Kuélap, Peru · Travel Poster

Each poster comes with a letter home. Ella writes about the place and its hidden history, and the details that never makes it into the guidebooks.

Kuélap, the cloud fortress of the Chachapoya, dates back to around the sixth century, nearly a thousand years older than Machu Picchu, and is larger too, over 600 metres of stone walls up to 20 metres high enclosing roughly 450 circular structures. It was built by a people the Incas themselves called the "Warriors of the Cloud." A judge from the nearby town of Chachapoyas rediscovered it in 1843, describing walls unlike anything he had ever seen, yet more than 180 years on, and even with a cable car built in 2017, Kuelap still receives only a fraction of the visitors that Machu Picchu does in a single day.

This poster is an original illustration in watercolour and ink, painted exclusively for the Ella's Adventures travel poster series.

No frame included.