Kuelap

Slept in a bit, had breakfast at 9:00, then hired a car to take us to Maria, about a 2 hour drive. We're on our way to Kuelap, an old Inca ruin at the top of a mountain that's not on the tourist trail at all. Maria is the nearest town to the ruins. Awesome road and scenery all the way up. Our taxi driver was from Maria, so he was familiar with the roads, and was racing along the edges of the cliffs, around corners. I thought Kieran was going to faint, he was genuinely scared that were were going off the edge.Maria is a tiny village, but has a few hostals because of the ruins. He dropped us off at Hospedaje El Mirador, a nice place for such a small town, 15 soles each (about $5 US). We liked the guy, so we made arrangements with him to pick us up tomorrow at 4:00pm to take us back to Chachapoyas.We had lunch, then started the hike along the road to Kuelap. Our taxi driver told us it was a 40 minute walk, so we figured we had lots of time. We started walking at 2:45.After 40 minutes, we still weren't half way there. When we saw a sign that said it was still 5km away, we knew it would be a long trek.We finally got to the gate entrance at 4:30, and bought our tickets (12 soles). It was still another kilometre or so from the gate to the ruins itself. By the time we reached the ruins, it was 4:45, and the custodian of the ruins told us they close at 5:00. Kieran, upset, dropped to the ground and said "Senor!" I raced inside to see as much as possible in my 15 minutes. At 5:00, I ran back to the entrance, and the custodian told us that we could have another 30 minutes. So off I went again. I returned at 5:25, they were all looking for me, yelling my name, Lisa was blowing her whistle. They custodian got a radio call telling him to close the place up about 15 minutes ago, and they'd been looking for me every since. Oh well.Before leaving, Lisa asked if we could our tickets again tomorrow, since we bought so late in the day. We were told yes.We left the ruins at 5:30 and started the walk back. I got very dark on the way back, fortunately Lisa and I both brought our headlamps with us. On the way back, in the dark, we saw a tarantula walking the road! I've never seen one before, that wasn't behind a piece of glass. Cool!!!When we got back, we had supper, then a couple of big beers, then to bed.