While still in Ecuador, we received the news that the staff at Machu Picchu had gone on strike because the government had decided to outsource the ticket reservations for the World Heritage Site to a private company, or as one local put it, “The old corrupt rope teams are defending their turf”.
Anyway, we then decided to visit a similarly important World Heritage Site in the north of Peru, the Kuelap Fortress.
The fortress of the Chachapoya people (900 till 1400), which incidentally, like Machu Picchu, was never discovered by the Spanish, is located in the present-day province of Chachapoya and is not easy to reach.
For the details of the history, I refer you to the Internet, as I don’t want to simply write it off at this point.
There was never anywhere near as much money available for Kuelap as there was for Machu Picchu, as you can see. Although a cable car was built in 2017, the path to the fortress at an altitude of 3200 m is very difficult and sometimes very dangerous, especially in rainy weather, as there is a stone floor under the mud.
But it was worth visiting the “Fortress of the Mist Warriors”. The impressive circular buildings were still clearly visible and the wall, up to 20 m high in places, still conveys a feeling of protection and security today.
Once we had made our way back to the cable car, which we had a lot of respect for, without any accidents, we left satisfied.
FRANK KLAUS
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