Well I did not have the best nights sleep with this pop concert blaring out all night, neither did Dad for that matter. And whilst the music abruptly finished at 10.30pm (ish), the memory of this awful Peruvian Pop, (a sort of wishy washy lala music with a little Pipes of Pan thrown in for good measure) kept lingering in my ears. How on earth this helped anyone’s re-election campaign, I have no idea - and I could find no one who lived in Cuispes who a good word to be said about it.


Breakfast was quite a banal affair, although when Dad arrived, the host at the guest house kindly made him a special fruit salad so at least he was happy . With a twenty kilometre trek in front of me I need something extra, and so I returned to the family owned restaurant across the square, where the lady speedily cooked me some eggs.


Cuispes was really just a little sleepy mountainside Andean town. It seems that the few tourists who come to the area, really just pass this town by on the way to Chachapoyas, but all of this is surely going to change with the twin discoveries of San Geronimo and the waterfalls which surround the town. Although the area has long been famous for the Gocta Waterfall, which I saw in 2009, it was the discovery of the ones surrounding Cuispes that has garnered so much attention and quite frankly put Gocta in the shade.


Gocta was drawn to the world’s attention by a German expedition in 2005 which ‘discovered’ this tall waterfall of 771m, making it about the 4th or 5th highest in the world (depending on who you believe). It certainly is impressive and when I went some four years later, it was certainly being developed as a major tourist attraction (one to rival Kuelap). However in 2007, researchers from Peru’s National Geographic Institute discovered Yumbilla Waterfall some 50 odd kilometres north of Gocta, towering at an impressive 895.5m high, dwarfing Gocta. Yumbilla is now regarded as the third highest waterfall in the world and is three times the height of the Eiffel Tower . Impressively Yumbilla was not the only ‘discovery’ (locals had known about these waterfalls for millennia), as Chinata Falls (580m) and Pabellon Falls (400m) were also ‘discovered’ in the same year. All these waterfalls are hidden by the curves and contortions of the escarpment. Consequently the local authority is planning an interesting tall waterfall trek along the escarpment joining Gocta and the sleepy town of Cuispes. Surely this will succeed as nowhere in the world (to my knowledge) is there such a concentration of tall waterfalls in close proximity. The region is further blessed by such unique wildlife including Andean parrots, Andean cock-of-the-rock, Spectacled bear, and the very rare Marvellous Spatuletail hummingbird and the endangered Yellow-tailed Wooly Monkey. Another reason, if one was ever needed, to illustrate how special this area is. around Chachapoyas.


At 8.30 am the guide turned up, a wiry looking farmer man in his fifties, who was more than likely a farmer most of the time. He spoke no English, “people don't up here” remarked the man at the guesthouse, and we set off immediately across the square. After the past three hospital visits with Dad, we decided that he should take the day off and he was determined to go to Pedro Ruiz and watch the football, if he could find it on TV.


The guide set a break neck speed up the road towards the mist covered escarpment which overlooked the town . At least the sun was beaming down, I thought, but I did have all my raincoat packed just in case. This first part of the trek was on the dirt roads that climb up to the base of the escarpment. At this time there was a great deal of road construction taking place here. I was under the impression that they were not tarmacking the road but widening it. Certainly with the quantity of rain we had experienced in the last few days, it was actually quite a mess and spectacularly muddy, yet I was getting used to this by now. This first part of the walk lead past small settlements, many fields growing vegetables and some small plots of forest. As the escarpments got closer so did the waterfalls and soon I was able to see quite clearly the Chinata Falls and Pabellon Falls tumbling down the vegetation dominated escarpment. These two smaller ones looked very impressive from this distance, the recent rains having swelled them nicely in this ‘strange’ dry season.


At the top of the road, two tracks lead off in opposite directions, one back towards Chachapoyas past Chinata and Pabellon. The other over a fence into a private part of the forest en route to Yumbilla. The forest was somewhere I also wanted to experience as this private property was one of the few places left to see both the Marvellous Spatuletail hummingbird and the equally rare Yellow tailed Wooly Monkey.


Of course once inside the forest the rain started and this virtually killed off any chance I had of seeing these two animals . The huge canopy thankfully stopped us getting soaked, but we hurried on through. It was a little later on that a group of twenty Peruvian teenagers and two Peace Corps volunteers caught us up. The volunteers knew Rebecca and were off to Pedro after Yumbilla, so I described Dad and told then to go and say hi.


We exited the private forest and rejoined the track from Gocta and walked carefully through the mud en route to Yumbilla. The mud was now where near as thick and slippery as what I had experienced when climbing up to San Geronimo, so that was lucky. Mostly due to the thick canopy.


We encountered another two other tall waterfalls as we skirted around the escarpment. We had to walk around the back of one in amongst the glistening green mould and on the slippery rocks. The Peruvians mostly ran ahead.


Eventually we came to the lookout, from where there was a fabulous view of the bottom cascade as it just dropped out of the cloud forest from a beautiful plunge pool and fell into the foliage below. Wow, this was an awesome sight and eclipsed what I had seen a Gocta - really because of this view point. After several moments enjoying this the guide lead me up over the back to see the top cascade coming down from the escarpment right to where we were standing. The sound, the splashing and scene was quite breathtaking. Unfortunately the rains started again.


We ventured back the way we had come and I suddenly realised that the rains would prevent me from seeing any hummingbirds or Woolies as well. In fact at one point it got so bad that we had to shelter under a large overhanging rock. As we did I noticed some large holes (twice a tennis ball size) in the rock covered with gigantic webs and thick green moss. I pointed at them and said to the guide “tarantula?”. He looked at me quizzically, rolled up his sleeve and suddenly plunged his hand and arm into one hole covered with a large web. He certainly had a good rummage, with this arm obscured past his elbow. He then removed his hand, looked at me, expressionless and said “non”. Obviously not one to mess with I thought.  


The rest of the trek was a washout and I was glad to get back to Cuispes. Dad, I soon found out , had met the peace Corps and had a laugh with them in Pedro Ruiz before getting stranded as the rain was so bad he could not get back up the dirt road back to Cuispes. I was now grateful that I had seen the waterfalls in the sunshine.


With the rain streaming down I stayed in the guesthouse, but that did not stop the music for at 4.00pm it started again, this time much louder. By the time Dad arrived it was horrendous and I went to see the owner of the house where the banks of amplifiers were assembled outside on the Square. He looked at me like I was a moron when I asked him if he could turn it down. The respite lasted all of ten minutes.


It later transpired this would be an all night thing (?) as this was the final Saturday before the election. We were informed that they would break for two hours at 11.00 pm so the candidates could address the people in the Square before continuing until 6.00am or daybreak. As we were having to leave at 4.00am this was all I wanted to hear.


Later a couple from Madrid arrived to stay in the guesthouse and they were also perplexed by this racket, as were the guesthouse owner, the restaurant owners, the shop owners (in fact everyone we asked). I have travelled in Peru before during elections and it is noisy, but this was the worst experience and the music did seem to be noticeable louder than the previous night. We ended up having dinner with the Spanish couple which was great fun and then we left to pack early and lie in bed awake until 4.00am when Paul the taxi man was due to arrive.