COD: PUB-1108 CHACHAPOYAS ADVENTURE
3d/2n
This tour starts and ends in Chiclayo
All year
Legends say the Chachapoyans were tall fair skin warriors, and they built their fortified cities on top mountains all over the mysterious Dept. of Amazonas. This trip (segment) offers Americas’ largest & most mysterious fortress, with soaring stonewalls inside of walls, built to stop the advance of an empire. You will also see the 2nd largest fortress and the Inca Military Garrison guarding the empire’s major crossroads. Walk downhill on perhaps the Inca’s best un-restored highway. This trip offers the world’s driest desert and thousands of mini-ecological zones with natives, plants and animals adapted to each extreme. No other zone offers Americas’ greatest varieties and most advanced ancient Indian culture. --- Optional extra day, leave by Tarapoto with trekking and boating in the Amazon rainforest.
Day 1 Chachapoyas – Huancas-Levanto Bus station pick up service in Chachapoyas and transfer to hotel to rest. We will pick you up at 8:30 a.m. and start with the visit to Huancas and Sonche Canon, Huancas was an Inca Mitima village, (the residents were transplants from Huanuco in the Inca heartland to pacify the rebellious Cloud People.) Huancas main business is making pottery since ancient times, providing for the entire zone. After lunch we will visit Levanto (one hour from Chachapoyas). Levanto was the most significant city of the zone at the time of the Inca invasion and also in the Spanish colonial era. We will see a colonial church as old as Lima with its high-carved altar. We will go to the fortified ruins of Yalape overlooking the city. Nearby is Colla Cruz, this was a major crossroads of the empire's roads with over 2000 miles of major roads going north to Ecuador & Colombia, south to Huanuco and Cuzco, and west to Cajamarca (where the Inca was captured), and east to the Amazon. We will see the Inca Military Garrison guarding this intersection. This is the zone's first restoration, which revealed a major defeat of the Incas by the Cloud people in the revolution against the Spanish. Night in Levanto MS Lodge high in the mountains. (L, D)
Day 2 Inca Trail Levanto – Choctamal Inca Trail to Chachapoyas (3 hours downhill), lunch in Chachapoyas and night in Choctamal Marvelous Spatuletail Lodge located in the road to Kuelap, where you can observe hummingbirds, specially the Marvelous Spatuletail hummingbird and variety of orchids. (B, L, D)
Day 3 Fortress Kuelap After breakfast we will travel by car for 35 minutes from Choctamal MS Lodge to Kuelap. The fortress of Kuelap was re-discovery in 1843 by Juan Crisostomo Nieto, and is precariously perched on a mountain ridge (about 3000m) overlooking the Utcubamba Valley. Kuelap has over four hundred buildings inside 3 levels of walls, it is roughly 20 m hight, 600 meters in length and 110 meters in width and is known as the largest stone structure in the Americas. Orchids and bromeliads cover the walls and trees inside this fortress. Inside there are remains of many small round houses, some of them with a zigzag or diamond pattern in their terraces. Archaeological evidence shows that the structure was started before 800 AD. Transfer to Chachapoyas bus station for your night bus to Chiclayo. (B, L)
RATES: 2 paxes USD p.p. 567
4 paxes or more USD p.p. 486
Single Supplement: USD 66
THE TOUR INCLUDES: All entrance fees
Meals where noted in the program
All transportation specified in the program
Transfer between cities (public bus)
Hotels specified in the program
Bilingual guide
Bus Tickets
NOT INCLUDED: Alcoholic beverages
Horses
Airport taxes
Internal flights (we can provide upon request)
Gratuities
PS. IF YOU WANT PRIVATE TRANSFERS BETWEEN CITIES LET US KNOW
