Category: Peru

Not many independent travelers make it to Tarma and then linger. It is a pleasant, laid-back town surrounded on all sides by scrubby, brown dirt mountains and lies on the important route linking the capital Lima with its nearest jungle neighborhood – a steep drop down the ceja de la selva (eyebrow of the jungle) and a mere four-hour run for limeños (inhabitants of Lima) seeking an exciting tropical change from their bustling desert city. Tarma lies 60km east of La Oroya and locally wears the moniker ‘Pearl of the Andes.’ It is a good place to stop overnight or longer on any trip in and around this sector of the central Andes.

As the Panamericana rises through coastal mountains and stretches across the arid flats to Nazca, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this desolate pampa holds little of interest. And indeed this sun-bleached expanse was largely ignored by the outside world until 1939, when North American scientist Paul Kosok flew across the desert and noticed a series of extensive lines and figures etched below, which he initially took to be an elaborate pre-Inca irrigation system. In fact, what he had stumbled across was one of ancient Peru’s most impressive and enigmatic achievements: the world-famous Nazca Lines. Today the small town of Nazca is continually inundated by travelers who show up to marvel and scratch their heads over the purpose of these mysterious lines, which were declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1994.

Tingo María (Tingo for short) is as different as it can be from other cities and towns in the Andes. This languid, humid and warm university and market town lies in the ceja de la selva, and while it has its back to the mountains its feet are firmly planted in the lush vegetation of the Amazonas region. It is verdant, tropical, humid and – most importantly – warm, a real bonus if you have just come down from the bone-chilling heights of the upper Andes. Tingo is known locally by the moniker La Ciudad de la Bella Durmiente (the City of the Sleeping Beauty) in honor of a mountain in the Tingo María National Park that bears the shape of a sleeping woman wearing an Inca crown.