Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE SOUTHERN VALLEYS
The roads get rougher and are often blocked by impromptu fiestas, the valleys get sheerer
and lonelier and, like strange treasures in a chest with the lid only just lifted, the colonial
architecture gleams in the sharp mountain light. You have arrived in the most quintessen-
tially Andean swathe of the central highlands. The two outstanding jewels are the cities of
Huancavelica and Ayacucho, both developing in magnificent opulence on the back of silver
mines discovered in the nearby hills in the 16th and 17th centuries. The region has a sadder
chapter to its history, too, as the stronghold of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) re-
volutionary group that terrorized Peru in the 1980s and made this entire area off limits for
travelers. Today these valleys are some of the poorest parts of Peru, but they know how to
have a party like no one else: Ayacucho's Semana Santa is the country's best fiesta.
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