Road Trip!

Wednesday was my day to drive with Juan from  Chiclayo on the coast over the Andes and into the interior Andean area of Chachapoyas.  We planned 8.5 hours for the trip. Juan knew no English and me no Spanish, so he decided it was a good time to teach me.  It was pretty funny trying to communicate, but, when totally stumped, he just called his son Carlos who could speak English, and he translated remotely for us. When he started “Mr. Daniel,” I knew to pay attention as that session was beginning.

We traveled through a  relatively low Andean 8,000’ pass in the cloud forest, and it was totally in the clouds until we got over the pass.  Beautiful when it did open up.  After some time in a transition zone between the mountains and the Amazonian area, we were back in the mountains.  The road hugged the canyon and it was raining and it had many washouts. (see below.)  And many large trucks and buses.  Finally we were stopped in a very long line due to a closure I guess.  (I was mostly in the dark as even if they told me what was happening, I would not understand.  So, I took photos to while away what became a 2 hour wait.  Imagine a narrow two lane road with a long line of trucks in the correct lane waiting for passage.  It seemed pretty clear to me that the left lane would be needed by the trucks and buses coming from the other direction, right? Well, all of the small cars and such pulled around the truck line and took over the left lane so that there were two full lanes going uphill, and no lane for the downhill traffic when it came through.  No one seemed to think of this until that group arrived looking to get past all of us. So a mad scramble to try to get the cars off the road which was treacherously slide prone, and a sea of muck.  With a  raging river 100’ or so directly below us.  So after two hours of this comedic crisis, we did get though only to hit another wash out literally less than a mile down the road.  Same total story, same 2 hour wait. The only added excitement was that our stopping place in the line was on a  dirt re-graded stretch where the main avalanche had happened yesterday I believe. So we sat there looking up to about 600’ of washed out cliff with lots more dirt to come if it wanted to. Even my driver was a bit freaked out at needing to park there. I, brave soul that I am, abandoned the car and walked back to a seemingly safer area to wait.  So, again, all of the cars got into the left lane and again, it was not possible for the traffic to pass.  This time there were cops and they were screaming and waving and carrying on trying to clear a lane. So, we moved off the road into the muck and that much closer to the raging river below.  Even after we passed, it was very treacherous with all of the rocks in the road and areas where ½ the road had washed away.  So, after 12 hours, well into darkness, we found the 4 mile dirt road up to the Gocta Lodge.