Huanuco's Cross hand temple & Tingo María's Miracle lagoon.

On top of the mountain, a wide hidden lagoon emerges from the trees and blesses us with the kiss of the sun. The ladscape is beautiful and the people who live there take really good care of the space.

Húanuco and the Rupa-Rupa

Tingo María, once land of the Rupa-Rupa civilization and now known as "the gate to the Amazonia", is the second largest city of the province of Huanuco, which is also know as the "Land of eternal spring". Huanuco, being the land of my father, is one of my favorite peruvian destinations. The province is half andean mountains, half jungle, allowing extraordinary crops to develop. Nowadays it holds the record of the "best organic potatoe harvest" in the country which is a very hard title to achieve in Perú.

The Rupa-Rupa were incorporated to the Tahuantinsuyo by the extraordinary emperor Pachacutec who dared to face the dangers of the Amazonic jungle. In modern times some dicoveries as the "Gran Pajaten" archeological center seem to confirm that a inca civilization once thrived in the area, connecting the Amazonia to the empire as well.

The sleeping beauty

Once you cross over from Huanuco to Tingo María you must visit the emblematic view of the "sleeping beauty" a formation of mountains that resembles a sleeping woman. Legend says that the princess of the jungle known as NUNASH fell in love with a great warrior Cuynac, who was also a worlock, but the love story was interrupted by the will of the princess father: fierce Amaru, the wise flying serpent. The princess was turned into a butterfly by Cuynac and flew to the jungle to ask the spirits for help. She came back with an army and won the battle but the warrior had already turned into rock with the same magic in a desperate attempt to stop a war from developing. The princess searched for the warrior until she fell asleep in the mountains and it was then that she received a message from him saying that he still loved her but wasn't able to come back from the enchantment. The princess then accepted Cuynac's porposal to become a rock monument herself and merged with the mountains becoming what we now know as the "sleeping beauty".

Kotosh, the oldest temple in America

The Kotosh archaeological center is a very interesting 4000 year old vestige. Between the many edifications we can definetly see the "Crossed hand temple" as one of the most important ceremonial places and the oldest temple in America.