Chachapoyas and the surrounding area

Chachapoyas : a little lovely city where there is not so much to do (just 3-4 tours in the area). But I falled in love with the city immediately (the sound of name itself makes me smile). The name of Chachapoyas derives from 2 quecha words: sacha and puyu and means cloud forest. I arrived here on Sunday at 6 am and I discovered few minutes later that my big backpack was forgotten by the bus company in Trujillo (15 hours from here). So I had to wait for my backpack till the next day. After finding a nice hostel, I went to Plaza de Armas (in Perù every city has a square named Plaza de Armas) and few minutes later some big celebrations took place. It seemed to me a big event because of the number of people and the presence of the band. But locals explained to me that every Sunday all the citizens come to the main square to raise their 3 flags: one for Perù,one for the region of Amazonas and the last one for the city of Chachapoyas. Peruvians are very patriotic! The day after I visited Kuelap, a fortress dated 900-1100 AD. Inside the walls, the Chachapoya (it's the name of the population) built more than 400 circular houses. Kuelap is much less famous than Macchu Picchu, but from what they said it's much more important and of course more antique. The tourism in this area is still at the beginning, but the area has a great potential. Again we weren't very lucky with the weather: strong wind and rain, in few words it's was very cold. Yesterday I've made a very nice trek to see the 3rd highest waterfall in the world: catarata Gotca (771 m) . I took a collettivo with other 3 guys of my hostel and then we started walking. To get to the beginning of the trek we had to walk for some km, but fortunately we got a ride from a nice man (I'll upload some pictures). The waterfall was really beautiful, when you arrive to the base you feel so little... Getting near was very dangerous because some rocks were falling down and from that altitude can easily kill someone, but we still enjoyed the view. The trek itself was just amazing. The path was green (and when I say green I mean GREEN, not just green ) and full of exotic plants and colorful butterflies. There were also some parrots, but I wasn't lucky enough to see them. It's still difficult to believe that last week I was hiking in the Andes and now in the Amazonas. I can't even say what I like the most, because they are so different that you can't compare. Both are just amazing! I love Perù!