CAJAMARCA AND THE NORTHERN HIGHLANDS

From Peru’s north coast a road leads to Cajamarca, an overlooked gem of Peru’s Andes where campesinos come to sell their cheese and barley on Sunday mornings. The countryside here is gorgeous and is crisscrossed with Inca paths, or Qhapah Ñan, and the enigmatic irrigation canals at Cumbemayo. One of the country’s best baroque churches is in Cajamarca at the Complejo Belén, which also includes Atahualpa’s famous ransom room, or Cuarto de Rescate. From Cajamarca the road leads inland, rougher now, through spectacular green grasslands before plunging down into the ochre landscape of the Marañon Canyon. From the sub-tropical climate at river’s edge, the road on the other side climbs 3,030 meters (10,000 feet) to a whole new ecosystem. Dense cloud forest covers the mountain slopes where the Chachapoya culture built a series of stone cities that are still being discovered. Their crowning achievement was Kuélap, a stone fortress perched on a limestone cliff. The city’s 400 round stone homes were protected by massive defense walls that can only be entered through three narrow passageways.

Cajamarca

Complejo Belén: This 17th-century religious order in Cajamarca is an eerie glimpse into how the Bethlemites combined medieval medicine with Catholicism, including one of the most awe-inspiring baroque church facades in Peru. (read more)

Cuarto de Rescate: A single stone room, with the perfect blocks and water channels of Inca stonework, is all that is left of the huge stone buildings that once graced the city’s square. Historians believe this dark and solemn space was where Inca Atahualpa waited for eight months—only to be executed in the end. (read more)

Cumbemayo: Up in the magical ichú grasslands above Cajamarca, crystal-clear water flows along perfectly sculpted stone canals, which were built thousands of years ago and continue to befuddle archaeologists. (read more)

Qhapaq Ñan: A main reason to come to Cajamarca is to experience its wide-open, majestic countryside, and the best way to see it is by choosing from a handful of one- to seven-day hiking routes along the area’s rediscovered Inca highways. (read more)

Ruins in the Chachapoyas Area

Kuélap: This stone citadel, perched on a limestone ridge thousands of feet above the Río Tingo, is the most accessible and dramatic of the Chachapoya ruins. With 420 round houses and a variety of bizarre buildings, many visitors find it as impressive as Machu Picchu. (read more)