Duration
6 Days / 5 Nights
Package Type
Cultural
Activity Level
Moderate
Travel specialist
For a long time, the charming northern Peruvian city of Chachapoyas remained relatively isolated from the rest of the country. That has changed in recent years, with the development of regular scheduled flights to Jaén to the northwest, and to Chachapoyas itself. And that’s great news for tourists, because Chachapoyas and the surrounding region are absolutely brimming with manmade and natural attractions.
Our six-day tour will take you to all of the most amazing attractions around Chachapoyas and the Amazonas Region. These include the majestic Gocta Waterfall (one of the tallest in the world), the cliff-face sarcophagi at Karajia, the vast and imposing Kuelap Fortress, the tombs of Revash, and Leymebamba Museum with its hauntingly well-preserved mummies.
We’ll meet you as you arrive at the airport in Jaén*, where we’ll stop for lunch before heading to Chachapoyas by private transport, which takes about four hours, during this beautiful journey we will descend into the Marañon River Valley (the Marañon is a major tributary of the Amazon River) before climbing upwards towards Chachapoyas through the stunning Utcubamba Canyon. About 20 km north of Chachapoyas, we’ll take a side road to the village o...
Our trek to Gocta Waterfall begins right at our hotel door, which is a short walk from the trailhead. The trek passes along the sides of a beautiful cloud-forested valley, passing through the forest where animals, birds and butterflies are found in abundance. If you’re very lucky, you might even spot (or at least hear) a yellow-tailed woolly monkey, mountain sloth or magnificent cock-of-the-rock (the national bird of Peru).
The trail to Gocta is well maintain...
After breakfast we’ll drive back down into the beautiful Utcubamba Canyon before crossing over into the neighboring province of Luya. From the village of Luya we will head to the village of Cruz Pata, where we begin our reasonably short and very scenic walk to Karajia (the walk normally takes about 45 minutes).
When we finally round a bend on the valley side, you’ll see the striking sarcophagi of Karajia standing on ledges on the cliff face above you. T...
In the morning we’ll drive to the village of Tingo where we’ll board the cable car for a fun ride across a canyon up to Kuelap Fortress. After a short walk, we’ll arrive at this hugely impressive archaeological site.
While not nearly as famous as Machu Picchu, Kuelap is arguably just as impressive – that’s why it’s often called “The Machu Picchu of Northern Peru.” The comparison is perhaps a little unfair, as the two ...
Day 2 begins with a scenic two-and-a-half-hour drive through the hills to a small village called Yerbabuena. From here, we walk for two hours uphill to the enchanting site of Revash, a cliff-side funerary complex (alternatively, we can drive you a further 10 km to the village of San Bartolo, from where it’s an easier 30-minute walk to Revash).
Built by the Chachapoya culture around 1200 AD, Revash is different from other funerary sites in the region. Rather t...
On our final day we make the trip from Leymebamba to the beautiful colonial city of Cajamarca. The six-hour drive ranks among the most spectacular in Peru. It begins with an ascent to a mountain pass at 3,600 meters above sea level, overlooking the Marañon Canyon. The road then plunges down to the river, passing through many different ecosystems. We’ll cross the bridge at the valley bottom at 850 meters above sea level, then drive up again to 2,400 meters on the western s...