Jan. 15 - Cusco or Qosqo?

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This week I made my way to Cusco.  My last night in Puno, I met an Argentinian girl named Victoria and we hit it off.  She was heading to Cusco as well so we decided to team up.

Cusco!

Cusco!

Inca Jungle Tour

We booked the 4-day Inca Jungle Tour to Machu Picchu, replete with adventures in biking! hiking! partying! zip lining! and history!

Day 1: Downhill Biking

Our first day kicked off with a 3 hour downhill biking tour. We weren't allowed to bring our phones because apparently a bunch of people have crashed trying to take pictures.  Whoops.

Anyways, here is a picture of us suited up in protective armor.

Check out that beautiful view of the valley

Check out that beautiful view of the valley

Day 2: Inca Trail and Snake Tequila

Our 8-hour hike took us from Santa Maria along the Urubamba River all the way to the thermal baths of Santa Teresa.  Along the way, we walked part of the Inca trail and learned about the history of the Chasquis, the Incan messengers that used to run these ancient routes. Today’s world record for the 40-mile Salkantay Trail is just 6 hours and 13 minutes! The official Salkantay tour takes 5 days.

We also stopped at a small house along the trail to learn about Incan agriculture, hand grind some coffee, and drink snake flavored "Incan Tequila".  It... tastes like rotting snake.

We finally arrived at the thermal baths and they were perfect.  They had cold waterfalls to cool off after the hike, and hot waterfalls to warm back up and feel clean.  Surprisingly, even though these baths are heated by volcanic activity, they do not have any of the sulfur smell you get in Yellowstone or Iceland.  I would highly recommend this place.  It's just 10 soles.

Post baths, we made our way to our Hostel, got settled, and then kicked off our dinner party.  The definite highlight of dinner was taking tequila shots out of X-rated Incan fertility statues. Modesty is not part of this culture.

Day 3: Zip Lining

Damn I was hungover.  Those Incan tequila shots really got me.  I went ziplining for the first time which was super fun!  But I didn't bring my camera so you'll just have to use your imagination.  On the last zip of 4, they let us go upsidedown which was super cool.

Afterwords, we started our 3 hour walk along the train tracks to Aguas Calientes.  This was pretty boring but I got some cool pictures!

Day 4: MACHU PICCHU

We started our hike in the dark at 4:30am. The bridge doesn’t open until 5 so we had to wait in line to cross the river and start the Machu Picchu ascent.  Past the bridge begins the hour long ascent up the stairs to the entrance.  Was tough for a lot of people, but compared to the Gran Vilaya trek in Chachapoyas it was no big deal.

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We started with a guided explanation of the history of Machu Picchu but our guide's English was pretty bad.  I did learn that Machu Picchu wasn't meant to be a real city.  It was a royal vacation home and an education/religious studies center for the elites of the Incan society.

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We then hiked up to Intipunku: The Sun Gate which has a great view of the entire city... except when it's cloudy.

When we returned to Machu Picchu the place was SWARMED with tourists. Apparently, in the low season, 4000 people visit per day.  In the high season that jumps to 8000!  I know I'm a tourist, but tourists are awful.  There were tons of bottlenecks we had to wait for because someone needed the perfect selfie.

Spanish

I had a really hard time understanding Victoria.  The Argentinian accent drops "s" sounds, and turns "ll" and "y" into "sh" sounds.  Plus they have some different words like “vos” and “sos”.  I felt like I could understand at first, but as we started talking about more interesting things I got completely lost.  At some point she started making fun of me, which, of course, makes me even more determined.  I'm going to spend this week doing serious immersion, particularly in the Argentinian accent using Podcasts from Posta.fm (an Argentinian podcasting company) and Millennials (a Netflix show from Buenos Aires).

Meditation

I had two revelations this week that change the way I think about meditation.  You can read more here.

I also managed to get my streak up to 15 days despite moving around every day. Unfortunately, my first day back to Cusco I fucked up and broke my streak. Oh well.

Anyways, that's all I got for you folks this week.  Thanks for reading and see you next week!

Jan. 15 - Meditation Week 3: First Revelations

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I reread the first chapter of The Mind Illuminated this week: “The First Interlude”.  In it, the author presents a mental framework for thinking about our goals in meditation.  He breaks down our focus into two distinct parts:  Active Attention and Passive Awareness.

“Active Attention” is your current focus.  “Passive awareness” is the absorption of the sights, sounds, and sensations around you.  Active attention can choose what to focus on from all the things in passive awareness (eg. how your food tastes), and passive awareness can elevate something to active attention (eg. your phone ringing).

From Yates’ perspective, the eventual goals are:

  1. Choosing what to focus on and maintaining that focus even though your phone rings

  2. Controlling the scope (how many things) you are actively paying attention to

  3. Expanding the scope of your passive attention to broaden your perspective

Even after rereading this chapter, I still had no idea how to apply these ideas. So, I just let them marinate.

A Breakthrough

During my session on Wednesday, I was bitten by a sandfly.  For those who don't know, sandfly bites are 10 times worse than mosquito bites.  They hurt, then they hurt more, then they itch for 2 weeks.  After the bite, it still felt like the bug was biting me so I kept opening my eyes to check. I tried using breathing techniques to block out the pain and itch but then something clicked: if the goal is to expand the scope of passive awareness then blocking out the discomfort is the wrong direction.

I realized that I had been using meditation and breathing techniques as a way to block out pain, discomfort, or distraction.  For instance, when I had my eye surgeries last year, I used breathing techniques to take my mind off the fact that a surgeon was actively cutting my eyeballs open. But this is the opposite of the goals laid out in “The First Interlude”.

What Yates describes in “The First Interlude” is the expansion of your abilities to absorb and analyze, not a reduction. Reducing the scope of passive awareness, like I’ve been doing, creates blind spots and biases.

With that in mind, I stopped trying to block out the discomfort and instead accepted the fact that there wasn't anything to be done.  Scratching the itch may provide 30 seconds relief but wouldn't make a difference.  Once I accepted the sensation as part of my experience the discomfort diminished enough that it was no longer a distraction. With this reversal in my understanding of meditation, I realized what I want out of my practice.

A Realization

I can't focus when there is a TV nearby.  If I can see or hear the TV my focus is entirely consumed by the flashing lights or dialogue.  This lack of control is so thorough that I've been forced to adjust my life around it.  When I go to restaurants, I trade places with other guests so that I can’t see the TV.  Otherwise, I can't pay attention to the conversation and I'm terrible company.

The level of power that TV has over me has always bothered me but I never thought I could do anything about it.  I have arranged my life to accommodate this personal inadequacy.  Now, with the revelation above, I see a path toward regaining that power for myself.  If I can gain the ability to focus despite this ultimate distraction, I will have substantially changed my life. This is the first specific goal I have for my practice.

Jan. 6 - Week 2 in Meditation Land

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Last week I was focused on just getting started and not worrying too much about what is correct or not.  I approached this week with a few more goals:

  1. Diligence: Because I'm traveling, I have no consistency which makes it difficult to form a habit. This week, I made sure to practice every day even when I was hungover, feeling lazy, or on a boat.

  2. Increase meditation time: I started with 20 minute sessions last week and will continue adding 5 minutes each week until I get to 45 minutes

  3. Begin incorporating first stage exercises: 6-step preparation and the 4-stage transition to the breath

First Stage Exercises

6-step preparation

  1. Remind yourself of your motivation

  2. Set reasonable goals

  3. Do not expect achievements. There is no "should be". There is no "bad meditation"

  4. Commit to diligence. Engage wholeheartedly. Don't judge the quality of meditation.

  5. Review potential distractions ahead of time. What is your mind racing over.

  6. Adjust your posture

Per step 1, my long term motivations are:

  • Gain a stronger connection to my emotions so that I can understand how I actually feel

  • Align my ambitions, emotions, and actions

  • Increase my ability to focus

4-stage transition to the breath

  1. Focus on the present

    1. Enjoy pleasant sensations

    2. When distractions occur: "let it come, let it be, let it go"

  2. Focus on bodily sensations

  3. Focus on bodily sensations related to breath

  4. Focus on sensations of the breath at the nose

I struggled to maintain focus at the 4th stage.  Counting stopped working for me, so I eventually came up with a breathing technique to force me to focus on the bodily sensations of the breath.  It's been pretty successful helping me return my attention to the 4th stage.

Successes for this week

  • For the first time, I wasn't frustrated with myself for getting distracted

  • I had the spontaneous urge to say "I love you" to myself

  • I successfully mediated every day.  It's now been 12 days in a row.

Goal for next week

  • Increase sessions to 30 minutes

  • Continue practicing the above exercises

  • Reread the first two chapters of the book and incorporate more of the philosophy into my practice


So how zen are you? I’m so zen my zen is on fire

So how zen are you?
I’m so zen my zen is on fire

Dec. 29 - Double Dip in Arequipa

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Merry Christmas!  Happy Hanukah! And a Happy Festivus for the restofus!

Apologies for missing last week's entry of Weights and Whethers.  I decided to embark on a 3-day trek through Colca Canyon and didn't return until Christmas Eve - and I certainly wasn't staying inside and writing a blog post on Christmas Eve!  I decided to do a double entry this week instead.  Because it's so long, I’ve broken it into pieces so that you can read what you're interested in.

Fundraiser update

We've successfully raised $503 through Gofundme + $205 in direct transfers. Adding in my $500 that gets us to $1208 so thank you so much for all your support! If you haven't yet shared with your networks I would really appreciate it! Even a simple Facebook post helps reach new donors. Link to fundraiser here.

Travel Update

The last two weeks have been split between Ica and Arequipa enjoying classic colonial architecture, natural wonders, and Holiday Spirit. Click here to read more about:

  • Sandboarding and Dunebuggying in Huacachina

  • Making Latkes with fellow Jews in Arequipa

  • A 3 day hike through a canyon TWICE AS DEEP as the Grand Canyon.

Spanish Update

I discovered the MIA approach to language learning 2 months ago and I've finally figured out a method and toolset that I like. I wrote a separate post describing my process. Now that I’ve figured out my toolset, I hope I can quickly pass through the plateau that Steve Kaufmann recently posted about.

New Section: Meditation

For many years I have “known” that meditation is good for me but I have always struggled to get started with it. As I’ve been working through the MIA content, the founder Matt often recommends meditation as a way to increase the effectiveness of language learning. I finally decided to dive in which lead me to a book called “The Mind Illuminated”. Written by a neuroscientist/guru, this book provides a map of how to progress through the stages of meditation towards enlightenment. Finally, I have a framework I can use to help me work through it. Click here to read more about my first week of meditation practice.

Politics

During my trek through Colca Canyon, I was accompanied by an Estonian couple and learned some very interesting things about their country. Estonia is incredibly tech-savvy. In their most recent election, 44% of the populace voted online. I support any effort to make voting easier but am all too familiar with the security problems that digital voting has had in the US. So I was surprised to learn that Estonia has been voting online since 2005! I’ve written more about Estonia in a separate post here.

That’s all she wrote folks! Happy New Years and see you next week!

Dec. 29 - Baby Steps in Meditation

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Why Meditation?

The MIA curriculum breaks down into a few parts: Active Immersion, Passive Immersion, and SRS (spaced repetition studying). The most important of which is Active Immersion.

Active Immersion means absorbing content in your target language with complete focus. At first, you just focus on the sounds, then on the words, then on the meaning. The “Quality of Input” will determine how quickly you can move through those three stages.

“Quality of Input” is determined by the quality of the content you are absorbing, but more importantly, by the level of attention you are paying to that content. The better you can focus on the content the more you will gain from the experience. There are many factors that tie into focus including your level of interest and the environment in which you study. Meditation trains your mind to be able to retain interest, to not get distracted, and to focus on making sense of the foreign sounds.

I’m betting that meditation will increase my ability to gain information from the immersion content.

The Mind Illuminated

The founder of MIA, Matt, refers to a book The Mind Illuminated by John Yates and his students. The book combines Yates’ background in Neuroscience with years of meditation mastery to provide a pragmatic instruction guide for beginners and experienced meditators alike. It provides 10-stages to mastery with detailed explanation of the goals, skills to be practiced, obstacles you will encounter, and what success looks like at each stage.

I’m an impatient person. I want to accomplish things quickly and efficiently without floundering. I want a map. In language learning, I believe I’ve found that map with MIA. In meditation, I think this book will be my map.

Getting Started

The book is very detailed: 578 pages. I read through the intro, forward, and first 2 chapters, however, I felt that there was too much content to absorb into my fledgling meditation practice.

The first stage advocates for 45-60 minute sessions, starting with a 6-point preparation, and a 4 step transition. That’s way too much for me starting at square one. Fortunately, there is a subreddit for the book which includes a wiki! They suggest beginners start at 10-20 minutes and only focus on the breath.

So for this first week I am working on the following:

  • 20 minute meditation sessions

  • Focus on the breath. Specifically, the sensation of air moving through the nostrils and the abdomen expanding and contracting.

  • Counting of the breaths. Restarting when focus is lost.

  • Writing about each session afterwards

Next week, I will work on incorporating the 6-point preparation.

My first week of Practice

When I was younger, I thought I was good at meditating. I would often have difficulty falling asleep so I developed a routine to calm my racing mind. I would consciously breathe so slowly that I felt like I was suffocating. The intense focus needed to control the instinct to breathe would quiet down my mind and allow me to sleep. I’m sure the lack of oxygen helped too.

As I’ve aged, I’ve developed my ability to think and problem solve, but I feel I’ve lost my ability to manage my thoughts. This first week of meditation highlighted why: I’m always working.

For the first few minutes of each session, the counting and the focus is relatively easy. After those few minutes though, my brain begins throwing all sorts of distractions at me. I find myself narrating for this blog. I start planning for the future or analyzing the past. I find myself having inspirational moments that I want to act on.

In work and in my hobbies I’ve trained myself to latch on to moments of inspiration because they often lead to insights, ideas, and motivation. It feels so wrong to let these moments slip away, but for these sessions, I want 20 damn minutes a day where I’m not working.

This first week has showed me where I am. Thankfully, I have a map that gives some semblance of an idea of how far I have to go.

References

MIA Meditation video

The Mind Illuminated on Amazon

Mind Illuminated Subreddit

Dec. 29 - Sentence Mining with Anki

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Summary of MIA

The MIA curriculum for learning is simple in theory but complicated in practice. It breaks down into 3 steps:

  1. Actively immerse in content: Pay 100% attention to that content. Focus on the sounds of the language, then the words, then the meaning.

  2. Vocabulary study with an SRS: identify 10 new words per day. Take the full sentence of the word and make a flashcard in a spaced repetition system (Anki is the SRS of choice).

  3. Passively immerse with previous content: convert the active content into audio that you can listen to while cooking, cleaning, or walking.

Active Immersion

This one is the most straightforward. Simply log onto youtube, or Netflix, or Spotify and identify TV shows to watch and Podcasts to listen to.

Sentence Mining & Vocabulary Study

I struggled with this one. The founders of MIA talk about different ways to mine sentences. The basic method is just choosing 10 sentences a day out of your immersion and making cards for them manually. Then there are more complicated methods like audio cards, automated generation of flashcards, monolingual transition etc.

For me, I was looking for a way to do this sentence mining process while I’m on the go using my phone and removing the decision-making process from my normal immersion. Hence this blog post!

Passive Immersion

There are many programs that can extract the audio from video to make passive immersion easier. MIA also released a tool to help strip non-dialogue from passive immersion to make content even denser. There are already guides for this so I’m not going to include it here. If you want to know how to do this easily on Mac feel free to message me.

My Approach and Toolset for Sentence Mining

1) Choose Suitable Content

Find content that has native audio and native subtitles. Dubbed content usually has subtitles that don’t match the audio. Also, dubbed content is usually simpler than native content.

Some TV shows I’m watching:

  • La Reina Del Sur (Telenovela from Mexico)

  • Diablero (Fantasy series from Mexico)

  • Antes de Perder (Comedy series from Spain)

  • Millenials (Comedy series from Argentina)

2) Watch Content

Actively immerse with the content. Only watch with audio, not subtitles.

3) Download Content and Subtitles

This section is technically illegal so if you want to know what tools I’m using feel free to message me

4) Convert Content Into Flashcards

On Mac, I’m using the program SubStudy to automatically slice up the TV show into flashcards. Each flashcard includes the audio, an image from the scene, and the subtitle (previous, current, and next).

5) Import the flashcards into Anki and format

Front of card: audio and screenshot
Back of card: The dialogue with the current line highlighted blue, an audio replay button, and a collapsable section that we’ll fill in later with a definition

6) Go through the show line by line

I’ve configured the Anki deck to show 10 new cards per day with no review cards. Then I essentially rewatch the show line by line, first listening to the audio and trying to make sense of it. Then looking at the subtitle. If I understand everything in the subtitle, I will suspend the card. A suspended card doesn’t count towards the 10 new cards. If I don’t understand something, I will prep the card for future use.

7) Prep cards for future learning

For each thing in the subtitle that I don’t understand I begin the process of trying to understand it:

  1. Look up the word in a Spanish monolingual dictionary

  2. If I don’t understand, look up in Spanish-English dictionary

  3. Try to identify slang or idioms and use google to verify their meaning

  4. Fill in the explanation collapsable section with all relevant information. Try to use only Spanish in the explanation, preferably copy/pasted from the Spanish only dictionary

8) Move card to a review deck in Anki

I will confirm the card as learned in the first deck which will stop it from appearing again. Later I will move the card to a separate deck that contains all vocabulary sentences I have mined. This deck utilizes the default Anki settings.

Notes

This approach goes against the MIA philosophy of not being OCD and only sentence mining things that come up frequently, but the OCD approach is easier for me. It means I don’t have to make decisions about what is important to remember. It also consolidates the tools and lets me use Anki for mining and for SRS.


Dec. 29 - Estonian eVoting

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Two folks on my Colca Canyon tour were from Estonia and it turns out their country is an incredible tech hub. With a population of just 1.3 million people, they are home to four $1 billion tech companies (1:325k ratio compared to California’s 1:630k).

The government of Estonia has leaned heavily into tech. Nearly all public services are available online including voting! In 2019, 44% of the populace submitted their votes online.

Estonia has had e-voting since 2005. Their system relies on a national identification card that contains a digital chip similar to the one you find in your credit card. Each citizen of Estonia is entitled to a card and a card reader that plugs into their computer. Newer computers even have this card reader built in. This card/reader combination allows Estonian citizens to securely manage all national services online.

During the voting process, a citizen utilizes their national ID card and two PIN codes to submit their vote. The voter can then verify submission using a QR code and a mobile application.

In recent years, the government has also developed a mobile application that allows citizens to link their phones to their national ID using a specialized SIM card. This allows citizens to manage all services without the need for a card reader. Simply open up your mobile app and vote.

I would love to see a system like this developed in the US. Historically, I have been very cautious about such a system because of the security issues, but Estonia’s track record shows a system that seems to be working well. The international cybersecurity community has criticized the Estonian election system so I don’t believe it is without flaws, but it certainly seems like a good foundation to work from.

One of the companies trying to bring e-voting to the US is Voatz, a Boston based startup funded by a former Uber lawyer/lobbyist. Unfortunately, they’ve been heavily criticized for their security and still have a long way to go.

I hope that one day we’ll see e-voting here in the US, but it probably won’t happen any time soon.

Nov. 10, 2019 - The Ancient and the New

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I suffered an afternoon of existential despair on Thursday. This happens to me occasionally. I feel tiny, insignificant, powerless, and alone. I feel like curling up in a ball and never unfurling. If I had had internet access I would have watched Netflix to take my mind off of it, but my host didn't have Wifi. I remembered two summers ago, in Ireland, I wrote a poem about the same feeling. Reading it made me feel a little better. If you ever feel similarly here's the poem. Maybe it will help you too.

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New Friends

I tried Couchsurfing for the first time and it went great! My host Luis lives just outside central Trujillo. He recently finished his dentistry schooling and is trying to figure out what to do next. One theme amongst the people I met is that they want to get out of Trujillo and live somewhere new. We toured two markets and cooked dinner together.

On the bus to Trujillo, I met a girl named Matilde. She invited me to the restaurant where she works for breakfast. She rides a scooter, is way cooler than me, taught me all sorts of slang, and convinced me to get a haircut. She also works at an LGBT friendly, underground punk bar named “Abril” with dark, grungy art that I really like.

Chan Chan - Ruins of the Chimor Empire

Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimor empire that spanned from Lima to Ecuador from ~850AD until the Incan's conquered them in 1470AD. The city was home to 40-60k people and is massive. I didn't realize until later that all the piles of sand I saw were walls of the ancient city.

I toured the ancient city of Chan Chan with my guide Jose. Jose is a combo Archeologist/Tour Guide/Artist and has worked at the site for 40 years. After the tour, I visited his workshop where he makes woodblock prints of ancient artwork. Below you can see how he took artwork on this piece of pottery and carved it in wood for the print.

I found the artwork fascinating. If you do too and would like one, here's his contact information.

Ancient Morality

He told me some interesting things about the Incan moral code: "Do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy".

This moral code was enforced by a concentric hierarchy of community:
If there is a thief in the family, the family must kill him
If they don't, the community must kill the entire family
If they don't, the army kills the entire community

This is morbid but makes sense to me. The responsibility for maintaining social cohesion is shared. It is everyone's responsibility to maintain that cohesion at their level of influence. I worry that in American society of individualism, we outsource this responsibility to top-down organizations (eg. government & business) and don't invest enough in the bottom-up cohesion of our communities.

Spanish

Two personal wins this week!

  1. When I arrived at Luis' apartment I managed a 15-minute conversation in fluid Spanish which felt really good!

  2. I managed to have a conversation in Spanish at a loud club which has never happened before. At clubs, I can barely understand people in English!

The people on the coast definitely speak more clearly than the people in the mountains. Unfortunately, I very quickly ran out of topics I knew how to talk about. I'd like to do a targeted study of vocabulary in areas of interest (movies, music, politics).

It was difficult for me to invest fully in MIA this week without access to Wifi so I spent the week listening to the media already on my phone - mostly Harry Potter. I thought it would be useful to listen to something I knew but I was wrong. I can follow the story without listening to the Spanish. I've now downloaded hundreds of hours of Spanish podcasts and will focus on those in the next week.

Politics

Good-ish news on the Bolivia front. Over the past two weeks, the Organization of American States (OAS) has investigated the results of the October 20th election and released a preliminary report showing clear election fraud including widespread data manipulation. In response, the President has agreed to a new round of elections. This may quell the protests in the short term but I will be continuing to monitor the situation to determine if it's safe to travel. 2019-11-11 update: The president has resigned after loss of military support!

That’s all folks. Thanks for reading and have a great week!

Gran Vilaya Trek (Sans Guide)

My friend and I recently completed the Gran Vilaya Trek from Chachapoyas, Peru to the Kuelap ruins. Guided tours cost 600-800 Soles which seemed really overpriced so we decided to do it unguided. We found 2 itineraries online but they are outdated (7-years old and 3 years old). Here's an updated guide for anyone interested in this amazing trek!

Notes before getting started

  • Google maps and All Trails didn't have the paths marked but Maps.me did. Make sure to download the offline maps ahead of time as you won't have internet for the entire trip.

  • As noted in the other guides, there’s electricity at all stops on the trek so no need to bring your power banks.

  • We did this trek in October which is the start of the rainy season. It rains multiple times per day and usually storms once per day in the early afternoon. You will get wet. Bring quick-drying clothes and good boots. I did it in trail running shoes and my feet were wet the entire time. I would not recommend.

  • Bring evening clothes to change into and sleep in. It gets cold at night in the mountains so bring a jacket.

  • The mountains are full of microclimates. A 10-meter walk can change the temperature by 5* C

  • Signs with distances or times are usually wrong. They are not reliable guides.

Day 1: Chachapoyas => Cohechan

Colectivo ride to Cohechan through Luya (2.5 hours)

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  • Walk to the colectivo station and ask around for Luya. They'll point you out the back of the main building. The colectivo will wait until it's full before leaving. (7 soles)

  • When you arrive in Luya, tell the guys playing cards you're going to Coechan (7 soles). They'll tell you to wait until they can fill a car of people (6 or 7 people). We waited about an hour.

    • There's a 50 centimos fee to use the bathroom here

    • The restaurant in the main building is barren but has a decent cheap lunch.

Eating lunch while waiting for colectivo in Luya

Eating lunch while waiting for colectivo in Luya

  • We asked the driver of the Colectivo to take us to a hospedaje and he dropped us at the yellow house by the main plaza. Apparently there is a second hospedaje in town but it's just a family's house.

  • We paid 10 soles each to stay here but given the condition of the place I kinda wish we had negotiated a bit. I definitely left with lower standards than I started.

  • There are no mosquitos up here because of the altitude but it gets really cold.

Walk to Karajía (2 hours each way)

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  • We spent the afternoon walking to Karajía to see the Sarcophagi (5 soles entry). It's pretty easy to find. There are two roads through Cohechan on either side of the plaza. Take the higher road where the hospedaje is. Walk uphill until you reach the fork in the road. There’s a sign for Karajía to the right (AM-655), Belen Valle is to the left (you'll follow this one tomorrow).

  • The walk to Karajía is 8km each way. You'll walk through 3 or 4 villages on the way. There are signs with distances to Karajía but as best we can tell they were completely wrong.

  • You’ll reach a square where the Karajía registration office is. After that you’ve still got another 1km to the site of the Sarcophagi.

Day 2: Belen Valley, Cloud Forest, and Congon

Road to Belen Valle

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  • Supposedly there are cars that leave from Coechan to Belen Valle in the morning, but every person we talked to had a different idea of when they left. We were up at 4:15am and didn’t see a single car

  • Both people we asked in the morning told us to just start walking and hitchhike. Start walking down AM-103 towards Belen Valle. You want to hitchhike because otherwise it's a long road with a lot of mud. We walked for an hour (5km) before any cars passed us going our way. We started in the dark so make sure to bring a headlamp. If you don't get a ride, it's a 19km walk down the muddy road and into the trail in the valley.

  • About 2 kilometers after crossing the river you'll come to the sign that marks the trailhead

  • According to Maps.me, there's an earlier part of the trail you can take if you want to walk through the valley

First part of trail that we skipped. Another hiker told us you have to walk through the river and you will get wet.

First part of trail that we skipped. Another hiker told us you have to walk through the river and you will get wet.

Cloud Forest and the Road to Congon

  • The trailhead says the first day's trail is 13.3 km and 6 hours but it's less. Maps.me says 9.2KM and it took us 4 hours. You'll end up in Congon.

  • The first part of the trek is easy and warm but beware of the dangerous attack cows

So ferocious

So ferocious

  • Once you get to the cloud forest take your time. It's extremely slippery and the rocks here are not your friend. Simone took a pretty hard fall pretty early on and took home a solid bruise as a souvenir! The cloud forest looks like Yoda's swamp on Dagobah.

  • There's a lot of cow poop on the trail. I mean... a huge amount.

  • There are only about 100 meters of really muddy section but it's REALLY muddy. It's also a serious breeding ground for mosquitos so don't forget your repellant.

  • The rest of this hike is a pretty easy and quick downhill.

  • Once you arrive in Congon, look for the big white house across from a small blue house. This is Armando's Hospedaje. The blue house is the restaurant and convenience store run by Armando's wife. Stock up on supplies here if you need them. Cost for the Hospedaje is 10 soles per person. There's no other place in town so there’s no negotiating.

  • Make sure to try the local delicacy Cuy! (20 soles per person)

Day 3: The long, hard trek to Yumal

15KM, 1600m ascent, 7.5 hours

15KM, 1600m ascent, 7.5 hours

  • The trailhead sign says this is 18.6Km, 1557m ascent, 9 hours. Maps.me says 15km, 1600m ascent, 8.5 hours. It took us 7.5 hours (not including 45 min of going the wrong way). We met a german guy and a guide in Congon that did it in 5 hours but they were walking really fast.

  • Remember to stock up on self-congratulatory candy treats

Walking to the trailhead

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  • One of the other online guides tells you to walk downhill to the river. DO NOT DO THIS. We wasted 45 minutes going the wrong way.

  • If you're looking out of the Hospedaje at the blue building, take a left and walk up the road. Follow the road for 1 km or so until you reach the part of the road that is submerged in water. There is a bridge for pedestrians so you don't have to walk through the water.

Start Climbing

  • You'll see a steep trail of red dirt leading up to a house. Follow this.

  • After 10 minutes you'll come to another house. There are two small dogs that will make a big commotion but just ignore them.

  • You will get wet, you will stay wet. The trail is narrow and there are wet plants all along that will constantly rub water on you. It's unavoidable.

  • There are a couple of tough stream crossings where you have to cross on slippery rocks or slippery logs.

  • You'll go up and down a few times before reaching an intersection where you follow a stream and there's a bridge on your right. The owner has gated this so you can't accidentally wander onto his property.

  • This marks the start of the endless uphill. Take a break because the next few hours are tough.

  • Note that the trail on Maps.me is inaccurate about 20 minutes after this point. Just keep following the trail even if you're off the Maps.me map.

The upper trail doesn’t exist and the bottom trail is not a dead end

The upper trail doesn’t exist and the bottom trail is not a dead end

  • Eventually, you'll summit at Lanche. There are two houses, a donkey, a horse, and two protective but timid dogs. There's a great view from this summit but don't take a break here. There's a shelter another 5 minutes up.

  • The shelter is a great place to stop for lunch but it is very cold up and rainy here

  • After this, the climb is even harder. The altitude, steep incline, and tiredness got to me and I slowed down a lot. After another hour of hiking, there are a few flat meadows that give a nice but temporary reprieve from the climb.

  • You'll hit the Piedras Blancas a little after and the mud will turn grey. Then you've got a beautiful waterfall. Here's the last rest point before you start the final ascent.

  • It's steep, it's muddy, it's the final 200m of vertical ascent. Do what you got to do to get through it.

  • Congratulations! You're at the top! Take a break and eat a candy bar because now you need to go back down. It's cold here, but there is a shelter.

Day 3 part 2: Get to your hospedaje

  • Hopefully, you find a car that's willing to give you a ride because otherwise, you've got another 2 hours of walking to Choctomal. You can walk the 11km along the road hoping to catch a ride or 8km along a trail that goes down. Luckily, the tour that picked up the german guy was kind enough to give us a ride to Nuevo Tingo.

  • Nuevo Tingo is a lovely small town. There are a TON of hospedajes here and they are more luxurious than anywhere else I've stayed. This town was clearly built up to support the tourism industry for Kuélap. However, we were there on a Friday and it was completely empty. We didn't see another tourist in town.

  • We decided to splurge and get a place with hot showers because we deserved it. Fuck yeah!

Day 4: Kuélap

  • We decided to be lazy and sleep in and not hike the Kuélap ascent. Everyone we talked to about the hike said it sucks and from the Gondola you can see why. It's steep, there's no shade, there's little foliage until you get to the top, and you have to descend into the valley before heading back up the other side.

  • The gondola is pretty cool though expensive. You get to see great views of the valley and mountains. Total cost for gondola and Kuélap entrance is 50 soles per person.

  • The top of Kuélap was really rainy and really windy. Bring a rain jacket or poncho.

  • It's very easy to find a colectivo back to Chachapoyas (7 soles). They'll be waiting outside the Gondola entrance

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Final Notes

I hope you found this guide useful as you plan your own Gran Vilaya Trek. It’s a hard couple of days but the scenery and nature make it completely worth it. There’s nothing quite like stopping and listening to the sounds of the rainforest.

Thanks for reading!

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