Roaming South America

Oxapampa - Looking Beyond Tourism: Finding a Real Hometown in Perú

March 21, 2026

I spent a week in each of Villa Rica and Oxapampa. These are my finalists for a new hometown. Both of these towns are in the Selva Central of Perú. In other words, they are on the Amazon side of the Andes in about the middle of the country. Selva refers to the jungle or jungle region. In Perú it refers to the entirety of the Amazon region/tropical rainforest/dense jungle. It can also, in slightly different forms, take on slightly different meanings. For example, silvestre refers to "wild" as the natural wildlife in general. Salvaje refers to "wild" as in untamed/undomesticated wild animals. Anyway, enough Spanish for one blog. So, yes, now into my 4th backpacking journey of South America and I've narrowed my list to those two towns. Keep reading to learn a bit more about each.
References: My Villa Rica blog, July 2, 2025
My Oxapampa blog, April 8, 2024

Villa Rica, Perú

Villa Rica is small. The population is maybe 12,000. The town sits in a tight valley surrounded by high mountains. It's quite beautiful. This town is considered the hub of the coffee-growing region in Perú, and you'll see that reflected in the town's many coffee shops. Here you can find that wonderful Geisha variety sold both by the cup and by the bag - beans or ground. Unlike Colombia, for example, where probably 99.99% of the Geisha is exported. Villa Rica is very pleasant, quiet, and relaxed, with lots of friendly people who welcome visitors. It's also a center for chocolate manufacturers. Cacao, from which chocolate originates, it commonly grown throughout the region, and the town has several chocolaterías. At least one gives a tour of the process of going from cacao to a finished chocolate bar. I did that tour, it's delicious. One other topic of note: VR has a new, surprisingly large hospital being built; it's about half finished.

Oxapampa, Perú

Oxapampa is bigger than Villa Rica, but still a small town. The town has a population of maybe closer to 20,000. The districts (counties more or less) show very different numbers - Oxapampa grows to around 100,000, while Villa Rica remains very low at about 20,000. Anyway, Oxapampa is noticeably bigger,r whatever the numbers might be. You'll find every kind of business you might need here, including, ready for this? I found four pizzerias with brick, wood-fired pizza ovens. Four. In this one small town. I was told of another, so there might be 5. Most towns don't have even 1, let alone 4 or more. Also, lots of people spend time in the plaza throughout the day and into the late evening. And even now, being that it rains pretty much every day, at least for a while in the mornings, people are out throughout town, with and without jackets. Not everybody carries an umbrella. They know the rain lasts only a short while, and while it is raining, it's light. And while VR is getting a brand new hospital, Oxa is renovating its hospital. So in the near future, both towns will have new hospitals providing much better care.

I spent half a day chasing a photograph I took during my previous visit (2024, link above). I asked several taxi drivers, and they shrugged their shoulders and said, "No se" (I don't know). I asked in four tour agencies, at least 6 people, and they all said, "Yeah, it was around the corner, but not anymore," and even the municipal office said they're gone. Eventually, I found the lot, now a construction storage yard behind a white picket fence. Everyone agreed: yes, that used to be the tourist restaurant with the giant ‘OXAPAMPA’ sign. Where the sign went, nobody knows. It's too bad because Oxapampa doesn't have one of those big city name signs. That one place with multiple restaurants did, and now it's nowhere to be found.

What led me to my decision - Mototaxis and Climate

My Final Four choices also included Moyobamba in northern Perú and Ica on the southern coast of Perú. But Moyobamba has one big problem, in my opinion - the mototaxis/motocarros. For those who don't know what those are, in some countries they're called tuk-tuks. They are noisy, they create too much air pollution, and they cause massive congestion in the streets. And this is the problem in Moyobamba. I very much like that town, though, but those mototaxis ruin it for me. Then Ica, a small city inland from the coast in the southern half of Perú. I really enjoyed my visits to Ica. It's a nice town and not crazy with mototaxis. But, alas, in narrowing down my choices to get to the final, Ica and Catamayo have dropped off the list. As I sit here typing, I'm in Oxapampa, thinking this will be where I finally settle, and it probably will. Oxapampa and Villa Rica both do not have too many mototaxis; it's like they have enough to serve the population and no extras. Compared to Moyobamba, where that town is flooded with mototaxis/motocarros. I will be visiting Ica once more, but for now, my mind is set on Oxapampa for my new hometown.

In case you're wondering how I came to this decision - it was multiple visits over several years, it was looking at the life of the towns, not the tourist destinations around them, it was considering what living there might be like, and it was considering the climate, not just right now, but in 10, 20 years. There have been many towns and small cities that I really liked visiting, for example, Encarnación, Paraguay, but it gets too hot, and in the not-too-distant future, it will be hotter. Salta, Argentina - too big for my preference, otherwise I like that city. Also, in Argentina, I liked Villa Mercedes and Mendoza, but they have very cold winters. In Ecuador - Catamayo, very much like Oxapampa, but much hotter. And Roldanillo, Colombia - my favorite place in CO. But Colombia is suffering from an increase in narcotraficos and other armed groups pushing into the towns throughout the country. There are other towns I like in the Selva region of both Ecuador and Perú, but they get too much rain, as in much too much,h or are flooded with mototaxis. I have found Oxapampa to have the perfect balance of all of that, and in the future, the climate will still be livable.