The national park in the Cordillera Central covers a region between 350 and 4200 m altitude with seven different natural spaces. The cloud forests in particular are characterized by enormous biodiversity and high endemism. The park is also home to 36 archaeological sites from the Inca period.
Rio Abiseo National Park: Facts
| Official title: | Rio Abiseo National Park with archaeological park |
| Cultural and natural monument: | 2745.20 km² national park (since 1983) with 36 archaeological sites from pre-Columbian times; on the basis of excavations at Gran Pajatén and in the Manachaqui cave evidence of human settlement from 900 BC Until 1532 or 1800 BC. Until 1532 |
| Continent: | America |
| Country: | Peru |
| Location: | between the Marañón and Huallaga rivers in the Cordillera Central, east of Trujillo |
| Appointment: | 1990, expanded 1992 |
| Meaning: | Significance: unique primary cloud forest in the river basin of the Río Abiseo with a high biodiversity and endemism as well as an important geobotanical laboratory for the study of climate change in the Amazon region |
| Flora and fauna: | Dry forest with acacia species and Parkinsonia praecox, but also moist mountain rainforest at altitudes of 2300 m to 3600 m with the evergreen alder species Alnus acuminata and the evergreen shrub species Lomatia hirsuta and cloud forest; Bird species such as the Andean cliff bird, turkey vulture, lyre nightjar, highland parakeet, the species Penelope montagnii, which belongs to the real chickens; Mammals such as the golden-browed spider monkey, white-browed capuchin, night and red howler monkey, jaguar, jaguarundi, northern Andean, Paka, giant armadillo and opossum |
Hidden wonders in the mountain rainforest
More than a thousand years before the arrival of Europeans in America, there was an extensive network of trails in the Andes, on which traders, llama caravans with loads and travelers of all kinds moved. Although there was no major state that – as the Inca later did – united large parts of these tropical high mountains under political rule, there was a trading system that united many different societies and stretched from southern Central America to today’s Colombia, Ecuador and Peru extended to northwest Argentina. In the north-south trade, red clamshells were mainly transported from the Ecuadorian coast and emeralds from Colombia to the southern Andean regions, with turquoise, lapis lazuli and above all copper, later bronze, arriving from the south.
According to topb2bwebsites, the north coast of Peru – ruled by the Mochica between 100 and 700 AD and by the Chimú between the 11th and 16th centuries – was not only an important trading point due to its large urban settlements with their artisan quarters and temple centers, along with the abundant equipment of their priestly princes, but an import region of raw materials of the most varied kinds, which the craftsmen of the large coastal cities processed into jewelry of all kinds, as they were found in the tomb of the Lord of Sipán, an early Moche priest prince.
Just as important as north-south trade was east-west trade. Colorful bird feathers, medicinal plants, animal hides of all kinds, honey and other goods from the Amazon region reached the rich coastal states via this. Even today one can follow the routes of these early traders on pre-Hispanic “trunk roads” that lead from several of the coastal valleys across the Andes to the border area of the Amazon. If you leave Chan Chan, the capital of Chimú, or the pyramid of the sun and moon in Moche – both located near today’s city of Trujillo – on foot in an easterly direction, you will reach the Río Abiseo National Park after about ten days. At the end of this trip you will reach one of the centers of those times, which stand out for their monumental settlements with large, stone round houses, which are provided with bird-shaped and human-shaped facade decorations made of stone. A north-south route that also existed in the early days connected a large number of these settlements on the eastern slope of the Andes, such as Huanuco and Chachapoyas. The monumental residential buildings, the lavish graves, artfully constructed on inaccessible steep walls and equipped with head-high ceramic statues, bear witness to the former wealth of these settlements. In the last few decades, archaeologists have excavated ceramics not only from the cultures of the Peruvian north coast, but also from more distant cultural areas such as Nazca, about 1500 kilometers away. so Huanuco and Chachapoyas. The monumental residential buildings, the lavish graves, artfully constructed on inaccessible steep walls and equipped with head-high ceramic statues, bear witness to the former wealth of these settlements. In the last few decades, archaeologists have excavated ceramics not only from the cultures of the Peruvian north coast, but also from more distant cultural areas such as Nazca, about 1500 kilometers away. so Huanuco and Chachapoyas. The monumental residential buildings, the lavish graves, artfully constructed on inaccessible steep walls and equipped with head-high ceramic statues, bear witness to the former wealth of these settlements. In the last few decades, archaeologists have excavated ceramics not only from the cultures of the Peruvian north coast, but also from more distant cultural areas such as Nazca, about 1500 kilometers away.
One of the largest of these settlements built on ridges of the eastern Andean foothills is Gran Pajatén, which is located in the Río Abiseo National Park, which is still difficult to access today. This remote protected area is not only of interest to archaeologists, but above all to nature lovers. Here you will find rare plants and all kinds of endangered animal species. For example, the choro, the deep mahogany-colored yellow-tailed woolly monkey, was thought to be extinct since 1926. Now it has been rediscovered in this national park. Spectacled bears belong to its residents as well as giant anteaters, jaguars, giant armadillos, tapirs and northern Andean deer.
One reason for the occurrence of rare animal and plant species, some of which have only been identified there, are the mountain rainforests. These forest areas, sometimes also called the “eyebrows of the mountains”, in the higher elevations of the eastern slopes of the Andes are damp and dark, covered with fog and clouds and form island-like remains of a type of forest that was more widespread during the Ice Age, in which plants and animals from that time are preserved to have.
