Information about the city Tarapoto
Tarapoto is a commercial hub town in the San Martín Province of the San Martín Region or northern Peru. It is an hour by plane from Lima, in the high jungle plateau to the east of what is known as the selva baja (low jungle). Although Moyobamba is the capital of the region, Tarapoto is the region's largest city and is linked to the Upper Amazon and the historic city of Yurimaguas by a relatively well-maintained transandean highway, paved in 2008-9.
Tarapoto is approximately 356 metres (1,168 ft) above sea level on the high jungle plateau, also called the cloud forest.[3] It was founded in 1782 by Baltazar Martínez Jiménez de Compagnon. According to the 2007 census Tarapoto has a population of 63,484 within the city limits, and over 117,184 inhabitants including the outlying Morales and Banda de Shilcayo districts.
Tarapoto is often used by tourists and local visitors as a base for excursions into the vast Amazon Rainforest. The region's main activities are tourism, commerce, agriculture, and an illicit "shadow economy" that includes production of coca leaves, extraction of lumber, and trading in land concessions.
Tarapoto is home to the Universidad Nacional de San Martín, an important center of higher education serving the professional and technical needs of a region of high biodiversity. With its active nightlife, Tarapoto offers a wide variety of hotels and restaurants in and around the city. Moreover, the area's beautiful landscapes, waterfalls and lagoons form a tempting location for adventure tourism, such as river rafting and hiking in the tropical Andes, and attract numerous visitors to the "City of Palms".
Tarapoto is one hour by air from Lima and is served by the Cad. FAP Guillermo del Castillo Paredes Airport. This airport is the third-most important in Peru in flow of passengers and cargo. It operates flights to and from Lima on a daily basis, as well as being a stopover to other cities, such as Iquitos and Pucallpa, from Lima.
Lima can be reached by bus in approximately 28 hours. The route runs through Moyobamba and Pedro Ruiz before passing through the coastal city of Chiclayo.
Taxis and motorized rickshaws are frequently used as an inexpensive mode of transportation throughout Tarapoto. Due to the types of the engines used in many taxis, main intersections in Tarapoto are extremely noisy, especially at times of busy traffic. However recently there has been an attempt to certify rickshaws that abide by noise pollution standards.
Information about the city Tingo María
Tingo María is the capital of Leoncio Prado Province in the Huánuco Region in central Peru. It has an urban population of around 55,000 (June 2007).
Tingo María was considered unreachable until 1936, when the Montaña Road reached the settlement. It was then that the state run Estacion Experimental Agricola was established due to its "comfortable" elevation (2,204 ft). In 1942, the U.S. Government began adding more funding to the station, and by 1960 over 40,000 acres (160 km²) of land were under cultivation, especially along the Huallaga River valley where land was level. Coffee was a particularly valuable crop. The city nickname is "the Door of the Amazonia."
The city is placed where two important rivers meet; the Monzón and the Huallaga river, a main contributor of the Marañón river. The city headquarters the National University of the Forest (UNAS-www.unas.edu.pe); it has 7 faculties, a botanical park, and first level facilities. Near the city there is the Tingo María National Park of 180 km² (43,000 acres (170 km2)) that preserves nature and a limestone mountain range in the shape of a woman that sleeps. It is called La Bella Durmiente (Spanish for Sleeping Beauty) or Pumarinri (Quechua for "cougar ear"). A legend explains the form of the range. The main attraction is a cave named Cueva de las Lechuzas (Spanish for "cave of the owls") (named after a colony of the superficially owl-like Oilbird found in it), probably the most attractive and accessible cave of Peru, though it is not the longest and deepest.
Tingo María has an airport served daily by regional jets and turbo-prop airplanes. A well-paved main road, now called "the Federico Basadre" Highway crosses the city halfway from Lima to Pucallpa; 16 km going to the east it meets the Marginal Highway that follows the river to the north and arrives at Tarapoto. A main road that comes from Casma port, on the coast of Ancash department, is being worked now. This road reinforces the position of Tingo María as a regional and national hub.
The mayor is Juan Picón Quedo, part of a local business family. A relevant industry working on Cacao is the Cooperativa Agroindustrial Naranjillo, that sells its products to foreign markets.
