Older and bigger than Machu Picchu, and hardly anyone visits

Every time Machu Picchu comes up in conversation, I think about Kuelap. This cloud fortress, built by the Chachapoya people, dates back to around the sixth century, nearly a thousand years older than Machu Picchu, and it's larger too, over 600 metres of stone walls reaching up to 20 metres high, enclosing roughly 450 circular structures.

The Chachapoya were known to the Incas themselves as the Warriors of the Cloud, and their fortress sat largely forgotten by the outside world until 1843, when a judge from the nearby town of Chachapoyas stumbled across walls he said he'd never seen anything like. More than 180 years on, and even with a cable car built specifically to make it easier to reach in 2017, Kuelap still gets only a fraction of the visitors that Machu Picchu receives in a single day.

I painted Kuelap in watercolour and ink, that circular stonework rising through cloud forest. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Kuelap, Peru · Travel Poster