Kuelap!

Embassy Lima gets both American and Peruvian holidays, so our Labor Day weekend turned into a 4-Day weekend, thanks to St. Rose of Lima! We leaped at the chance to get out of dreary, foggy Lima and find some sun! We decided it was the perfect chance to go to Kuelap- and Dave wouldn't have to take any time off to do so! Kuelap is an ancient fortress in the northern Peruvian mountains from maybe as early as the 700s AD and Dave's wanted to go since he got assigned to Lima. We just never had the chance until now!
However, getting there is no picnic. First, we flew to Chiclayo and saw a (unrelated) ruins around there

and visited a fantastic museum- the Museo Tumbas Reales. The website doesn't give you half an idea of how incredible the collection is (and we weren't allowed to bring cameras), but the place to chock-full of gold artifacts.

From Chiclayo, we took a double-decker bus for 10 hours inland, through the mountains, to Chachapoyas. The way there wasn't too bad because we fell asleep before things got too hairy, thank goodness! (The return trip...not so much.) Chachapoyas was a nice, small town- cold weather but very friendly. We stayed at an adorable hacienda hotel, Casa Vieja (literally, Old House). The flowers were gorgeous!

From Chachas, we still had to drive for 3 hours to get to Kuelap, and then there was about a 30 minute walk!

But it was SO worth it! No travel guide does it justice- extensive ruins, HUGE walls, llamas, and it's practically deserted! We felt like we had the entire place just to ourselves!

We forgot sunscreen, so Dave pretended he was Lawrence of Arabia. I did not. One of us got terribly burnt and regrets that decision.