Monday, January 13. Chachapoyas to Gocta Falls. We had a reasonable breakfast in a lovely setting and left soon after 8:30 am to see a fantastic canyon .
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Canyon Huancas Sonche
The best known of the canyons is Sonche, which is about 1 km from the centre of Huancas village. After paying the minimal entrance fee at the small information centre, you then walk to a lookout tower, five minutes away.
The lookout tower had views down to the river and the waterfalls were truly wondrous.
The Sonche Canyon is almost 11 kilometers long, the highest point of its walls is 2620 meters above sea level, and the canyon is 900 meters deep.
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A quick tour of Chachapoyas
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A visit to the market at Chachapoyas. I used the RayBan camera to get the photos
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Then we made our way to the sarcophagi at Karajia.
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Karajia Sarcophagi
The Sarcophagi of Karajía are unique in their genre for their large size, up to 2.50 m high, for their careful making, and, for the fact that they were remained practically intact because of their location atop a ravine of difficult access. They have been radiocarbon dated to the 15th century, coincident with the Inca conquest of the Chachapoya in the 1470s. The sarcophagi are of a type particular to the Chachapoya called purunmachus. The construction is painted white and overlaid with details of the body and adornment in yellow ochre and two red pigments, such as the feathered tunics and male genitalia visible on the Karajía purunmachus. Often the solid clay head will have a second, smaller head atop it. The purunmachus of Karajía are unique because of the human skulls that sit atop their heads, visible in the photograph
I had been in two minds as to whether to try to walk to these as Julio had said it was long steep climb , but we had read on the Internet that it did not seem quite so bad. However, at the last moment I said I would try as it and was not nearly so difficult as I had thought. There was a long walk down to get below the sarcophagi. Julio had bought his telescope and I was able to see six sarcophagi in great detail through it. He then proceeded further along a more difficult track to see these from another angle. Then the long haul upwards back to the village, but there were several seats along the way, and I was able to manage this without too much trouble. The sarcophagi themselves were truly wondrous and you could see how they were made from sticks of sugarcane covered in plaster. Two of them had skulls fixed over their heads.
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Then we made our way back to a village where Julio had ordered chicken soup for lunch saying that they made it themselves to a high standard. It was indeed good but the huge lump of chicken contained within it was absolutely tasteless compared to the vegetables in it. By this time it was past four and we then made our way to the Gocta Lodge Hotel where we arrived soon after five
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. We were shown to a super room with a view of the Falls: I reckoned it was the best room for a view in the hotel but it turned out that we had very noisy neighbours. I went for a swim in the pool, which was partly indoors and partly outdoors at a fairly cold temperature which claim to be 26°. Then we went for our free drink over in the hotel which was separate: this turned out to be a Pisco with passion fruit juice , very acceptable. So we sat outside in the café enjoying this as it got dark. Later we went down to dinner in the same place and had an enjoyable meal although the service was somewhat eccentric.