Oxapampa

Oxapampa is the capital of Oxapampa District and Oxapampa Province in the eastern Pasco Region of Peru, in the natural region known as the Selva Alta or high jungle, where cattle raising and coffee growing are the main agricultural pursuits; the settlement of Pozuzo lies 80 kilometres north down the valley of the Huancabamba River. The name comes from Quechua Uqshapampa, meaning straw plain or grassy plain. In March 1857 a group of 300 Tyrolean and Prussian settlers sailed for Peru, and in 1859 a group of 170 of them moved permanently to Pozuzo; in 1891 colonists from Pozuzo founded Oxapampa and then Villa Rica. The town keeps a Germanic flavour in its Tyrolean architecture and celebrates its origins in public festivals. Its mild climate and scenery, with access improved by highway construction beginning in the 1980s, have made it a tourist destination. The climate is Cfb under the Köppen system, called eternal spring, with only 2.2 degrees Celsius between the hottest and coldest months.