned to re-unite with Justin and Melanie. We expected that trip to take 12 hours, so after a quick lunch we drove for another few hours before camping in a quarry on Calla Calla pass at nearly 4000 meters elevation.

One of the many hundreds of mummies preserved at the museum.

Draft animals are still used extensively in rural Peru. It’s amazing to see farmers using techniques that were abandoned nearly 100 years ago elsewhere.

Our campsite on the pass.

Quinn spent some quality Lego time…

… Before heading out to play on the piles of sand.

We enjoyed a nice sunset before snuggling into our sleeping bags for a chilly night.

The next day’s drive was amazing. It took us all day to cover a distance of not much more than 100 miles to Cajamarca on one-lane roads that snaked up, over, down and through the Andes. I’ve never felt as though the horn was a critical piece of safety equipment on a car, but on this road it was, serving to announce us around every blind one-lane corner.

Traversing a crumbling section of road.

The best way to get a sense of the road is to watch the video in our last post.

We arrived in Cajamarca and were happy to see our friends at the hacienda where we had agreed to meet. We spent the next day relaxing and doing minor cleaning and maintenance on our cars before heading toward the coast.

Campsite at the hacienda.

Quinn repairs the reverse light on the van which has been out for who knows how long. I supervise.

Ecuador has been working on paving the mountain route from Vilcabamba to the Peruvian border at Las Balsas for some time, and according to the last report we received only the last 25km remain unpaved. From what we’ve heard, if the weather is dry all is good, but if it’s wet things can get sticky.

Our friends Melanie and Justin decided to come with us in their James Cook Westfalia, an awesome little RV based on a Mercedes Sprinter with everything we wish we had including a working stove and a bathroom with a hot shower. Oh, the luxury. They only thing it lacks is four wheel drive and a little ground clearance. We figured that if things got too bad we could always turn back and take the Pan Am to the border along the coastal route.

Things started out great with sunny weather as we made our way South from Vilcabamba.

The drive through the highlands was beautiful. It started out paved, but soon we hit road construction. Drive defensively!

Westy gets her feet wet

This was the biggest of several landslides we saw. Mostly if they didn’t completely block the road they were left where they were. If you look closely, you can see Westy as she makes the crossing.

Zumba was the last town we went through in Ecuador, and we had planned to fill up on cheap Ecuadorian diesel before heading into Peru. The Ecuadorians were one step ahead of us though, and would only sell us $10 worth of fuel. With a little pleading they allowed us to fill our tank, but it seemed like filling our jerry can too was pushing our luck.

So after a little grocery shopping we headed for the border along a dirt track. The weather was still good and the dry road was no problem. We pulled into the border town of Las Balsas at around 4pm, and since we were the only ones there we decided to go ahead and cross into Peru. After 15 minutes helping the immigration official with date math, he verified that we head been in Ecuador for 88 days (out of the 90 days allowed on our tourist visa). Someone needs to make that guy a spreadsheet.

After a late afternoon border crossing we drove a short distance into Peru and found a spot to camp for the night.

After a long drive the next day we ended up in the tiny pueblo of San Pablo. We camped right on the main plaza; this photo was at breakfast the next morning.

Justin and Melanie are true dog lovers, and with the help of leftover food we quickly had a loyal following.

The next day we enlisted the services of Teodolo, a local guide, to take us to some nearby waterfalls. The falls are 771 meters high, making them among the highest in South America.

After another night sleeping on the plaza we headed for Lámud, our next destination. The road took us along a swollen river valley.

We were headed out to see some pre-Incan tombs. The track we followed was muddy and slippery from the recent rains.

The site was reached by clambering around some gates locked with keys that I’m sure someone somewhere has. As it turns out, Roxana in the Lámud tourist office would have loaned us the keys if we had only known beforehand to ask.

The tombs are built above-ground in hollows in the cliff side, much like Mesa Verde in Colorado.

Since we had made the hour long drive up the rough gravel road to Lamud, we decided we might as well see some caves that were shown on our map. After an exciting drive back into town during which the Westy slid almost sideways while descending the muddy track, we started asking about the caverns. Pretty soon Roxana showed up speaking perfect English and telling us about her friends in Colorado. She turned out to be the one-woman tourist office of Lámud, and showed us where to rent rubber boots for the mud and drew us a map of how to get to the caverns.

Justin and Melanie decided to leave Westy to relax in the town square for the day and climbed into the Sparksmobile for the trip to the caves. The road was muddy again and I used low range for one short stretch, so it was probably a good idea.

The mud parking lot at the caves.

The caves were fantastic, stretching a half kilometer into the hillside with stalactites and stalagmites, and even some prehistoric human bones and skulls. The mud was thick and pasty, and sometimes we had to help Quinn extract his feet from it.

We met some Argentinean travelers on our way back to the parking lot and offered to give them a ride back to town rather than make them wait for a taxi in the rain.