Kuélap

Belonging to the Chachapoyas culture, the mountaintop fortress of Kuelap functioned as a political, religious, administrative and military center. A yellow stone wall rings the complex, measuring 680 meters long, and up to 20 meters high. Above the entrance gate — past bas-relief stone carvings of animals and birds — two stone platforms have been constructed to create separate living areas known as Upper Town and Lower Town. The ruins of 400 hundred circular stone buildings can be seen, overgrown in many places with trees and bromeliads. Rhomboidal friezes and zigzags in mosaic form, typical of Chachapoyas culture, adorn the walls. At the uppermost level is “The Tower,” 6.40 meters high and 9 meters wide, and a stone structure called El Tintero,or “the inkpot.”