Tarma

Tarma is the first decent lodging option on the long haul between Lima [1] and Chanchamayo [2], and strolling townspeople crowd the streets in the evening, a warming sight after the barren landscape of the puna above. Because of its chilly weather and altitude (925 meters or 3,053 feet), people coming from Lima occasionally feel altitude sickness here.

Tarma was founded by the Spanish soon after the conquest, though narrow streets and a handful of old homes are the only clues to its colonial pedigree. There are two churches worth a visit on the main square. La Capilla del Señor de la Cárcel (Chapel of the Lord of the Prison) was built in 1800 and remodeled in 1954 by General Manuel Odría, Tarma’s most famous son and a Peruvian dictator during the 1930s. The church receives its name from the Christ image painted on its left wall and the fact that it was built atop the town’s prison. Across the plaza is Catedral Santa Ana (6–10 a.m. and 5–8 p.m. daily), which was also built by Odría.

What Tarma is most known for, however, is incredible festivals, starting with elaborate processions, singing contests, and water balloon–throwing during February’s Carnaval. During Tarma’s Easter week, millions of flowers and seeds are carefully arranged on and around the Plaza de Armas. The resulting flower carpet—depicting everything from landscapes to religious images—sets a new world record every year, covering every inch of street in an eight-block area around the main square, an estimated 3,400 square meters. At 5 a.m. on Easter Sunday, a religious procession walks over the carpet and through a number of decorated wooden arches on its way to and from the cathedral.

Other nearby attractions include Tarmatambo, a collection of Inca ruins nin kilometers to the south of Tarma. The Santuario del Señor de Muruhuay is a huge white modern church with an electric bell tower, visible from the highway nine kilometers east of Tarma at Acobamba. This is only the latest building to cover a rock carving of Christ reputed to have miraculous properties. Tradition maintains that it was etched on a boulder from a survivor of the Junín independence battle of August 6, 1824.

There is world-class caving near Palcamayo, 23 kilometers north of Acobamba along a dirt road. This town is the launching point for exploring one of Latin America’s largest caves, the Gruta de Huagapo. Cavers using scuba equipment and oxygen tanks have descended as far as 2,800 meters into the cave. Guides can be contracted locally to help descend some distance into the cave, but unguided visitors with headlamps can enter to about 300 meters.