How to Visit Peru’s Smurf Houses (Pampachiri Stone Forest)

Hidden in Peru’s Andes Mountains is the Pampachiri Stone Forest. If you go looking deep enough, you’ll find the Peruvian Smurf Houses – ancient homes carved into solid rock. This guide explains everything you need to know about finding and exploring Peru’s most overlooked attractions.

This Peru motorcycle guide is based on our ride through Peru during our round the world trip. The guides on this website are constantly updated with info from contributors to keep them current, up-to-date and as helpful as possible for you.

The Smurf Houses Pampachiri Stone Forest Motorcycle Guide

By Andy Davidson

Mad or Nomad: Round the World Motorcycle Traveller

Welcome to Peru’s Smurf Houses – otherwise known as the Pampachiri Stone Forest.

This region was formed around 4 million years ago from volcanic activity. Some of the caves here were chiselled out and inhabited by people thousands of years ago. They even created little villages of these stone houses. It’s said that mystical beings and giants lived here once upon a time…

While we didn’t see any giants, it’s still a brilliant and little known place to visit and the ride there for motorcycle travellers is fantastic. This guide explains everything you need to know and how to visit the houses on your motorcycle or with a vehicle.

Where to stay

We recommend staying at this hotel in Pampachiri – Tayta Chapa Samanan. They offer secure parking for motorcycles and cars and it’s close to the start of the route.

Riding to the Smurf Houses

We recommend downloading and using Maps.Me to navigate to the Smurf Houses. It shows the trail lines perfectly, which Google Maps doesn’t. We can’t share a Maps.Me route on the website, so we have pinned the coordinates on Google Maps, which you can save and transfer to Maps.Me.

Leave Pampachiri and head south to Tincoc. From Tincoc, veer left and follow the trail to the first house. You will find a river crossing along this route, but there’s also a bridge you can take if the water is too high.

First Smurf House

People live by the first house and there’s a small fee for entering. You will need to park your motorcycle and walk to it. There’s a short walk for a nice view over the valley by a gate to the right of the house you can take too.

Pampachiri Stone Forest

There are multiple views and places to stop along the way, but this is your next main stop. There’ll be some people living by the parking area who you will need to pay for entrance (all payments on this ride are in cash and very small amounts).

Park up and take a very short walk to the view point.

Peru Smurf Houses Pampachiri Stone Forest Guide

Smurf Village

This is the main attraction. You’ll ride around the back side of the stone forest and get to the village where there are multiple houses. This is the one you should not miss. You may or may not have to pay again here.

Alternate route

Instead of going left at Tinoc, you can go right and straight down to Llamcama. From there you’ve got a river crossing and then you’re at the village. At certain times of the year this crossing may be too high.

We believe this is an easier route, but we didn’t take it because we wanted to visit all of the main attractions and then exit to the 30A. So we’d have to ride all the way up and then back down again.

Either way, the road conditions on the route we’ve described are fine and easy gravel tracks. Just take it slowly and keep an eye on the road because there are some deep cracks if you go the wrong way.

Leaving the Smurf Houses

We came from Andahuaylas in the north and headed south along the 30B to Pampachiri village. Our next stop was Abancay, so it’s quite a detour, but you don’t need to ride the 30B twice.

Instead, from the Smurf Village, there are short off-road trails (gravel and easy) which take you to Torohuichccana on the 106. Then you’ll hook east along the 106 until you join the 30A and you can then ride this road north.

We’ve pinned these points on the map above so you have the coordinates. But this is how it looks on Maps.Me.

Note that if you exit this way, there is a river crossing located here (coordinates are: -14.255324, -73.435151. They show up on Maps.Me), but you don’t have to do it, there is a bridge tucked away on the right hand side that’s pretty easy to find. There are some larger stones after the bridge and this is probably the most challenging section so just take your time.

Read more on motorcycle travel in Peru

Thanks for checking out the Smurf Houses Guide for motorcycle travellers. We hope you enjoyed it! Here’s a few more articles on motorcycle travel in Peru and South America that we recommend you read next.

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