Oxapampa is a town in the part of Amazonia which is most easily accessible from Lima, so it's a vacay spot for Peruvians but not really international visitors. It's kind of a cutesy tourist town, but not that cutesy. Its big claim to fame is the wooden houses which are built (sort of) northern european style, here because at the end of the 19th century this was a settlement of German immigrants to Peru, brought in as part of a big racist plan to improve the country. There are still German Peruvians living here, but it seems like more of a kitschy thing now - postcards of folk dancers in leiderhosen and shit like that. The idea is like a little alpine village in the rainforest.
The official story is that the Germans came in and got along great with the Amuesha who were the indigenous people here. Yeah...maybe. There's an Amuesha tourist center place outside of town, but I didn't go because I thought it was going to be a super uncomfortable ethnic performance thing which gives me the fucking creeps.
The best thing about these wooden houses is the empty frame upper stories, like they were half hollowed out, or half-built and abandoned. They're actually made that way on purpose, of course, as a way to deal with the serious heat this place gets in the summer. But to me it looked like they were disappearing from the inside out, like a ghost story, which I love. And through the empty upper stories you can see the big green mountains all around fade into the mist.
Other parts of town are maybe less picturesque, but also amazing, boardwalks through this amazing colorful vegetation. After the mountains it seems unreal how alive everything is here - plants growing up through everything and animals of all kinds rooming around in the streets and yards and buildings. A lot of the plants look seriously invented by Dr. Seuss.
Apparently it is considered weird to take pictures of outhouses. I don't know why.
Up in the high places you see a lot of dogs, but no cats. My dad said they can't reproduce at those altitudes. It was nice to see cats again. In particular, this skinny little kitten became our new best friend and shared a late-night coffee with us (well actually he had milk) at a little family cafe while the teenage daughters working there told us all about the area attractions.
Very sadly we didn't have time to go see the huge national park near here - there's never enough time! If I actually went back to all of the places I've traveled and want to go back to, it would take more than my life. But Oxapampa was great, really, chill and little and interesting - I spent a lot of the day just walking around by myself and enjoying being alone and taking pictures and being in a small place and not being stared at.
At this juice stand we had some delicious drinks (I am now obsessed with tropical fruit juice and depressed at the prospect of going back to wisconsin and not having any anymore ever again, sob. Hey all of you foodie/agricultural people, why haven't you figured out how to grow pineapples in Dane County yet? You're all fired.) The juice lady thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world that my dad speaks Quechua so they had a long conversation and she got her laughs.
At night there was a big celebration of the holiday in the main square with lots of fun spiny glowy toys and kids having fun with them.
UPDATE FROM MADISON
I was having my own celebration that night, because I managed to purchase the most amazing present in all of history in a little tchachke store off the square. It is a shiny plastic ship clock lamp with a genius work of great literature written on the box in bad translation from chinese. I saw this and had to have it despite the difficulty in transportation. I carried this ship lamp clock from Oxapampa, over the Andes, back to Lima, and then on planes and buses back to Wisconsin - and I do mean carried - I was afraid it would break if I put it in checked luggage. It is now displayed in a place of honor in my mom's living room were you may see it TO THIS DAY.
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