Tingo María

Tingo María National Park was established in 1965 in the region of Huánuco, on the eastern flank of the Peruvian Andes, and at some 48 km² it is one of the smallest in the country. It is also one of the oldest: it was Peru's second national park.

Its most recognisable feature is the Bella Durmiente, or Sleeping Beauty, a chain of hills whose silhouette, seen from the town of Tingo María, evokes the figure of a reclining woman, and which is part of the region's imagery. The park protects humid tropical forest of the ceja de selva, in the transition between the Andes and Amazonia, with a very high diversity of orchids, ferns and palms.

Its most visited corner is the Cueva de las Lechuzas, the Cave of the Owls, a karst cavity that, despite its name, holds above all a large colony of oilbirds: nocturnal, fruit-eating birds, unique in their family, that find their way in the dark by echolocation, like bats, and that emerge en masse at dusk. The cave also contains bat colonies and stalactite formations. The park faces heavy pressure from urban and agricultural expansion in its immediate surroundings.