Citadel in the Clouds

Deep in the Peruvian wilds lies a little-known archaeological treasure: the 1,200-year-old lost city of Kuelap. by keith bellows

I drive 15 hours from Chiclayo, Peru, on roads that are a maze of hair-raising switchbacks, deeply rutted dirt tracks, crumbling embankments, mudslides, and washouts. My goal: To see one of Peru’s little-known treasures—the lost city of Kuelap. Archaeologists say this pre-Incan site in the ceja de la selva (eyebrow of the jungle) is one of the most important in the country. It looms 9,842 feet above sea level on the eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains, far from the easy reach of tourists. Six centuries before the expansion of the Inca Empire, the Chachapoya (“people of the clouds”) settled 10,000 square miles centered in what is now the Amazonas region of Peru. No one knows where they came from or how they vanished. Their abandoned lookout towers and forts lie moldering on ridges and mountaintops. Looted tombs riddle valley walls. But the dominant legacy of this civilization is the citadel of Kuelap, standing atop a sedimentary slab overlooking the Utcubamba River. I park the car and slog through boot-sucking mud 45 minutes to the great rock wall—62 feet high and almost half a mile long—that protects Kuelap. Mist seeps up from the ground. Horses and llamas graze nearby. Tiered in four levels above and behind the wall are more than 400 circular stone buildings, constructed between a.d. 800 and 1500—an astonishing settlement that, at its peak, was home to some 3,000 inhabitants. At one of Kuelap’s three entrances, the walls bear carvings of a monkey head, twin snakes, an upside-down llama. I spend three hours traversing the ruins, discovered 68 years before American archaeologist Hiram Bingham stumbled upon Machu Picchu. Lichenclad putiquero trees cast shadows, their roots bursting through building walls; wildflowers and bromeliads are everywhere. In places the foliage has been cleared, and the buildings emerge more clearly. Some have guinea-pig pens, huge millstones for grinding flour, weapons niches, and bone holes in which families interred their dead. As I stand atop the wall, gazing through drizzle, I’m struck by the quiet. Only a handful of visitors are here—in fact, fewer than 4,500 non-Peruvians visit the site annually. I think, how lucky am I: Where, how often, can you find a place of a lifetime so remote and unknown? Keith Bellows is the editor in chief of Traveler.