Into the Wilderness Again

Tomorrow I´m heading out for a four-day excursion (by car, foot, horse, foot and car again) to visit some remote areas of Northern Peru, including some ruins practically no tourists go to see. This time I´m going with a group, and there´s some controversy about the price. Apparently one of the four in the group is paying significantly more than the rest of us, and the organizer asked me to please lie to her if she asks me how much I paid. I told him I wouldn´t do that, and that he should instead give her some of her money back. This sent him into quite a flurry of insecurity, during which time he actually tried to negotiate with me about what price he should give her (I haven´t even met her yet). We´ll see how it turns out. When I get back I embark on a day-long journey to the Ecuadorian border. I´m hoping to be able to go part of the way on the back of a truck, preferably a fruit or vegetable truck...I´ll keep you posted.

By the way, as soon as I got here (at 5 this morning!), I could tell there was no malaria risk. It´s quite cold (the mosquitoes would definitely die at night) and the landscape is very dry. I asked some locals and they said "malaria? no! we haven´t had a case in 10 years!" It just goes to show how little those big-city coastal folks know about the countryside. It does actually underline the differences I noticed in my quick trip up the coast, spending one day each in the cities of Trujillo and Chiclayo, on the way up here. Those places are much more modern, with lots of shopping, movie theaters, interesting restaurants (fantastic fruit-and-yogurt shops in both places!) and hardly one person to be found wearing traditional clothing. Chachapoyas itself is also relatively modern, but small, and things definitely run at a different pace up here in the mountains. Tonight I joined the locals for the evening stroll around the main square. I think the entire town population is out there, though mostly young people, just wandering around and chatting. It´s a very nice and cozy way to end the day.