The port was 9km outside of Yurimaguas town, so we wanted to make sure we had our onward travel sorted before it all disappeared once the boat passengers were mostly gone.
The ride in the back of the pickup truck with a varying number of other passengers and a steadily increasing quantity of cargo was almost comically uncomfortable. We started out with five people and their luggage in the back. This went up to nine, but as there were a couple of board seats and some of them were standing on the bumper and hanging on to the substantial metal frame it still wasn't too bad for the first hour or so of the two hour trip.
The number of passengers went as high as twelve, but it really got ridiculous when four huge bags of aguaje fruit were added to the payload. While passenger numbers were down to six or seven there was literally no room on the floor of the truck bed. I spent the next forty minutes with an old Peruvian lady halfway between kneeing me in the back and kneeling on my back.
This was a bit sad, as it was a pretty cool drive. It startee out with a mix of tropical forest, cattle pasture and oil palms (apparently supplanting most of southeast Asia's rainforests isn't enough... Who consumes all this stuff?!)
Soon enough though the very smooth, well maintained highway began twisting and climbing its way up out of the Amazon basin and into the foothills of the Andes. Here the forest became more natural again, but instead of spreading out like a carpet it climbed up sheer rocky cliffsides next to occasional gushing waterfalls and rapidly flowing streams. Despite the other discomforts, the air was beautifully cool after months of 30-something degree Amazonian swelter.
We stayed on the edge of town near the transport company terminals (often in Peru each company will have its own bus station). Our hotel was friendly, comfortable and cheap. And had satellite TV that included a couple of English channels. Adding to the entertainment was the Peru-Ecuador football match that we watched the first half of over dinner and juices at a busy, brightly lit row of similar jugerias a few blocks away.
The drive to Pedro Ruiz started with a swift climb, then a fast cruise over a high, green plateau that reminded us lots of Colombia's Zona Cafeteria. There were several stops at rugged small and medium sized towns.
After these petered out our journey was slowed not by stops but by a much more concerted climb up into the mountains. As the light faded the towering peaks around us grew more and more impressive and we grew more and more uncertain of whether we'd get to our planned sleeping spot, the village of Cuispes.
We arrived at the road junction town of Pedro Ruiz around 19:40, with the sky full dark. We hopped down, grabbed our bags off the roof, and thanked the driver. Almost immediately, the moto taxi drivers across the street called out "Cuispes?"
While the road we'd been on was heavy with traffic and no place for a Mototaxi in the dark, fortunately Cuispes was 10km up (and up!) a dead end gravel road. We made a deal and after 25 minutes of humming motorbike engine and lots of hairpins and switchbacks we arrived at the Cuispes plaza.
Ring the bell on the front of the Hospedaje and a few minutes later, the friendly (if slightly surprised to have guests arriving so late) owner had set us up in a tidy but simple room for the night.
Cuispes was a charming, tiny town surrounded by beautiful mountains that we finally got to see the following morning. The purpose of our visit there was to see some of Peru's tallest waterfalls. The trail to Catarata Yumbilla, 895m high and the fifth tallest waterfall in the world was a mere 5km up the road. Or even less if you took the pedestrian shortcuts, as we did after paying our admission fee at the office on the plaza and buying some local peaches and puffed corn for lunch at the local store.
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The walk to Yumbilla is about 3.5km through beautiful deep forest, along a cliffside shelf partway up to the plateau that the falls tumble down from. The trail was narrow, with a bit of up and down, but was generally well maintained and easy to walk. All along the forest was full of small and medium-sized butterflies, including some gorgeous black ones with pale blue patches so light as to turn their wings into translucent lacework.
The trail also had a couple of spectacular views out over the mountains, and passed by two smaller (but still several hundred metres high) waterfalls on the way. The flow of these was relatively small and you were so close up to just one or two of their multiple cascades that you struggled a bit to appreciate their towering height.
As Yumbilla is made up of four or five individual drops, some might call it a series of waterfalls rather than a single falls. But even just the top cascade was fabulous, located in a pale rock amphitheatre. I got completely soaked getting a bit too close to the bottom!
On our way back I took a side trail down to the bottom of the second cascade. It was a very steep descent, but thankfully ropes had been placed to make it more manageble. The views from down there were possibly even better!
One thing that we didn't get to see on our walk through the forest was an Andean Cock of the Rock. Sarah had fallen in love with the Guianian Cocks of the Rock at Kaieteur, and was very excited to spot some of their Peruvian cousins. But though we saw some cool birds including several green toucanets none of the bright orange, crested cocks made an appearance.
The next day before leaving I decided to take a walk to the base of 540m Catatata Chinata. While not nearly as tall as Yumbilla it's arguably more impressive, as you can easily see pretty much it's full height all at once (including from the Cuispes town square!)
Our host at the hospedaje pointed me in the right direction and said it should take about an hour and a half each way, giving us plenty of time for the day's travel seeing as I was leaving at 07:40.
Best laid plans... The first two thirds of the walk were through farm fields, but I still managed to take a wrong turn and head 15 minutes down a steep, muddy hill. Soon after returning to the trail it turned into a narrow jungle track. I followed it without too much trouble and made it to the bottom. Small side tracks led to various viewpoints from where you could crane your neck up towards the top of the falls far, far above.
It was perhaps due to these side tracks that I found myself on a different trail than I'd come in on as I started to head back. But it was headed in generally the right direction, so I decided to carry on and see if it returned to town. By the time I realized it didn't, it became clear that it must be the trail that followed along the middle of the cliffside from Chinata past Catarata Pabellon and to the roadend and the Yumbilla trail. It was hard, exciting and, until it became certain that it really did go where I expected, slightly nerve wracking work. With the fairy-like Pabellon Falls as a bonus right near the end.
By the time I zipped back down the road to town it was after noon. Thankfully Sarah knows me well enough to have expected that I was up to something of this sort and hadn't been worried.
From Cuispes we found (with a bit of trouble) a Mototaxi back down to Pedro Ruiz. Interestingly, as it's almost entirely unnecessary to use the throttle (and gas) on the way down, the trip this way is half the price!
Sarah had predicted that we'd be hustled onto a bus and she was more or less right. Despite protestations that we wanted to have lunch first, a manic bus company tout convinced us to book a spot on the next minibus heading south, saying we could have lunch across the street while we waited for the rest of the seats to fill up.
Moments after we'd ordered he came rushing in waving and telling us the bus was full and we had to go. We firmly explained that we were staying put and finishing our meal. It took a lot of convincing, but eventually we arranged to be booked on the next bus.
As we were almost done he came rushing in again, but this time we were close enough to done that we paid quickly, ran across the street and were off up the river valley to the village of Huyacoca.
From there we caught another Mototaxi 5km up another climbing gravel road to the village of Cocachimba, once again to visit one of the region's giant waterfalls.
Cocachimba had a much more developed tourist industry than Cuispes. Perhaps half a dozen hotels and hospedajes around the sports field in the middle of town, rounded out with restaurants and bodegas. Rather irritatingly, the third passenger in our Mototaxi insisted on "showing" us to the accommodation we'd already picked and claiming a "commission de hospedaje" and thus increasing the price for us.
Never mind. It was still pretty cheap and our room had a balcony with a view out over the sports field (busy on a Sunday afternoon!) and, if you looked way off to the left, of the huge Gocta Falls.
The views of the falls and the bowl of mountains around Cocachimba made it an even more scenic spot than Cuispes. The residents were similarly friendly. As we walked the short distance to dinner, we had a nice chat with an old lady about home, the weather (it was raining) and what we were up to in Peru. Dinner was worth mentioning... At NZD14 for the two of us it was pricey by Peruvian standards, but Sarah's veggie brochettes and the roasted golden Andean potatoes and yucca and the spicy salsa de aji were simple but absolutely delicious!
Leaving at 06:30, we were the first tourists out on the trail to Gocta the following morning. We left so early partly so as to have the trail to ourselves (which we did) and partly to have the best possible second chance to spot Andean Cocks of the Rock which, despite walking slowly and quietly and constantly peering into the bush to see if that splash of orange was just flowers or something better, I'm sad to say we didn't.
The trail to Gocta went through forest similar to the Yumbilla trail, but also had plenty of farmland (corn, grazing and sugar cane for the presses/stills along the way). It was also much hillier, but much wider and more firmly surfaced. Indeed, we observed that it was easier walking than NZs Great Walks, despite the previous night's heavy rain.
Four kilometres from town and Gocta reappeared, closer up and much louder. A kilometre and a half further and there we were at the thundering feet of the falls. Despite the night's rain having passed for the moment it was impossible to stay dry, even under the cover of the shelter near the viewpoint. The mist from the falls was just that prevalent. After a slow but damp brunch, I walked right down to the edge of the pool at the falls bottom and once again got soaked just before starting our way back up.
We began to see others on the trail about thirty minutes after departing. By the time we were approaching Cocachimba there was a steady stream of guided groups and visitors on horseback decked out in ponchos as a light rain had started again. Having had the trail and falls to ourselves made our early departure seem all worthwhile, even without a CotR sighting.
Interestingly, the large majority of our fellow visitors were Peruvian and greeted us with an "Hola," or "Buenas Dias!" as we passed.
We spent the remainder of the day sitting on our balcony, drinking the final third of a bottle of Cachaça I'd had in my pack since Brazil, eating cheese and plantain chips as we watched the other Gocta hikers dribble back into town.
The next morning we got a lift down to the main road and after about 40 minutes of waiting, found a minibus with two spare seats heading onward to the city of Chachapoyas.
