from: Dilwyn Jenkins: The rough
guide to Peru; Rough Guides, New York, London, Delhi; 6th edition
September 2006; www.roughguides.com
Regions Chanchamayo and Satipo
Chanchamayo Valley marks the real beginning of the central selva
directly east of Lima. Buses depart daily from the capital to the
valley towns of San Ramon and La Merced. Separated by only 10km of
road, some 2500m below Tarma, they are surrounded by exciting hiking
country. Getting there from La Oroya, the road winds down in
ridiculously precipitous curves, keeping tight to the sides of the Río
Palca Canyon, at present used for generating hydroelectric power.
Originally a forest zone inhabited only by Campa-Ashaninka Indians, the
last century saw much of the best land cleared by invading
missionaries, rubber and timber companies and, more recently, waves of
settlers from the Jauja Valley.
Satipo, a small frontier town , is a few hours deeper into the
rainforest and, although there's really little tourism infrastructure
here yet, it's a reasonable base from which to explore (p.532).
San Ramon
[between Lima and La Merced]
The smaller of twin settler towns, SAN RAMON, is probably a nicer place
than La Merced to break your journey, though the latter is the
communications hub and better for road connections deeper into the
selva.
Accommodation in San Ramon
Calle Progreso is pretty basic.
Hotel Conquistador
[Jirón] Progreso 298, T. 064-331157, Fax 331771
one of the best hostels in San Ramon
[Hotel] Progreso
Calle Progreso
El Refugio Hotel
Avenida El Ejercito 490, T. 064-331082
3 star hotel with private bathrooms and fans [ventilation] provided
Hostal Golden Gate
Carretera Marginal Km 102 at Puente Herrera [Herrera bridge], T.
064-531483
also offers private baths.
Gat Gha Kum
Carretera Central Km 96 in the Zona Salsipuedes, T. 064-331538
small, somewhat remote, but arguably the most attractive hostel in the
San Ramon area
Hospedaje El Rancho
Calle Tulumayo s/n Playa Hermosa, T. 064-331076
Food in San Ramon
Restaurant Chanchamayo's
Avenida San Ramon s/n
serves some of the best-quality regional and international (p.532)
food, including steak and fries
Chifa Siu
Calle Progreso 440
for Chinese food
Broaster Chanchamayo
Calle Progreso 380
chicken is delicious and worth stopping for (p.533).
La Merced
Arrival
Buses from Lima are several daily and need 5-6 hours (p.568).
The town
The market town of LA MERCED, some 10km further down the attractive
valley, is lager and busier than San Ramon, with more than 12,000
inhabitants, a thriving market, and several hectic restaurants and bars
crowded around the Plaza de Armas (p.533).
Tours around La Merced - the bus
terminal and bus connections
Buses leave more or less constantly from the Terminal Terrestre in La
Merced, where it's just a matter of checking out which bus, combi or
car is going where, and when (p.533). To Satipo are several buses
daily, a trip of 2-3 hours. To Lima are several buses daily, a trip of
5-6 hours. To Pucallpa is a bus weekly via Puerto Bermudes [along the
Pachitea river], a trip of 24 hours (p.568).
Accommodation in La Merced
Accommodation in La Merced is plentiful.
Casa Blanca
Carretera Central Km 100.2, T. 064-331295
perhaps the best of accommodation in La Merced, on the entry into town
from San Ramon; here there's a large pool (also open for general use,
$1.50), a good restaurant and brand new comfortable rooms.
Hotel Reyna
Jirón Palca 259, T. 064-531780
which has twenty clean bedrooms, some with private baths
Hostal El Rosario
Avenida Circunvalación 577, T. 064-531358
smaller and less central.
Hostal Los Victor
Jirón Tarma 373, T. 064-531026
on the Plaza de Armas, has rooms with or without baths and is one of
the better budget options.
Food in La Merced
Shambari Campa
Jirón Tarma 389
serves some good local dishes
Broaster Chanchamayo
Jirón Junin 580
good for chicken
Restaurant El Gaucho
Avenida Ancash s/n
good for meat (p.533)
Attractions around La Merced
Waterfall El Tirol 5km: Also
nearby, about 5km from the town, the Catarata [waterfall] El Tirol
waterfalls have a 35-meter drop into an attractive plunge pool.
Botanic garden "Jardín Botánico"
15km: Close to La Merced, the Jardín Botánico El Perezoso ["The
sloth"], 15km from town, is
said to have some 10,000 species of plants; it requires about two hours
for a thorough visit. To get here it's ten minutes in a car to the
Pueblo of Playa Hermosa, then a pleasant 45-minute (2km) walk along a
dirt tack surrounded by orchids and lianas (p.533).
Tours from La Merced
For local tour companies, the best options are Peruvian Discovery,
Jirón Arequipa 161, 2nd floor, T. 064-532605, e-mail:
siremartinez@hotmail.com, offering all inclusive packages
or tours to a variety of waterfalls, as well as Oxapampa, Chanchamayo,
the Huagapo cave, Satipo, Villa Rica, Pozuzo and Tarma;
or Selva Tours, Jirón Tarm, T. 064-335275, e-mail:
selvatour1@hotmail.com, who mainly cover Oxapampa, Pozuzo and the
Perene Valley (p.533).
Satipo
History: Rubber boom - paved road
- new settlers coming - indígenas Ashaninkas are driven away - and new
paved roads
A real jungle frontier town where the indigenous Ashaninka Indians come
to buy supplies and trade, SATIPO is accessible by a three- to
four-hour bus ride east from La Merced. First developed around the
rubber extraction industry some eighty years ago, it now serves as an
economic and social center for a widely scattered population of over
forty thousand colonists, offering them tools, food supplies, medical
facilities, banks and even a cinema. With the surfacing of the road all
the way from Lima, a veritable carpet unfurling through the jungle
valleys, many more recent settlers have moved into the region, but the
rate of development is putting significant pressure on the last
surviving groups of traditional forest dwellers, mainly the Ashaninka
tribe, who have mostly taken up plots of land and either begun to
compete with the relative newcomer farmers or moved into one of the
ever-shrinking zones out of contact with the rest of Peru. You'll see
the tribespeople in town, unmistakable in their reddish-brown or cream cushma robes. Satipo is the
southernmost large town on the jungle-bound Carretera Marginal, but the
road is continuing further and should soon reach Puerto Ocopa [Ocopa
port] - a passable dirt track already does, and buses travel along it -
from where it's possible to get river boats down the Río Tambo to
Atalaya (p.534).
Accommodation in Satipo
Hotel Majestic
Jirón Colonos Fundadores 408, T. 064-545762
the best accommodation of Satipo. It has wonderfully cool rooms but no
hot water.
Hostal San Jose
Avenida Augusto B. Leguia 684, T. 064-545105
is quite large and the beds are clean
Hostal Palmero,
Calle Manuel Prado 228, T. 064-545020
has over 40 beds and is bearable but noisy
Other basic accommodation is available around the market area and along
the road to the airstrip (p.534).
Satipo market
The town also boasts a couple of small airstrips and a bustling daily
market, which is best at weekends (p.534).
For money change or ATM, the Banco de Credito is opposite Café Yoli on
[Jirón] Manuel Prado (p.535).
Food in Satipo
Café Yoli
Jirón Manuel Prado 234, between the plaza and the market
is great for coffee, juices, snacks and breakfasts
Restaurant Turístico Oasis
Jirón Junin 628, T. 064-545915
wide range of jungle cuisine available in a large, ethnically decorated
place where you can also buy local crafts, mainly of Ashaninka origin.
Laguna Blanca
Avenida Marginal via Río Negro
one of the better restaurants around Satipo
More plantation than jungle around
Satipo
The town sits in the middle of a beautiful valley, though today the
landscape around the town is more orange plantation than virgin forest;
the best way to get a feel for the valley is by following a footpath
from the other side of the suspension bridge, which leads over the
river from behind the market area, to some of the plantations beyond
town. Here you can see the local agriculture at closer quarters, as you
pass some rustic dwellings (p.534).
Satipo frontier settlements and
bandits
Further afield, local colectivos go to the end of the Carretera
Marginal into relatively new settled areas such as that around San
Martín de Pangoa - a frontier settlement that is frequently attacked by
armed bandits or terrorists who live on coca plantations in the forest
(hence the sandbags lined up outside the police stations). The only
reasons to come here are en route to Puerto Ocopa (p.534).
Tours from Satipo into the jungle
Satipo is an ideal town in which to get kitted out for a jungle
expedition, or merely to sample the delights of the selva for a day or
two (p.534). There aren't many tour operators working in this part of
the Peruvian jungle yet, more will inevitably follow given the stunning
eco-tourism potential of the region (p.535).
Port town Puerto Ocopa
Puerto Ocopa is the end of the road and a port where riverboats can be
caught for traveling deeper into the forest, or to visit some
petroglyphs and waterfalls on the Río Mazamari (ask at the Restaurant Oasis for details),
which is also a popular fishing spot (p.534).
More tours from Satipo
Highest waterfall of Perú in the
Otishi national reserve: The mountain ranges south and east of
the Tambo and Ene rivers,
respectively, have recently been made into the Parque Nacional de
Otishi. On the Río Ene side of this new national park, the highest
single drop waterfall in Peru - las
Cataratas de Parijaro [Parijaro waterfalls] - is a veritable
jewel even among Peru's vast collection of impressive natural assets.
The remote nature of this site and the total lack of infrastructure
makes it very difficult to reach as an independent traveler, but the
UK-based Ecotribal (Lima, T.
01-222-5708 or, in the UK T 0044-07968-731247, www.ecotribal.com)
operates eco-adventure tours in the region, including treks and river
rafting to the Parijaro waterfall, on the edge of the Parque Nacional
de Otishi in collaboration with the local Ashaninka communities
(bookings should be made six months or more in advance of the
departures which are usually in July or August). The local company
Satipo Adventure, Jirón San Martín 828, T. 064-546113, e-mail:
satipotours@yahoo.es or satipoadventure@hotmail.com run conventional
trips in the forest immediately around Satipo (p.535).
Bus from Satipo to Huancayo:
Instead of retracing your steps via La Merced and San Ramon, you can
follow a breathtaking direct road to Huancayo - Los Andes buses do the
twelve-hour journey daily (May-Oct) (p.534).
Flights from Satipo: For
the adventurous, a flight to Atalaya, deeper into the central selva, is
an exciting excursion, though this is way off the tourist trail and any
potential visitors should be warned that facilities are few and it's
real jungle frontier stuff. Two commercial air-taxi companies fly most
days, or on demand if you can pay the $400 per hour air-taxi rate, to
both Sepahua and Atalaya (p.534).
Oxapampa
Settlers on the Río Chontabamba -
Amuesha natives fighting for their land against the settlers
Pretty well off the beaten track, some 78km by road north of La Merced,
and nearly 400km east of Lima, lies the small settlement of OXAPAMPA,
dependent on timber and coffee for its survival and situated on the
bank of the Río Chontabamba. Most of the forest immediately around the
town has been cleared for cattle grazing, coffee plantations and
timber. Furious over the loss of their lands, the indigenous Amuesha
Indians are battling for their land rights on local, national and
international levels.
Strongly influenced culturally and architecturally by the nearby
Tyrolean settlement of Pozuzo, this is actually quite a pleasant and
well-organized frontier town, with a surprisingly good place to stay,
the Hotel El Rey (p.535).
Tours around Oxapampa
Waterfall El Encanto 12km: Only
12km from town you'll find the Catarata El Encanto (The Spell or
Enchantment Waterfalls), which has three sets of falls; rainbows
frequently appear and there are deep, dangerous plunge pools.
Parque Nacional Yanachoja
Chemillen with Yanesha natives 25km: Just 25km from Oxapampa
lies the Parque Nacional Yanachoja Chemillen, a 12,000-hectare reserve
dominated by dark mountains and vivid landscapes, where grasslands and
cloud forest merge and separate. There are quantities of bromeliads,
orchids, cedars and even the odd spectacled bear, some jaguar and
around 427 bird species here, including a large variety of
hummingbirds. It's also home to around sixty Yanesha Indian
communities.
Vila Rica plantation center 72km: The
town of Vila Rica, some 72km [south east] from Oxapampa, lying at 1480m
in the ceja de selva, offers
overland access to the Pichis and Palcazu valleys, the region's
principal producers of coffee, pineapple and coca.
Safety information
Visitors to the Oxapampa
and Pozuzo areas are recommended to check in advance of going with
their embassy or the South American Explorers' Club in Lima who should
have the very latest on what's happening in this region and whether or
not it's safe to travel here (p.535).
(Mon-Fri
9.30am-5pm, Wed until 8pm; e-mail limaclub@saexplorers.org,
see p.124) has good information, including maps,
listings and travel reports, available to its members (p.88).
Addition
People are fishing with a fork. In Codo de Pozuzo there is enough
fishes carachama (rich fish but only for soup) and doncella (for
eating).
Pozuzo
Tyrolean stile town, German
language and German habits in Pozuzo
Some 80km down the valley from Oxapampa, along a very rough road that
crosses over two-dozen rivers and streams, POZUZO's wooded chalets with
sloping Tyrolean roofs have endured ever since the first Austrian and
German colonists arrived here in the 1850s. This town is a peculiar
combination of European rusticism and native Peruvian culture. As part
of the grand plan to establish settlements deep in the jungle - devised
by President Ramon Castilla's economic adviser, a German aristocrat -
eighty families emigrated from Europe in 1857. The local dance and
music is still strongly influenced by the German colonial heritage.
Many of this unusual town's present inhabitants still speak German, eat
schitellsuppe, waltz very well and dance the polka.
Accommodation in Pozuzo
The Hostal Tyrol and Hotel Maldonado are the best places to stay.
There's not a lot to see here apart from the nineteenth-century Capilla
San José de Pozuzo, located on the plaza. The church is a wooden
rectangular structure containing wooden images of the Virgin brought
from Germany.
Trucks from Pozuzo leave every couple of days from opposite the Hotel Bolívar in Oxapampa; buses
and colectivos for Pozuzo can also be picked up on the plaza in
Oxapampa or the bus depot in La Merced (p.536).
Additions
Tingo María
from: Alan Murphy: Peru Handbook; Footprint Handbooks, 2nd ed. 1999
 |
Map of the town of Tingo
María with tourist information
Hotels (squares):
1. Hostal Marco Antonio
2. Hostal Mieses
3. La Cabaña
4. Viena
Eating (points):
1. Gordon's Café
2. Marco Antonio
|
Tingo María with 20,560 inhabitants on 655 meters (phone code 064) is
on the middle Huallaga, in the Ceja de Montaña, or edge of the
mountains. The climate here is tropical, with an annual rainfall of
2,642 millimeters. The town can be isolated for days in the rainy
season. The altitude, however, prevents the climate from being
oppressive. The Cordillera Azul ["Blue Mountains"], the front range of
the Andes, covered with jungle-like vegetation to its top, separates it
from the jungle lowlands to the east. The mountain which can be seen
from all over the town is called La
Bella Durmiente, the Sleeping Beauty.
The meeting here of Sierra and Selva makes the landscape extremely
striking. Bananas, sugar cane, cocoa, rubber, tea and coffee are grown.
The main crop of the area, though, is coca, grown on the chacras (smallholdings) in the
countryside, and sold legitimately and otherwise in Tingo María
(p.458).
Little zoo and botanical garden
A small university outside the town, beyond the Hotel Turistas, has a
little museum-cum-zoo, with animals native to the area, and botanical
gardens in the town. Entrance is free but a small tip would help to
keep things in order (p.459).
NB: Danger of theft
Watch out for gangs of thieves around the buses and do not leave
luggage on the bus if you get off. Note that this is a main
narco-trafficking center and although the town itself is generally
safe, it is not safe to leave it at night. Also do not stray from the
main routes, as some of the local population are suspicious of foreign
visitors (p. 458).
[Thanks to salary cuts of the Peruvian government and privatization and
shut down industries by privatizations people are so poor that theft or
prostitution sometimes is the only income].
Tours around Tingo María
Owl cave 6km: Six and ha
half kilometers from Tingo, on a rough road, is a fascinating cave, the
Cueva de las Lechuzas ["Owl cave"]. There are many owl birds in the
cave and many small parakeets near the entrance. Take a motorcycle-taxi
from town, US$1.75. It's US$0.45 for the ferry to cross the Río Monzón
just before the cave and entry to the cave is US$0.90. Take a torch,
and do not wear open shoes. The cave can be reached by boat when the
river is high.
Gorge Cueva de las Pavas 13km for
swimming: 13 kilometers from Tingo is the small gorge known as
Cueva de las Pavas, which is good for swimming.
El Velo de las Ninfas
["veil of the nymphs"] is a magnificent waterfall set in beautiful
jungle, with lagoons where you can swim.
Cuevas de Tambillo 10km for
swimming: 10 kilometers away, on the Huánuco road, are the Cuevas de Tambillo, with beautiful
waterfalls and pools for swimming.
