We woke up sort of early to have breakfast before we were
supposed to drive out of town to another city where we would see some mummies
from ancient times however after we ate and got in the van we found the main
road to our destination blocked up with traffic. There was a rock slide earlier
in the morning and it caused a giant boulder to block the road in both
directions and they were trying to get it moved out of the way. There had been several days of significant rain
just around Easter and we had already seen the evidence of several recent
rockslides along the roads both paved and dirt so in some respects it wasn’t a
surprise. Ivan, the driver/guide, said we should wait until 10 and if the
traffic wasn’t moving we should give up and do the Gocta hike. After waiting the amount of time with no
movement we decided to turn around back to the lodge and start the Gocta hike.
We got back to the room and changed to more hiking
appropriate clothes. We rented some rubber boots because they said the trails
would be very muddy and would ruin our shoes. We got geared up and headed on
our way straight from the lodge. Our
guide was named Leonce and he only spoke Spanish really though we taught him
some along the way towards the end of the trip.
The hike to Gocta Falls is 5 kilometers out and the same 5
back from the lodge (I suspect it is a bit further as I think the tracking
starts from a different location than our lodge but I could be wrong). It was a
bit cloudy and it rained lightly for a portion of the way out to the falls. We
had to don plastic ponchos provided by the guide during one stretch of
rain. The guide told us about the
history and legend of Gocta Falls along the way as well as pointing out plants
and other things along the way. He was a very good and patient guide as we
didn’t really move very fast though the ups and downs of the trail.
The story as he said it is that Gocta Falls was discovered
by a German economist out on a hiking trip with his girlfriend in 2002. The guy
was trying to take a shortcut through an area to another when he came across
the falls. In speaking with the locals he found out that they all believed that
the falls were haunted by an evil mermaid that protect a large amount of
treasure at the bottom of the pool at the base of the falls. I have taken pictures of the story simply
translated to English about Grigorio and the Mermaid and will transcribe it and
add it to the blog at a later point. The story meant that the locals were all
scared of the falls and would stay very far away from it. There are other
stories to go along with it such as men trying to dive to the bottom of the
pool to recover the treasure and of course never surfacing.
In 2006 the German along with a series of volunteers came
back and the verified along with the Peruvian cultural ministry that the site
should be made into a tourist destination. So it hasn’t been open for very
long. They needed to convince the locals to switch from farming for very little
amounts of money into a tourism oriented trade.
So with a couple years of work the locals started to embrace the idea
and they built the trail we took.
The trail travels up and down in several stretches and
arrives to the base of the second tier of the falls (the larger tier). The falls are broken into an upper and lower
tier with two landing points. By the
time we arrived at the falls it was not really raining anymore. We ate a quick
lunch of cheese sandwiches and an apple and candy bar at a scenic point in
front of the falls then I took the waterproof camera down into it and got very
close and took a bunch of pictures. The force of these falls was much greater
than the force of the falls we went to in Iceland except maybe for Gulflos (but
we weren’t at the bottom of those falls).
The height is 504 meters and it was absolutely spectacular. A few minutes later Daniela came down and
joined me. We wandered as close as she
would dare. The force did scare her a little bit. After being down there for a few minutes we
climbed back up to the guide at the scenic point and started the trek
back. Along the way a creature related
to a sloth but not slow came out of the trees but I didn’t have the camera
ready and we missed getting pictures before it ran into the woods. Leonce said
it wasn’t a monkey because it didn’t scream. The sun came out during the return
hike and we got back to the room late in the afternoon.
We took much needed showers after we were done then ordered
our dinner and relaxed until 7:30 when we went to eat (passed out is a better
term). I had the meat lasagna today
because they didn’t have the pork loin I wanted and started with a criole soup
that was different from the ones I had already. Both were good but the lasagna
wasn’t heated up enough unfortunately.
Daniela had sauted noodles with some lomo in them which makes it sort of
like a Chinese/Peruvian fusion dish. She
had a chicken and ginger soup to start.
We both had brownies with chocolate ice cream for dessert. She had a tea
and I had a coffee.
After dinner we went back to the room looked at the pictures
from the trip then crashed as we were both exhausted.
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