Even though Balsas is in the middle of the Andes the temperatures may rise up to 35\u00b0C with results in a great number of mosquitoes and some kind of miniature flies that bite. The reason why the temperature is that different from the rest of the Andes is because the village is situated in a plain surrounded by two mountain chains which also makes its vegetation a bit different. That way you can easily see palm trees and cacti growing side by side.<\/p>\n
The time in Balsas flows just like the river that passes through it \u2013 slowly. The village would wake up from its dream once a day when a couple of cars or vans would drive through on their way from Celendin to Chachapoyas: in those couple of minutes all the locals would offer their products to the passengers hoping to earn few soles<\/em>. Once again, there was no the area of competition.<\/p>\n There was only one hospedaje<\/em> in the entire village, the cheapest one we\u2019d been into in the entire Peru. Although we\u2019d been told that there was a toilet with the room, we hadn\u2019t been told that it was at the other part of the village: there were two squat toilets and two showering cabins and almost half of the village comes to take a pee or poop, take a shower, do the laundry and stuff like that. It was an excellent opportunity to hang out with the locals.<\/p>\n All in all, it is a nice little place. The kids would play Hopscotch, and Maria and I joined them (and beat them, muhahaha!) and with the arrival of the night older crew would come and play volleyball. Even though in Peru people are really short (when compared to them Maria is tall, that says a lot) they are crazy about volleyball. And they\u2019re really good; in fact, they were that good that I didn\u2019t dare to join them and I\u2019d like to think of myself as a pretty good volleyball player.<\/p>\n By a pure chance we spent the following night in Balsas: we were headed towards Chachapoyas by hitchhiking<\/a><\/strong> and a father and a son, who were in the first car that pulled over, pointed at a van that was parked some twenty meters in front of us that was waiting for the people to get in. We said that we\u2019d prefer if we could go with them and asked them if they could, por favor<\/em>, give us a ride. They were okay with that so we hopped in a car that wasn\u2019t in such a great state and observed the father teaching his under-aged son how to drive.<\/p>\n An hour later, when we arrived to the village where they dropped us off, we asked the father to show us which road we were supposed to take. We were a bit taken aback when he showed us the same road we took to get there. We didn\u2019t believe him so we asked another by-passer and he repeated the same thing. In order to get to Chachapoyas we had to go back to Balsas and take a different road from the one we\u2019d taken. Wonderful.<\/p>\n But hey, we had enough time. The only problem was that there didn\u2019t seem to be absolutely anyone going to Balsas except for few vans that were supposed to leave at 4 pm, the following day. So, all we could do was sit on a crossroads and wait. We did all kinds of things during the following few hours: we chatted with the local ladies who invited us to go for a dip in a river, we observed a few chickens with really strange haircuts and Mare even had enough time to pluck out some leg hair.<\/p>\n And just as we were ready to give up on every hope and started thinking about spending the night in that place whose name we didn\u2019t even know, a truck passed by: the driver agreed on giving us a ride in the side-truck with a woman and her three children. We were again on our way to Balsas.<\/p>\n Ten minutes before we were supposed to arrive I felt a strange aroma; at the same time I heard the voice of upset mother \u2013 her youngest kid, a boy, threw up all over her. Since Maria was right next to her she got a bit on herself, too. However, she remained calm and even offered the upset mother some tissues she had with herself and used a few to clean herself. The scene reminded me of my first ride in an Indian train when I got peed on, and bled on my feet, but I didn\u2019t mention anything to Maria. I didn\u2019t think she was up for a talk. I was right.<\/p>\n The following day we informed a bit and found out that there wouldn\u2019t be a single vehicle passing through the village before 2 pm because the road leading to the village was closed. So, we ate some ice cream and played Hopscotch with the girls. There were other people waiting for the transportation and all of them were patient and seemed careless. They were completely different from the people in the occidental countries where if someone is a bit late or if there is a change in a schedule people instantly throw a tantrum. They\u2019re always in a hurry. Here a man can learn how to be patient.<\/p>\n Finally, a few vehicles did pass by and we chose a bus that was supposed to take us to Tingo, a small village with six houses at its best, but it was famous for one thing: it was the place where the climb to Kuelap, Machu Picchu of the north<\/em>, began. In the bus we noticed a new activity we hadn\u2019t ran into before \u2013 the conductor gave the each passenger a plastic bag. At first we didn\u2019t know why, but when we started going up we realized there were curves every ten metres followed by the sound of our passengers\u2019 throwing up \u2013 that was what the plastic bags were for.<\/p>\n We arrived to Tingo before sunset and in the following morning we started climbing up. At the beginning we were accompanied by a dog and, obviously, it wasn\u2019t the first time for it to go up \u2013 he accompanied us all the way to the top, running along for the full three hours and showing us the way. At the top he rested with us, dozed off a bit and went back on its own. What a dog.<\/p>\n Even though many people said that Kuelap was \u201cMachu Picchu of the north\u201d we were more impressed by the climb and the view from the top than by the complex itself. The complex was built in 6th<\/sup> century at 3000 meters above sea level: its importance lies in the fact that it is the place built by the people who lived there before the Incas and not many things are known about them.<\/p>\n A bunch of rocks, the remains of 400 smaller houses, walls. I\u2019m sure the place is rich in history. The tourist expert in me (I have a degree to prove it!) would do up a few houses so the people who come to visit it could see how it all looked back in the time, just like they did with one and only Machu Picchu. Or they could promote Kuelap as \u2013 the ruins that aren\u2019t that special but the climb and the view are outstanding.<\/em><\/p>\n But, that\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n And this is just a llama, our first one in Peru.<\/p>\n We got down, also on foot, took our backpacks and stuck out our thumbs. Since there weren\u2019t many cars, and since we spotted a few local people doing the same thing, but the difference was that they were paying for a ride, it was time we\u2019d changed our tactics.<\/p>\n Given the fact that the public transportation in that part of the country wasn\u2019t very good and it wasn\u2019t that regular – everyone hitchhiked. It was the most normal thing to do. Just like in Africa. They would stand by the road, and wave their palms moving them up and down signalizing them the cars that were passing to pull over. And they did, giving them a ride to their destination, and charging them the same amount of money as a bus or a van would. Fair enough.<\/p>\n So we decided to join them. We felt a bit awkward being the only ones asking for a ride to the following town and not being willing to pay for the ride, especially since the local people perceived us as those who have more than they did. In the occidental part of the world, where we were seen as beggars and loafers, it wasn\u2019t a problem to tag along, but here the rules were quite different. If someone agreed on giving us a ride for free, which, in fact, had happened a few times, it would be great. If they wanted to charge us, it wouldn\u2019t be a great problem to give them a few coins.<\/p>\n Soon a car pulled over and gave us a lift to Chachapoyas: he charged us just as much he would if we were local. In Chachapoyas, after an exhausting day in which we\u2019d walked for more than twenty kilometres, we found a cosy room, took all of our clothes to do the washing and, finally, treated ourselves to a dinner in one of many Chifas<\/em> in the town \u2013 Chinese restaurants that, in some parts of the town, outnumbered the local ones.<\/p>\n During the following days we passed through a couple of towns in order to get to Yurimaguas, the last point on the land: if you wanted to go further you needed to take a boat.<\/p>\n On our way to Yurimaguas we noticed the change both in environment and climate: from the hilly and grey sierra<\/em> we slowly worked our way to the green and hot selva<\/em>. We saw ayahuasca<\/em> and San Pedro<\/em> being sold at the markets \u2013 two plants that had been used for centuries for medical reasons and since they have strong effect and may even cause hallucinations they are very appealing to the tourists….but, you\u2019ll hear more about it in the next post on my blog. In the restaurants we got to know another specialty in Peru \u2013 guinea pig. Interesting country, this Peru.<\/p>\n We didn\u2019t stay long in the cities, which wasn\u2019t very common in my journeys, and we usually spent the time in the ho(s)tel rooms. I\u2019ve noticed that my way of travelling has changed significantly since I\u2019ve arrived in South America. There are a couple of reasons for this. CouchSurfing<\/a><\/strong> doesn\u2019t function here very much. It\u2019s very rare, even rarer than in Africa, where you can always count on the volunteers from different occidental countries or on an ambitious local person who wants to show you the beauty of his\/her city and country. The situation is a bit different here, except in the big cities like Lima, while in the tourist cities you can only count on a host who will try to sell you a tourist tour.<\/p>\n The second reason for my change of style is – I\u2019m not travelling on my own. On my previous journeys my priority was to get to know myself better, but also get to know the local people and hang out with them. And now, there is always a person next to me, the person I\u2019ve met only eighteen days before leaving at the other part of the world. And I had to get to know her. And her ways of preparing a meal in a closet.<\/p>\n![\"117\"](\"https:\/\/tomislavperko.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/1172.jpg\")
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