2012-07-09
Kuélap is a pre-Inca mountaintop citadel so grand that it is sometimes compared to Machu Picchu. But, it only gets 50 visitors a day compared to Machu Picchu's 2000 due to its more difficult to reach location and its inability to be captured in a single spectacular postcard-style image to feature on promotional posters. The stone walls towered above me as I walked around to the narrow entrance. I was expecting the structures inside to be at the base of the wall on the other side, but instead I found that the inside of the walls had been filled in so that once inside, I had to climb up steeply and once all the way in, could see over the walls to the green valleys and mountains below. There were lots of trees and vines inside giving it a jungle fortress feel in addition to tons of circular areas that were once living quarters. They just kept going and going. Other highlights were the remains of a circular temple and a burial structure where I could see human bones by peaking through the gaps in the rocks.
A different day, I made a trip to Gocta Falls, once considered the third highest waterfall in the world, but since downgraded due to the fact that it is technically two separate drops. It splits into multiple paths during the rainy season, but during the dry season, as it was when I was there, it is a single stream that looks wispy and almost angelic during the long second drop to the ground. The water almost looked like it was in slow motion.