October 3, 2011
Well I get up at 5am on Monday morning and pack my stuff and shower before heading out to catch my 6:15am bus bound for Zumba. The whole place where I am staying is pitch black with no lights on so as I am carrying my luggage and have to carefully feel my way with my feet in the dark since I know there are steps all around this little compound where I am staying. I see the people beside me have their lights on and are busy packing and can only assume they are taking the same bus as myself. They are an older Austrian couple and I meet them at the bus stop. The bus arrives and we pile on and there is no room for my second suitcase so they bring it onto the bus and put it into the bathroom and I take my seat right beside it to keep a watch on it. While I am at the back of the bus I meet a guy named Eugene from Alaska who is traveling with his girlfriend Megan.
We chat for a bit and realize we have the same itinerary route to Chachapoyas then on to Tarapoto and then Yurimaguas where we plan to get a cargo boat to Iquitos which take 3-4 days and after that our routes change as they plan to fly to Lima and I will be making my way to Cuzco and Bolivia. From what I had read in my guidebook and the lonely planet site is that this route through the La Balsa border crossing into Peru is a very uncommon route and off the beaten path for most travelers and it suggests spending a night in San Ignacio Peru before heading onto Chachapoyas but Eugene tells me that he met an Australian couple in Vilcabamba that did the whole trip in a day so we decide to do that and save a day of traveling and just do it all in the same day.
The bus ride from Vilcabamba to Zumba takes 5 1/2 hours. It is a dirt road all the way as the bus winds around the mountains and it seems we are going west to east and a little south before winding west to east again the whole way there. There are small little villages along the way where we stop and pick up and drop off passengers. We get to Zumba at 11:40am and there is another young European couple looking to go to Peru as well along with the Austrian couple but they decide they will wait the 3 hours to take a cheaper ranchera which is $2US each so the 3 of us (Eugene, Megan, and Myself) jump in a pickup taxi for $6US each and head to the border where after 40 minutes of driving we come to a border check where they take our passports and then give them back and we travel for another 30 minutes before we get to the Ecuador/Peru border. These border crossings aren't too fancy. Just a little office with one guy who stamps us out of Ecuador and we go over and exchange our US dollars for Peruvian soles and we get the going rate which is around 2.75soles for $1US. We cross a bridge by foot with our luggage to the Peruvian side and there is 6 of us gringos waiting to get our entrance stamp and there is no one there and we have to wait 20 minutes it seems before the guy shows up and after we fill in our entry cards he tells us we have to walk 100 meters to another building to get stamped in and our data entered into a computer and then after getting stamped in we have to walk back 100 meters to the original building and finish the paper work. Eugene and I comment how inefficient this is and why doesn't the guy just put his office by the other guys office (since there is lots of room) instead of having us do a relay race back and forth. It is boiling hot and we are all sweating profusely.
A German fellow who speaks spanish and the 2 Austrians take a collectivo (shared taxi) and the 3 of us take another collectivo for $7US each for a 1 1/2 hour winding ride to San Ignacio Peru. There is only 3 collectivos and one guy has said $20US for the trip and the other 2 say $25US so we go with the cheapest since we don't have much of a choice and I am sure all these collectivo drivers are buddies anyhow the way they were talking to each other. He drops us off at another collectivo stop in San Ignacio but we have to take a motorcycle taxi to another collectivo stop that goes to Jaen Peru which is the direction we are heading. There is no just getting onto a bus that says "Chachapoyas" and it being that simple since you have to go city to city in a separate collectivo that serves that route so the motorcycle taxi drops us off and we take a 2 1/4 hour collectivo from San Ignacio to Jaen and the guy drops us off where we now have to take another motorcycle taxi to the right collectivo stop which goes from Jaen to Bagu Grande and we get a collectivo from there which takes an hour and before this guy drops us off and we have to repeat this motorcycle taxi route I tell him to drop us off at the Chachapoyas collectivo stop and save us this motorcycle taxi trip which he does. It is 7:30pm and it is dark in Bagu Grande and we have to wait for a 4th person before these collectivos will leave and we want to arrive in Chachapoyas at a decent hour so we agree to pay for the 4th person and it takes 2 1/4 hours to get to Chachapoyas.
As we are driving from Bagu Grande to Chachapoyas it seems we are driving through a crack in the mountains as there are sheer cliffs straight up on both sides of the road. We get dropped off near the town square where there are a few places to crash and we stay at the Amazon hotel. Very basic rooms for $10US.
So the whole journey took us 16 hours (6am-10pm) and we were very tired by the time we arrived. The German and Austrian couple decided to stay the night in San Ignacio and make the trip to Chachapoyas tomorrow (What a bunch of rookies LOL!). This morning I had clean clothes and by the time we made it to Chachapoyas my clothes were filthy from all the dust and sweat and my hair was matty with knotts so we were all looking forward to a hot shower upon arrival to Chachapoyas. I am going to check out the town tomorrow and then make plans to see the pre-Incan site "Kuelap" the following day.
Over and out.
Well I get up at 5am on Monday morning and pack my stuff and shower before heading out to catch my 6:15am bus bound for Zumba. The whole place where I am staying is pitch black with no lights on so as I am carrying my luggage and have to carefully feel my way with my feet in the dark since I know there are steps all around this little compound where I am staying. I see the people beside me have their lights on and are busy packing and can only assume they are taking the same bus as myself. They are an older Austrian couple and I meet them at the bus stop. The bus arrives and we pile on and there is no room for my second suitcase so they bring it onto the bus and put it into the bathroom and I take my seat right beside it to keep a watch on it. While I am at the back of the bus I meet a guy named Eugene from Alaska who is traveling with his girlfriend Megan.
We chat for a bit and realize we have the same itinerary route to Chachapoyas then on to Tarapoto and then Yurimaguas where we plan to get a cargo boat to Iquitos which take 3-4 days and after that our routes change as they plan to fly to Lima and I will be making my way to Cuzco and Bolivia. From what I had read in my guidebook and the lonely planet site is that this route through the La Balsa border crossing into Peru is a very uncommon route and off the beaten path for most travelers and it suggests spending a night in San Ignacio Peru before heading onto Chachapoyas but Eugene tells me that he met an Australian couple in Vilcabamba that did the whole trip in a day so we decide to do that and save a day of traveling and just do it all in the same day.
The bus ride from Vilcabamba to Zumba takes 5 1/2 hours. It is a dirt road all the way as the bus winds around the mountains and it seems we are going west to east and a little south before winding west to east again the whole way there. There are small little villages along the way where we stop and pick up and drop off passengers. We get to Zumba at 11:40am and there is another young European couple looking to go to Peru as well along with the Austrian couple but they decide they will wait the 3 hours to take a cheaper ranchera which is $2US each so the 3 of us (Eugene, Megan, and Myself) jump in a pickup taxi for $6US each and head to the border where after 40 minutes of driving we come to a border check where they take our passports and then give them back and we travel for another 30 minutes before we get to the Ecuador/Peru border. These border crossings aren't too fancy. Just a little office with one guy who stamps us out of Ecuador and we go over and exchange our US dollars for Peruvian soles and we get the going rate which is around 2.75soles for $1US. We cross a bridge by foot with our luggage to the Peruvian side and there is 6 of us gringos waiting to get our entrance stamp and there is no one there and we have to wait 20 minutes it seems before the guy shows up and after we fill in our entry cards he tells us we have to walk 100 meters to another building to get stamped in and our data entered into a computer and then after getting stamped in we have to walk back 100 meters to the original building and finish the paper work. Eugene and I comment how inefficient this is and why doesn't the guy just put his office by the other guys office (since there is lots of room) instead of having us do a relay race back and forth. It is boiling hot and we are all sweating profusely.
A German fellow who speaks spanish and the 2 Austrians take a collectivo (shared taxi) and the 3 of us take another collectivo for $7US each for a 1 1/2 hour winding ride to San Ignacio Peru. There is only 3 collectivos and one guy has said $20US for the trip and the other 2 say $25US so we go with the cheapest since we don't have much of a choice and I am sure all these collectivo drivers are buddies anyhow the way they were talking to each other. He drops us off at another collectivo stop in San Ignacio but we have to take a motorcycle taxi to another collectivo stop that goes to Jaen Peru which is the direction we are heading. There is no just getting onto a bus that says "Chachapoyas" and it being that simple since you have to go city to city in a separate collectivo that serves that route so the motorcycle taxi drops us off and we take a 2 1/4 hour collectivo from San Ignacio to Jaen and the guy drops us off where we now have to take another motorcycle taxi to the right collectivo stop which goes from Jaen to Bagu Grande and we get a collectivo from there which takes an hour and before this guy drops us off and we have to repeat this motorcycle taxi route I tell him to drop us off at the Chachapoyas collectivo stop and save us this motorcycle taxi trip which he does. It is 7:30pm and it is dark in Bagu Grande and we have to wait for a 4th person before these collectivos will leave and we want to arrive in Chachapoyas at a decent hour so we agree to pay for the 4th person and it takes 2 1/4 hours to get to Chachapoyas.
As we are driving from Bagu Grande to Chachapoyas it seems we are driving through a crack in the mountains as there are sheer cliffs straight up on both sides of the road. We get dropped off near the town square where there are a few places to crash and we stay at the Amazon hotel. Very basic rooms for $10US.
So the whole journey took us 16 hours (6am-10pm) and we were very tired by the time we arrived. The German and Austrian couple decided to stay the night in San Ignacio and make the trip to Chachapoyas tomorrow (What a bunch of rookies LOL!). This morning I had clean clothes and by the time we made it to Chachapoyas my clothes were filthy from all the dust and sweat and my hair was matty with knotts so we were all looking forward to a hot shower upon arrival to Chachapoyas. I am going to check out the town tomorrow and then make plans to see the pre-Incan site "Kuelap" the following day.
Over and out.
