Intro
I’m sitting on a Virgen del Carmen bus right now, the engine vibrating through the floorboards as we start the long crawl back to Cajamarca. After weeks of grinding up 1,000-meter climbs on the bike, today was a different kind of verticality—one where the engineering was either high-tensile steel cables or limestone blocks hauled up a ridge a millennium ago. The sky over the Chachapoyas market this morning was an indecisive grey-blue, but the air smelled of steamed corn husks and the promise of a clear window at 3,000 meters.
The 4km Flight
- Breakfast was a functional affair at the market: two humitas, a portion of creamed rice with morrocho, and a dense slab of what the baker called ‘pudding’ cake. I packed the leftovers into my bag, hoping for a second breakfast with a view, then walked to the Kuelap bus station. I spent ten minutes reading technical fact sheets about Peru’s first Teleferico. For a cyclist used to earning every meter of elevation through sweat and gear-grinding, the idea of turning a 35-kilometer dirt road slog into a four-kilometer aerial transit felt like cheating, but I wasn’t about to argue with the physics of a cable car.
- The ride was a mechanical marvel. The cabins dropped into the Tingo river canyon with a sudden lurch before the rhythmic thrum-thrum of the cable passing the towers began. We rose 1,000 meters in minutes, the valley floor shrinking into a green ribbon while the massive limestone perimeter of the fortress grew on the ridge above. It’s a strange sensation to bypass the physical struggle of an ascent, arriving at the trailhead with fresh legs and a clear head.
The Limestone Labyrinth
- I reached the narrow stone staircase of Kuelap at 9:15 AM. Without a paper map, I relied on a digital download to navigate the site, which is dominated by massive round buildings. The scale of the engineering here is staggering; the outer walls rise up to 20 meters in places, a sheer face of hand-cut stone that makes the surrounding mountains look almost soft. I spent an hour tracing the rough texture of the limestone friezes—zig-zags and rhomboids that broke up the monotony of the grey rock.
- The clouds were the real architects of the mood. They rolled through the ruins in thick banks, obscuring the 20-meter ritual circle and then revealing it seconds later. When I read about a central hole in that building where they found many human bones the air turning cold and damp against my skin. When I tried to pull out my humitas for that second breakfast, a guard shut me down immediately—no eating on the site. I did a second lap instead, meeting a US motorcyclist named Haack. We walked the perimeter slowly, comparing his engine-driven travel to my pedal-powered grind, speculating on how the Chachapoya managed to move these millions of cubic feet of stone without wheels or pulleys.
The Blueprint in the Dust
- On the hike back toward the teleferico, I found a full-scale replica of a Chachapoya round house. It was the missing piece of the puzzle. Seeing the three-meter walls topped with a four-meter conical thatched roof explained the verticality of the ruins. Inside, the floor was a lesson in ancient utility: bunk beds built onto stone pedestals and a deep hole in the center, covered by a heavy flat stone. It was cramped, dark, and smelled of dry grass, a stark contrast to the sprawling scale of the fortress outside.
- The transition back to modern logistics was jarring. After the interpretation center, Haack and I took the teleferico back down and I retrieved my bags from JJ’s hotel in Nuevo Tingo. JJ gave me the local lowdown on getting to Leimebamba, and I opted for the old-school route: hiking down the steep stairs to Viejo Tingo. The old village is a ghost of its former self, mostly abandoned after river flooding decades ago. I sat on a stone wall for 90 minutes, playing chess on my phone and scratching out notes while waiting for a minivan to appear from the dust.
The Night Transit
- The minivan finally pulled in at 5:40 PM, and we spent the next two hours winding through the darkening valley to Leimebamba. By the time we arrived at 7:30 PM, the temperature had plummeted. I found a local spot for a bowl of caldo gallina—hot, salty, and exactly what I needed to reset. For dessert, I wandered into Shuntos Cafe. The name is a play on ‘juntos,’ and they do everything by hand. I had a hot chocolate that came completely unsweetened, so I took a minute or so to get adjusted to the bittery taste, paired with a piece of handmade cake and fig ice cream.
- The day ended on the curb of the Plaza de las Armas. I brushed my teeth in the shadows of the square, watching the locals drift home. The Virgen del Carmen bus was 45 minutes late, but when the headlights finally cut through the mountain mist, I didn’t mind the delay. I climbed aboard, found my seat, and felt the familiar vibration of the diesel engine. We’re heading back to Cajamarca through the night, the high walls of Kuelap now just a dark memory somewhere above the clouds.
Overnight
I am spending the night on the Virgen del Carmen bus, transit-style, in a reclining seat somewhere on the winding road between Leimebamba and Cajamarca.
Reflection
A 4km cable car ride is significantly more efficient than a 35km dirt road climb, but it makes the arrival feel unearned.