Tarapoto

Long before the Spanish arrived, people from the Andes settled the valleys of the Mayo and Cumbaza rivers; tradition holds that refugees from the Chanka and Pocra peoples of the Ayacucho area, fleeing Inca revenge after a failed revolt, founded Lamas and then a satellite settlement beside the Suchiche lagoon, a lake that dried up in colonial times. Palms called taraputus grew around it, and they gave the town its name.

Tarapoto's founding is traditionally dated to 20 August 1782, when the bishop Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón visited, and its colonial title was Santa Cruz de los Motilones de Tarapoto. Spanish-language historians point out that the town already existed by then: its formation began in 1765, when the council of Lamas ordered part of its population to move to the site. For most of the next two centuries it was a small trading town on the margins of the Amazon.

Everything changed with the road, which reached Tarapoto in 1968. Between 1971 and 1976 it overtook Moyobamba as the most important town in the region, as farm produce flowed through it. In the 1980s and 1990s the Huallaga valley became a centre of coca growing, and the Shining Path and the MRTA were both active in San Martín. Peace, the paving of the highway to Yurimaguas in 2008–9, and a shift towards cacao, rice and tourism have since driven rapid growth.

Tarapoto sees itself as the "City of Palms" and the cultural centre of San Martín, home to the headquarters of the National University of San Martín and its regional museum. Its culture blends the mestizo traditions of the Amazon towns with those of the Kichwa-Lamista people of neighbouring Lamas, who speak a form of Quechua and keep their own festivals, centred on the Lamas suburb of Wayku.

The year's high points are religious. On 24 June the Fiesta de San Juan, a public holiday, brings families together to eat juane, and in July the patronal festival of the Holy Cross honours the town's colonial name. Football has a following too, and Unión Tarapoto is the local club.

Food and drink are part of local pride. Tarapoto is often called the gastronomic capital of the Peruvian Amazon, and its bars serve a long list of home-made jungle liquors — infusions of roots, bark and fruit with names such as siete raíces and rompecalzón. Visitors are still relatively few compared with Cusco or Lima, and travellers who do not look Peruvian tend to be noticed, and usually welcomed.

At the 2017 census Tarapoto had about 180,000 people within its city limits and more than 200,000 including the adjoining districts of Morales and La Banda de Shilcayo, making it the largest city in the region and the third-largest in the Peruvian Amazon after Iquitos and Pucallpa. Moyobamba remains the regional capital, but Tarapoto is the commercial centre.

The economy rests on trade, farming and tourism. The fertile valley to the south grows rice, maize, coffee, cacao and tobacco, and the city is known for its chocolate, coffee, liquors and fruit ice creams. Several universities draw students from across the region. The region also has a shadow economy, from coca, now in decline, to illegal logging and trading in land concessions.

The city has spread rapidly, with new barrios and hypermarkets arriving since the 2010s. Days start early to beat the heat, mototaxis fill every street, and in many neighbourhoods the water supply is cut at certain hours. In the evening the main square and the bar streets nearby come alive.

Tarapoto's food is the cooking of the Peruvian Amazon, shaped by Indigenous, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese influences. The best-known dish is juane: rice, chicken, egg and olive wrapped in bijao leaves and boiled, traditionally made for San Juan. Its cousin, the ninajuane, is made from beaten eggs and chicken and is where the town's famous shrimps are enjoyed. Both are traditionally cooked on tushpas, wood or charcoal stoves.

Tacacho is mashed fried plantain mixed with pork fat, served with cecina, dried and smoked pork, or with the regional chorizo; the city's cecina and chorizo are now made on an industrial scale and sold in supermarkets across Peru. Inchicapi is a chicken soup thickened with ground peanuts, cassava and maize. Patarashca is local fish wrapped in leaves and roasted, and timbuche, a soup of fish, beaten egg and coriander, is known as a cure for the morning after a fiesta.

Drinks range from masato, fermented cassava, and maize chicha to fruit refrescos of aguaje, cocona and ripe banana. Ice creams and juices made from camu camu, aguaje and cocona are a speciality, and the bars are known for jungle liquors steeped with roots and bark. Chocolate made from San Martín's cacao and the region's coffee are sold across the city.