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.

History

Tradition says the town was settled by Pocras and Hanan Chanca people who, after their defeat by the Inca Pachacútec at Yahuarpampa in 1438, left their lands and went into the forest, finding this hill already inhabited by a local group. Lamas is the original home of the Kichwa-Lamista people (Wikipedia, Lamas, Peru).

Highlights

• 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.

Things to know

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.

Key facts