Cerro de la Sal

About

The Cerro de la Sal or Cerro de Sal, (Mountain of Salt) is located in Villa Rica District of Oxapampa Province in Pasco Department, Peru. The Cerro de la Sal was an important source of salt for the pre-Columbian indigenous people of the Amazon Basin in Peru. Because of the seasonal concentration at the mountain by indigenous people (Indians), especially the Asháninka and Yanesha (Amuesha), Spanish missionaries, settlers, and soldiers were attracted to the Cerro de la Sal as early as 1635. Several attempts by Franciscan missionaries to establish Roman Catholic missions in the area were thwarted by uprisings of the indigenous people. In the late 19th century the Peruvian government established a foothold leading to the settlement of Europeans and Andean peoples in the area. Cerro de la Sal is used loosely to refer to the surrounding region and to the chain of mountains extending eastward from the salt deposits. Google Earth locates the Cerro de la Sal about 7 kilometres (4.3 miles) north of the town of Villa Rica. José Amich, an 18th-century Franciscan missionary, described the Cerro (mountain or hill) as shaped like a loaf of bread, running for "three leagues," 12.5 kilometres (7.8 miles), to the southwest and many more leagues to the northeast. The vein of salt was on the surface near the summit of the mountain and was "thirty varas," 23 metres (75 ft) wide. The salt was mixed with stone and red clay. The Cerro de la Sal extends southwestern to near the Paucartambo River which merges with the Chanchamayo River from the south. Below the junction, the river was initially called the River de la Sal, but later became known as the Perené River. The rivers were the principal means of transporting the salt from the Cerro to the people living in the lowlands of the Amazon Basin. The Cerro de la Sal has an elevation of about 1,750 metres (5, 740 ft) and is surrounded by higher mountains that rise to a maximum elevation of about 2,800 metres (9, 200 ft). Below elevations of about 1,550 metres (5, 090 ft) the climate is tropical rainforest (Af in the Köppen Classification). Above that elevation the climate is sub-tropical (Cfb in the Köppen Classificatio

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.