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Warriors of the Clouds
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Chapter Three: Exploring
Chachapoya Ruins |
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We had ridden, yanked, and prodded
recalcitrant mules up the trail that leaves Leimembamba, the closest town accessible by
road, and follows the Utcubamba upstream.... In places, our mules wallowed in mud up to
their bellies while thorny uña de gato brambles clawed at our saturated
clothing. Resplendent blue morpho butterflies swoopeed nonchalantly across our path,
as if to mock our bedraggled appearance and labored progress. |
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When I emerged, I saw that we were camped
below an almost vertical 1,500-foot cliff. I recognized it as La Petaca, the site of
extraordinary cliff tombs first reported by Henry and Paule Reichlen in 1950 and expertly
photographed in the 1960s by Gene Savoy. Exercising a modicum of journalistic
license, Savoy had described La Petaca as a "necropolis," a city of the dead,
and grandiloquently dubbed the ruins of the vicinity "The Cities of the
condors." As if to confirm the identification, several condors soared
obligingly overhead. |
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