Museo Leymebamba

In 1996 farmers came across a row of Chachapoya burial houses on a ledge above the Laguna de los Cóndores, in cloud forest days from any road. Rather than send the contents to Lima, an operation was mounted to move them to the nearest village and build a museum there, run with the community. The main room is climate-controlled and holds the funerary bundles in rows behind glass, still wrapped and stitched, many with faces sewn onto the cloth. Other rooms hold quipus, textiles, ceramics and wooden objects from the same site. Outside there are gardens of orchids and hummingbird feeders, and the building itself is adobe under tile.

What you actually see

• The mummy room - over two hundred wrapped funerary bundles in a chilled gallery.
• The quipus - knotted cord records recovered with the burials.
• Chachapoya textiles - woven cloth and ceramics from the same cliff site.
• The gardens - orchids and hummingbird feeders around the adobe building.

When to go

May to September, when the road from Chachapoyas is least likely to be blocked. The drive is three hours of tight curves each way, so an early start is essential if you want to return the same day. The museum closes for lunch. Combining it with the drive over the Utcubamba valley makes for a full day, not a half one.

Honest expectations

The road is long, winding and prone to landslides in the rains, and travel sickness is common on it. The mummy room is genuinely confronting: rows of bound bodies, several with hands over their faces, and it is not something to walk children through without thinking. Labelling is mainly in Spanish. Leymebamba is a small, cold village with few beds and limited food.

Nearby

Kuélap, the Karajía sarcophagi and Gocta waterfall are all in the same region.