Tingo Maria, green jungle of my eyes!

Hello to all of the lovers of Peru and the world! I hope that you are well today, in this opportunity, dear friends, I want to talk about a Peruvian city that is more of a jungle, known as Tingo María, which is known for its national park that has the same name as the city. This city is known as the home of Sleeping Beauty which is an incredible mountain range at the foot of the jungle, in the shape of a resting woman and you can see it from the highest part of the city.

Let me show you the Sleeping Beauty of Tingo María in this photo with the city and me extending my arms back:

Unlike other cities that I have been able to get to known in my country, the city of Tingo María does not have a Plaza de Armas despite being a big city, however if there is one square in it, it doesn't have this distinction which could be considered as the Plaza de Armas of Tingo María.

The route where there was a slide:

In my case I had the opportunity to get to know Tingo María and then being in the mountainous land of Huánuco. From there the journey was more of less three hours by bus and incredibly you go from being in the mountain range to being in the jungle. One thing that took us by surprise was that because it was the rainy season the road was blocked due to the rocks sliding from the hill, so they kept us waiting for a moment. I thought that you would be held up much longer while they cleaned up the road but we were lucky and didn't wait for more than thirty minutes.

Honestly, I was already used to this experience of landslides because on my journey from Oxapampa to Pozuzo, the exact same thing happened to us and it was worse however nothing scares the trip! . When you want to get to your destination and keep on discovering Peru.

After some time we were arriving at Tingo María and a sign at the entrance to the city gave us a beautiful welcomebetween the green of the mountains of the heart of the jungle of my amazing Peru: one of the most diverse countries in the world with an ancient culture.

Here I will show you one of the lakes that I found around the city of Tingo María known as el Milagro, a marvelous place were few people visit and there is a rural restaurant where you can have the delicious forest food of this part of Peru.

I say that Tingo María is a city with a hot climate, the sun and heat that you feel on the streets is special and unique, when I arrived at the bus station I found myself in the middle of a lot of movement and infinite taxis so from asking people there, I arrived at the square with accommodation, as I have already told you in past posts, I made this trip with my friend from university just before doing our qualification exam in San Marcos to get our tourism degree.

This picture belongs to Tingo María national park, here you find the owl cave where you can see a lot of formations inside it and also different birds that aren't owls, but rather oilbirds (guacharos) that are local to this upper part. It is not complicated to get here and it is a must-see on your way to Tingo Maria "The city of Sleeping Beauty"

Here is a picture that I took at the Tingo María square one day that it was raining but don't think that it was cold at all! Here it is a tropical area and with the perfect climate despite it being the low season with visitors, you felt like you were in a really busy city:

Tingo Maria is a city that relies on its hot climate and with us very happy people in Peru, we are used to thinking of jungle people, well we think that they are very happy and if they are in the same accommodation where we stayed. We went to the reception and the girl that was there called a man to introduce to us and he was our tour guide for two days in Tingo María.

From Tingo María we set off for Milagro lake, the owl cave, Serpentario Museum, Velo de la Novia waterfall and the view of Bella Durmiente (Sleeing Beauty).

Here is one of the turquoise lakes that I found on my visit to the owl caves, practically only me, my friend and the tour guide were there.

There were some very good days since I always had something to do in addition to getting to know part of the city and try the delicious food of the Peruvian jungle, if you have still not tried tacacho con cecina (roasted banana with smoked meat) or juane (traditional dish consisting of chicken, olives, hard-boiled eggs) on your trip to Tingo María you can eat them here for a good price.

This next photo that I am going to show you for example was my breakfast, as you can see it was quite overwhelming.

This dish was one that you could taste in front of the Milagro lake:

Tingo María has a jungle river known as Huallaga river where you can see the living nature a few meters from civilisation. When we went to Tingo María as I was telling you, we went in the low season of tourists which is why the private tour for me and my friend only cost us 35 soles per person per day without food.

If you are a lover of nature, Tingo María is your destination because going into Tingo María national park which you find yourself in, in less that 15 minutes and you can disconnect from modernity as well as swimming in a turquoise lake where you only pay two soles to enter and you can stay as long as you like, as well as being with its curative properties at the same time by counting the minerales that are naturally in the warm waters.

A museum of stuffed animals and other living things:

Now that I am telling you about the history of the places in Tingo María and around it, it has come to the time to tell you, what you can visit inside the same city, Tingo María has a university and in it there is a museum of stuffed animals that lived in this part of Peru Imagine finding yourself with tarantulas? Well here you can without any problem (of course they are stuffed). Our trip to Tingo María included visiting these museums, full of a lot but a lot of animals that I had never seen in my life and other things that I am going to tell you about next.

Here I am going to show you some of the large collection that the museum inside the university, and also take the opportunity to explain that these animals have been found here, some are even in danger of extinction.

When we arrived at the museum we were looked after by another guide from the same place who explained to us really quickly, what we were going to find in the place so that we could go around the the room without a problem.

I also have something that I want to share with you, that left me astonished when I saw it since it was the first time that I saw a bottled human fetus and there were two, you can see it below.

But this is not everything that this museum had, dear friends, there is another thing that really caught my attention, in the upper part of the door there was a two headed animal You don't believe me? Here it is:

When I saw it, I though how did this phenomenon happened, the only thing that I could say was that the little animal was born this way due to a deformity and was stillborn so its head is kept to study inside the university.

See this museum, without a doubt, made me reflect on the variety of thing in Peru, there are so many types and species of living things that need to be preserved and we should not destroy mother nature. A while ago, for example, in my country there was an oil spillage which contaminated the area and this had some terrible consequences for the habitat of the animals there or more so, us that live in this world.

Additionally, I will tell you that after seeing the stuffed animals, we also went in to see some living animals, the university tries to keep them with few resources, with those that count on it it would be great if some private entity supported the maintenance of these animals so that they could give them a better quality of life, here for example, you could go in to the cage where you found a toucan which I liked a lot because it had a celestial coloured beak at the start of its face so the tour guide opened the cage and let us go in for a minute to take a photo with the toucan, here it is.

However this was not the only animal that you could meet, we could see birds that I would never imagine existed and also the famous rooster of the rocks who is native to Peru and is considered the national bird.

I had a little animal that I always knew, I was fond of it, if you have ever visited the painting of Go Diego Go, there is a beautiful bear. We found one here that was sleeping and another that stayed in its house. Here they are:

Another group of animals in this case, was actually free were some geese that were walking as if they were giving a school trip, all following their leader and starting to make their sounds saying follow me!

On the other hand, we could also see some crocodiles that seemed immobile waiting to be able to get their prey which in general were insects as well as people. You don't beleive me do you!

Now one of the last animals that we seen was a cat that was looking for mice by the door

The cocktail bar "Trapiche":

And so, dear friends, my days in Tingo María were great and in the night as in those times with alcohol, this time I went to a bar and stayed around the square which was called “Trapiche” which was one of the bars that specialised in cocktails, on this day I confess I had 3 drinks and so you can imagine how I ended up. The names of the cocktails were very funny and they deserved a photo, I will show you what I got to try the "Chuchuhuasi", "Dulce amargura" (Bittersweet) and "Hierba brava” (Tough weed) but the funnier names that were in the bar Trapiche were “Viejita pero sabrosa” (Biddy but tasty), “Agárrame si puedes” (Catch me if you can), “Pruebame y veras” (Try me and see) amoung so many others, her is a photo of the names:

As I could not choose I asked for the waiters advice and since it was so delicious I asked for another and then another and another and finally I was like a rag and it started raining and I grabbed my camera and starting to record myself laughing at my own craziness, but I made a mistake and now that I think about it, I confess that this was the last time that I got drunk. Anyway write a schedule when you come to Tingo María, you have to come to this bar and try the cocktails that have different herbs and fruits, it also has a list of exotic drinks that give you energy for those who want to try new flavours. Each drink cost me 10 soles and honestly it was quite economic since I am sure that in my city for example these drinks would ave easily been three times the price.

And so my dear readers, my days in Tingo María have come to an end and the adventure of the Peruvian jungle also, after having been to such amazing places like Pozuzo, La Merced, Oxapampa, Huánuco and finally in Tingo María, and without a doubt this adventure ended with the finishing touch.

How do you get to the central jungle?

If you are in Lima you can take any company that goes to the central jungle from 28th of July avenue in the centre of Lima as well as near Javier Prado avenue. The cost depends on the city that you start your journey in, for me I had almost a week of travel and I got to know so much and my budget didn't go over 1100 soles, which was honestly very well invested for this central jungle adventure.

If you come in March, take into account that you are coming in the rainy season like I did, and this can create some problems on the roads but no one can take away what is experienced and encourage you to get to know this marvelous and amazing journey of rivers, lakes, green mountains, animals, exotic food and one of the best views that you can find in Peru and above all the people with a noble heart that always give you the best one.

I hope that you have enjoyed this report and that very soon, you also start writing your stories from Peru, my country that I love so much. Thanks for reading and see you soon!

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