There are two truisms when travelling in South America: the best time to visit smaller cities and towns is during their festivities, and that half the fun of the trip is simply getting there. The last time I had a chance to travel outside of Lima, both things proved true once again.
After reading the article in the August issue about the wonders of Chachapoyas (a small city in the department of Amazonas) my father and I decided to travel there to take in the annual celebration in honor of the city´s patron, the Virgin Asunta.
Travelers setting out from Lima usually get to Chachapoyas one of three ways: they either fly to Chiclayo or Tarapoto by bus or by plane, then make the last leg by bus or car, or they take a direct bus from Lima. Since we both new Chiclayo well, we decided to fly into Tarapoto, where we planned to stay overnight and spend some time exploring the area.
Tarapoto is a bustling commercial city that buzzes with the whine of ubiquitous "moto-taxis." This is “The City of Palm Trees,” and the nearby jungle scenery is spectacular, but there are few traditional tourist attractions in the city itself. Hop a taxi though and you can reach the nearby town of Lamas in 20-minutes. Lamas offers tourists a couple of simple museums, a lookout, and a somewhat surreal, soon-to-be finished home patterned after a medieval castle, complete with hulking gargoyles and towers. We met several gawking locals who were dumbfounded that an Italian tobacco magnate from Tarapoto had chosen their sleepy town to build his dream home.
From Tarapoto, we shared a ride in a collective taxi that took us to our next stop, Moyabamba, the orchid capital of Peru and home to thermal baths, botanical gardens and impressive scenic overlooks. While this is a very old city, unfortunately much of the colonial architecture has been destroyed by earthquakes over the years.
After spending the night in a comfortable hotel, we clambered aboard a respectable-looking bus the next day that quickly filled up with mostly young couples trailing small children. In fact, the atmosphere was so festive, I almost did not worry when I saw the driver and his assistant begin to load bundles of timber onto the roof, raising the bus´s center of gravity with every added kilo. That same week there had been a rash of highway accidents involving buses, so the next couple hours were a little tense as the bus careened around corners along a highway that hugged the mountainside overlooking some of the deepest valleys I have seen. Tension aside, the landscape was absolutely breathtaking.
We hopped off the bus in the town of Pedro de Ruiz in the midst of a refreshing cloud burst, where we contracted a collectivo to take us the last 50 kilometers to Chachapoyas. After three days and two nights, we had reached our destination.
Founded in 1538, Chachapoyas is one of the oldest colonial cities in Peru. The name derives from the native word “chachpoyacuno,” which means cloud covered mountain, and in colonial times it was the starting point for many expeditions sent to explore and eventually conquer the Amazon. Chachapoyas is home to 20,000 people, and a walk down the streets is like a walk into history, since there are a great number of colonial homes, many sporting balconies and hiding large interior patios. The current mayor is a German-born archaeologist who was drawn to the region by the amount of pre-Hispanic remains in the region. The best-known of these is the fortress of Kuelap, Revach and the “Laguna del Condor”.
ACAP author Jim Rudolph wrote about the archaeological wonders of the region in the August edition of this magazine, so I will limit myself to describing what we had come to see: the Virgen Asunta patronal festival, held every year in mid-august. It is probably the most important festival of the year here, and seems to involve much of the population in one celebration or another.
One event we really enjoyed - partly because it was such a surprise - was a fashion show hosted by Cáritas, which is the economic development arm of the Catholic Church. This annual event is obviously a favorite since hundreds of people turned up to fill the large auditorium. The local parish priest opened the event with a speech where he lauded the people involved in the organization and lambasted all the people who had shown-up late, causing the event to start one-half hour late. “How can we expect to advance if we cannot show up on time?" was the recurring theme of his message that received a somewhat grudging applause.
The fashion show was great fun to watch, since the models were all kids from ages 4 to 18. The youngest ones got “oohs” & “ahs” just on the basis of being so darn cute as they strode up and down the catwalk. The tension rose a notch when the teenagers sashayed in front of a hometown crowd loaded with friends and family who celebrated their every faux-pas with good-natured giggles and whistles. For us tourists, it was an opportunity to take part in a very warm community event.
The next day, around noon, we took in a bread festival in the "Plaza de Armas," which included temporary stalls with bakers selling mountains of delicious buns and biscuits. Then, a little later, there was a competition between bakeries which competed to build the most attractive voto, which is best described as a food sculpture built out of bread, fruit and cooked meats. Anybody who cared to could line up and cast their vote for the winner.
In the evening, for two nights in a row, we were treated to a traditional fireworks show. Unlike the Canadian or American tradition of detonating the fireworks hundreds of meters high in the air, these fireworks were attached to bamboo towers known as castillos that were built four stories high on the grass in the Plaza de Armas. The fireworks start detonating at the bottom of the tower and move up a bit at a time, until reaching a visual crescendo at the top. Each tower took at least 15 minutes to finish. The fireworks were used to propel spinning wheels and other moving figures on the tower. On a couple occasions, these wheels went blasting off into the air, only to crash down on the crowd below who reveled in the adventure. The whole display was absolutely beautiful.
During the course of the week, local restaurants provided special buffets of regional cuisine, there were concerts of music and dance, beauty contests and art shows. All these activities, mixed together with daily excursions to the nearby archaeological sites, made our one-week journey to Chachapoyas one of the best and most interesting trips I have had the pleasure to make in Peru. If you get the chance to travel next year, consider Chachapoyas in August!
