Roaming South America

Moyobamba and Yantaló, Perú

July 26, 2025

Moyobamba is a city of about 53,000 people, located in the northeast of Perú. It is on the east side of the Andes Mountains at about 860 meters (2821 feet), It sits in the Mayo River Valley. The modern city of Moyobamba was founded in 1540. The Spanish founded the city on the site of an Inca settlement. It was also the first city founded by the Spanish in the Peruvian Amazon region, and is the second oldest Spanish-founded city east of the Andes. The city is also known as The City of Orchids. Not because there are many orchids inside the city, but because the surrounding mountains contain some 3,500 species of orchids.

I've written two previous blogs about Moyobamba, and this is my third visit to the city. Probably needless to say - I like Moyobamba. The city has clean streets, less noise than most other cities loaded with those awful 3-wheel motocycles, and a very nice climate. The people are friendly, as is the case throughout the Selva region of Perú. There are murals painted on the sides of buildings throughout the city, and one neighborhood in particular has just about every house painted entirely with a mural - all depicting images of the jungle and anything related.

Now, after about 2 1/2 years of traveling through 8 countries in South America, visiting almost 300 cities, Moyobamba is my number 1 choice of a new hometown. But, today I visited a small town, a very small town, about a 15-minute drive west of town, and have decided to move that town, Yantaló, to the number 1 spot, and Moyobamba to the number 2 spot.

Yantaló is tiny. The population is maybe near 3,000. It has a surprisingly large number of restaurants, tiendas, and a couple of drugstores. I met and spoke with Mayor Luis Miguel, and he informed me about the plans for the next couple of years, including completing a new children's park, paving additional roads, finishing another new park, and finally, finishing a block-long pedestrian-only street. They are also considering closing the four streets around the plaza to motor vehicles, making that entire block pedestrian-only as well. The town has 22 (if I remember correctly) murals painted on buildings and walls throughout the town. I walked almost every street in town, and really liked it. It's very quiet, a very pleasant place, and with Moyobamba only a 15-minute drive away, it's not totally isolated. There is also a new clinic in the town. The river alongside Moyobamba, the Mayo River, also passes near Yantaló, so I asked Luis Miguel about going from one town to the other by boat. In Moyobamba, there are canoes/small boats that will take you on river tours or to nearby crossings. The Mayor told me that while it's possible, nobody does it. Paddling a canoe upstream from Moyobamba takes 6 hours. Then you have to pay the boat guy to stay and wait for you for the return trip, or you take the road back. So, by the river is not a viable option.

Also, in Yantaló is a living museum of bees. It's fantastic! They have 20 or 22 species of bees living there. You can do a guided tour where the guy tells you all about the various bees, shows you their hives, and lets you taste the honey from some of them, or you can do your own walk-around. Most of the bees provide honey, and each one tastes different. And no, you don't wear a protective suit or helmet or any of that stuff. There are only two aggressive bees, and he tells you to stand a bit away from their hives. He demonstrated how docile some are by putting his bare hand into the center of a hive, and the bees didn't bother his hand at all. He asked me to do it, but I chose not to. I have a thing about bees due to a bad experience when I was 8 or 9 years old. Anyway, it's a very interesting place to visit. They have a website: https://www.meliponarioyantalo.com/ - of course, it's in Spanish, but you can always use the Translate this Page option if the browser you use has it (I use Firefox and it has that option).

So, now I've been here in Moyobamba for 5 days and I really do love this town. But, I have to be fair and check out two towns in Ecuador again. I've visited both a couple of times each, and I liked them both very much. So, now I will head west into the mountains, then north into Ecuador. I will be writing about the towns I visit along the way.

As always, there are lots of photos in the photo album, and my photos are not just tourist attractions and the beautiful architecture - my photos are of the cities, the neighborhoods, what they really look like. I hope you'll take a look.