Lamas

Lamas is built on a ridge at about 800 metres, an hour from Tarapoto, and it is organised in a way that is unusual and revealing: the lower part, the Barrio Wayku, is the Quechua-Lamista quarter, home to a Quechua-speaking population whose origin is debated - descendants of Chanka migrants, of Andean groups displaced eastward, or of a mixed formation - while the upper town is mestizo. The two have distinct dress, festivals and language use, and the division goes back centuries. The Wayku has a craft and community area, and its festival of Santa Rosa in August is the town's biggest. At the top of the ridge stands the Castillo de Lamas, a stone castle built by an Italian resident between 2005 and 2007, entirely modern, which functions as a museum and viewpoint and which visitors are often surprised to learn is twenty years old.

What you actually see

• The Barrio Wayku - the Quechua-Lamista quarter with its own dress and language.
• The two towns - the social division between lower and upper Lamas.
• The castle - a stone folly built in the 2000s, now a museum and viewpoint.
• The setting - a ridge town above the Mayo valley at about 800 metres.

When to go

May to September is drier. August brings the Santa Rosa festival in the Wayku. Half a day from Tarapoto.

Honest expectations

The castle is modern, not historic, whatever the impression given. The Wayku is a residential neighbourhood - ask before photographing people. Hot and humid. Craft on sale is a mix of local and imported.

Nearby

Tarapoto is south-east; the Alto Mayo and Moyobamba are west.