Chachapoyas to Tingo

After meeting up with Dylan in Chachapoyas I took two rest days there to do the usual rest day activities – laundry, write, bike repair, and eat. First thing, I reboot my front tire with some thick inner tube rubber I found on the road and now feel confident that it is good for the life of the tire . . . however long that may be. Chachapoyas was the first decent size city I had been in since Loja, Ecuador – though smaller, probably under 20,000 people, certainly no universities, coffee shops, or bookstores. But a nice plaza, decent market, and churros - nice to be back in churro country (fried dough sticks with sugar). Also, Chachapoyas has tourists, mostly German and French, there as a jumping off point to the site of Kuelap. I hadn't seen any tourists in awhile. Food in Peru is cheap and good with the menu, a set meal of soup & main course, costing 3-5 soles. So Dylan and I set out a few times a day to see what the locals were eating, then snack in between. Ceviche is once again common and I introduced Dyaln to the wonders of papas a la huancaina – potatoes in cheese sauce with an egg. The market was filled with colorful variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, and meat that makes shopping fun – which of those four types of avocado? Or which of the dozen varieties of potato? Every type of fruit fresh.
I guess we were like most tourists because we were in Chachapoyas as a jumping off point for Kuelap. Kuelap is a large Chachapoyan (pre- Inca) fortified city on a mountain top often compared to Manchu Pichu, though harder to get too. Consequently, Kuelap receives as many visitors a year as Manchu Pichu does in a day – and that is being generous. Also, Kuelap has been on my tick list for decades. We left Chachapoyas late morning for a short 50km ride down to the river valley then along the Utucamba River to Tingo where we planned to spend the night then hike up to the site early the next morning. The riding was pleasant and quiet along the river with small farms scattered along the riparian bottom land. Approaching Tingo we spotted our first Chachapoyan ruins blending into the canyon walls.Tingo Viejo was a small bus stop town along a dusty dirt road with a few small stores, two hospedejas with restaurants catering to people headed to Kuelap. The town, once bigger, had been buried in a huge mud slide several decades earlier, consequently Tingo Nuevo was rebuilt on higher ground. After checking into Hostal Leon (15 soles), we walked around the corner, bought a beer, and sat on the curb to watch the local action. Three archaeologists (one US, two Peruvian) were sitting on the bench waiting to hitch a ride up valley so we chatted and turned out to know some people/places in common, then they hopped in a police truck and were off. We bought a beer. The occasional bus pulled up to discharge a couple backpackers – conspicuously viewing their Lonely Planet. The woman vendors would grab handfuls of fruit run up to the bus to sell to passengers. We bought a beer. A chicken delivery truck pulled up to sell a dozen or so chickens – our next meal. Meanwhile, a combi was loading up people and stuff. We bought a beer. Dogs and donkeys move through town on autopilot to their next destination . . . we bought a beer and decided to go fishing. Fishing, not catching, but fun none the less. We returned to our room, cook dinner on our stoves, and turn in early after chatting with a German climber over some Pisco. Tomorrow is going to be early, a 4:30 am alarm, to hike the 1000+meters up to Kuelap for morning light.