Go horseback riding, milk the cows and taste farm-produced products. Experience a milk farm route through the mountainous rural region of Cajamarca.
With the hostel D’marie as your base—located on the Huacariz farm just 5 minutes from the city of Cajamarca—you’ll be surrounded by thousands of trees including pines, willows, cypresses, and eucalyptuses. As a guest at this beautiful hostel, you can feed the animals on the milk farm, go for a horseback ride, sign up for a cow-milking session or rent a bike and ride 10 minutes to reach a thermal bath. You can also sit down for a meal at the hostel’s restaurant, which serves delicious dishes prepared with the farm’s own products.
In the words of Camilo Vergara, the owner of the Huacariz farm: “Cattle-rearing continues to be one of the most important commercial activities in the Cajamarca region. However, for some time now, we have also ventured into the tourism sector and are hosting several national, as well as international, tourists on our farm.”
This gigantic milk farm, which sprawls over an area of 20 hectares, houses 40 cows, 5 horses and loads of pigs, sheep, ducks and guinea pigs.
The local dairy industry
In the center of the city of Cajamarca, you can visit a dairy processing farm, which regularly receives tourists. All you need is an authorization from the manager of the plant, Carlos Vergara, to tour the plant and closely watch the production of cheese and manjar blanco. Some products of the plant are also available for sale in a store located on the 1st floor of the plant.
As Mr. Vergara says, “While the food processing areas are located on the 2nd and 3rd floor of the building, the 4th floor houses our energy production zone.” Everyday, this plant produces 12 varieties of cheese, yogurt, manjar blanco and natillas out of 6,000 liters of milk. All of these products are then distributed throughout the northern areas of Peru.
La Collpa milk farm
La Collpa is another picturesque farm. Located about 11 km south of the city, you should ideally visit this place at 4:30 in the evening, when the foreman calls out the cows by their names and walks them to the shed.
This 7 hectares farm has a farm house that dates back to the 1920’s, a man-made lagoon, a tiny chapel and a cow house which sends 300 liters of milk to Nestle every month.
This unique tourist spot is often included in tour packages offered by travel agencies, though one can also choose to visit independent of a tour.
Spend the night out in the farm
Granja Porcon is the first farm in the area to open up for public visits. It’s located 30 km to the north of the city. This farm comes with 10 double bed rooms, an eatery and 9,000 hectares of reforested area, with loads of pine and eucalyptus trees. In the daytime, visitors can walk through the stables, the trout wells, the potato storage room, the forestall nursery and the little zoo.
Cover photo: municaj.gob.pe
This article has been updated from its original publication on June 14, 2018.