Andahuaylillas

The colonial village of Andahuaylillas, 37 kilometers south of Cusco [1], has a charming plaza shaded with red-flowered pisonay trees and an adobe church, San Pedro (8:30 a.m.–noon and 2–5 p.m. Mon.–Sat., 8–10 a.m. and 3–5 p.m. Sun., free), which is built on the foundations from the early Inca empire. Though it’s unremarkable on the outside, the doors open to a dazzling painted ceiling, frescoes, and wall-to-wall colonial paintings.

This is the most finely decorated church in all of Cusco, probably in all of Peru, though calling it the “Sistine Chapel of the Americas,” as some do, is going a bit far. One highlight is a mural by Luis de Riaño depicting the road to heaven and the road to hell, with a full-blown display of all the respective rewards and punishments.

There is a well-known natural healing center just off the square, Centro de Medicina Integral (Garcilaso 514, tel. 084/25-1999, 9 a.m.–7 p.m. daily, medintegral [at] hotmail [dot] com), with a charming stone courtyard with gardens and plain rooms for US$8 pp. The center attracts a considerable number of overseas visitors for massage, meditation, harmonizing energy therapy, and other treatments.