Above Huancabamba, at altitudes between 3,500 and 4,000 metres on the high páramo, a series of glacial lakes known collectively as Las Huaringas has been a centre of Andean healing practice for centuries. The most sacred of these lakes — Laguna Shimbe and Laguna Negra — are visited by curanderos (traditional healers) and their clients, who travel from across Peru and Ecuador seeking ritual cleansing ceremonies involving immersion in the bitterly cold water.
The ceremonies, led by local shamans who carry bundles of medicinal plants and ritual objects, take place most commonly at night and incorporate elements of pre-Columbian and Catholic practice. Visiting the lagunas requires several hours of travel by foot or horse from Huancabamba, and participation in a ceremony requires arranging a curandero through contacts in town. Independent visits to the lakeside are possible; the landscape of high-altitude wetland and paramo is striking even without ceremony.