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Kuelap (also spelled Cuelap) is a pre-Inca walled city and is the main arcahaeological site of the Chachapoyas culture, about which little is known.

Kuelap has been called "Fortress in the Clouds" and it has been liken to the famed Machu Picchu becaue of its monumental aspects.  It is spectacularly set atop a long, flat mountain top strategically set between the Maranon and Utcubamba Rivers, at 9,843 feet above sea level.  It is thought to have been the most important part of a vast complex that extended over some 450 hectares, our about 1.7 square miles.

Kuelap's construction is thought to have taken at least 200 years to complete, from AD 1100 to 1300, and contained three times more stone than the Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt.

Per the Footprint Peru Handbook:
"The site lies sprawled along the summit of a mountain crest, more than a kilometer in length.  It is divided info three parts: at the northwest end is a small outpost; at the southeast end of the ridge is a spread out village in total ruin; and the cigar-shaped fortress lies between the two, 700 meters (2300 feet) long by 175 meters (575 feet) wide at its widest.  The walls are formidable as those of any precolumbian city. They vary in height between eight and 17 meters (26 and 55 feet) and were constructed in 40 courses of stone block, each one weighing between 100 and 200 kg. (220 to 440 pounds). It has been estimated that 100,000 such blocks went into the completion of this massive structure."

The main attraction of Kuelap are the enormous defensive walls made from limestone - nearly 6 stories tall and nearly 2000 feet long - which seem to mark the boundaries between "Up Town" and "Down Town".

Kuelap has 3 entrances, two facing east and one facing west. Each continue along a walled alley that allows only a restricted entrance, narrowing to the width of just one person - a great defensive mechanicism.

In the "Down Town" area there are more than 300 "shunderhuasi" (Chachapoya stone round houses) structures, six of which are decorated with frieze. There are many bromeliad and ocrhid ladened trees throughout the compound.