Ayacucho is a small city about halfway between Cusco and Lima, on the western slope of the Andes. It’s at 9,060 feet above sea level (2,762 meters) which makes it lower than Cusco, about the same as the Sacred Valley, but still higher than Machu Picchu.

Here’s my top tips for your trip to Ayacucho!

I was there seven days and loved it. I’m already planning my return because there are several more things that I want to do there. The minimum I would recommend for Ayacucho is 5 days, with an important caveat: it’s best if you speak Spanish. All the group tours I went on were with Peruvian tourists, mostly from Lima but some from Cusco. The guides all told me that there is only a handful of guides in Ayacucho who speak English, but that if you plan ahead, you can get English-speaking guides.

I only saw a few foreign tourists besides myself during my week in Ayacucho. Two were from Spain and there were a few from Chile and Colombia. It is very popular with Peruvian tourists, so I put Ayacucho high on my list of amazing places that have all the infrastructure of a good tourist destination, but without crowds of international tourists. There are more international tourists on the average plane from Lima to Cusco than I saw the whole week in Ayacucho.

Day 1: Plaza & Muyuchi & Giant Retablo

Your first stop should be the Plaza de Armas, with its statue of General Sucre. Antonio José Sucre came from Venezuela to lead Simón Bolívar’s army in the final battle for Peruvian independence from Spain. Bolívar was in Colombia when the battle took place on December 9, 1824, but Sucre commanded an international force that finally got the Spanish to capitulate. The next year, he was made president of Bolivia.

While you’re in the plaza, buy some muyuchi from the women on the west side of the plaza. Muyuchi means spin or stir in Quechua, and it’s made by spinning a metal bucket filled with milk, ground sesame seeds, coconut milk, cinnamon and clove, in a larger wooden bucket filled with ice. The ice freezes the sides of the metal bucket, and the women scrape the frozen mixture out and serve it in cups. It’s unlike any ice cream you’ve had anywhere else.

Take your muyuchi to a bench in the plaza or into the courtyard of the town hall, located next to the cathedral. The courtyard has some of the few remaining original Inca walls in Ayacucho and it also houses a giant retablo. A retablo is a wooden box with figurines inside, which you should learn more about on your second day.

Day 2: Art Studios

Ayacucho is most famous for its art, especially textiles, retablos and stone carving. Here are my top three favorite studios from the ones I visited.

For textiles, visit Pomataylla, which has both intricate weavings and beautiful embroidery. Pomataylla weavings have won international art competitions, and one hangs in the national art gallery in Lima. In the studio you can see how they hand spin sheep’s wool into yarn, the plants and minerals they use to dye the yarn, and the wooden looms they use for weaving.

For retablos, my favorite was the Joaquín López Antay studio and museum. López Antay has also won international awards, which angered the elitist artists of Lima, who said that an illiterate Quechua-speaker from the countryside shouldn’t be awarded anything. They were especially incensed that he had never studied art and was completely self-taught. That condemnation only made him even more beloved in Ayacucho.

For stone carving, check out the Julio Gálvez studio, where you can see his children and grandchildren continue his work of hand carving alabaster into beautiful sculptures. There are many more art studios in and around Ayacucho, but if you only have time for three, go to these ones.

Day 3: Wari & Pampa de la Quinua

The biggest pre-Inca civilization in Peru was the Wari, with their capital in Ayacucho. I signed on for a group tour that goes to the Wari archeological site and then visits the Pampa de la Quinua. The on-site museum doesn’t have a lot of artifacts, but the ones you see are well preserved and tell you a lot about the Wari. The city is vast and only a small part is developed for visitors. You’ll see the perfectly carved stones that fit together without mortar that most people associate only with the Inca. One burial site goes down five stories, so you’re peering down into a deep pit of layers of architecture.

From Wari, the tour goes to the village of Quinua, where you can visit art studios to see how local artists sculpt with clay or make retablos. Quinua also has several shops that make chocolate. After Quinua, the tour takes you up to the Pampa de la Quinua, where General Sucre won the final battle in the war for Peruvian independence from Spain. There is a massive monument to the battle that was made for the 100thanniversary in 1924.

The day I visited, was the 200th anniversary of the battle, and it was too crowded to go see the monument. I got a spot on a hillside overlooking the battlefield and waited for the reenactment to start. It was spectacular. There were about a thousand men representing Spanish solders and another thousand for the “patriot” troops. The patriots included battalions from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, each with their flag. Of course, several battalions were flying the old Peruvian flag, which has the same red and white vertical stripes as today’s flag, but in the middle it had a red star where today it has a complicated coat of arms.

If I knew every step of the battle it would have been obvious who all the people on horses were and what negotiations and maneuvers they were doing. Still, even with my limited knowledge of the battle it was obvious that the Spanish had more cannons and more guns but that the Andean army won. I was very impressed with the cannons and how loud the gun powder was. Even though they weren’t firing actual cannon balls, the explosions were so strong I could feel the impact with every cell in my body and my ears hurt every time. If you have any chance of being in Peru the first week in December, even if you don’t have a full week for Ayacucho, fly in for the battle reenactment on the 9th.

Day 4: Vilcashuamán

The Vilcashuamán tour has the most driving and takes you farthest from the city of Ayacucho, but it’s definitely worth it. The first stop is a field of Puya Raimondii, which I first saw in Huaraz. They’re the world’s largest bromeliad and they flourish in random spots throughout the Andes.

After the puya, the tour goes to a complex of Inca ruins that line an artificial lake built by the Inca, in the shape of a puma. (You have to use your imagination a bit to see the puma, but maybe it was more obvious 600 years ago). The ruins include a set of fountains, an accllawasi, and an intihuatana (read what an intihuatana is in my Pisac blog). An accllawasi is the house (wasi in Quechua) for the acclla, the women “chosen by the sun” who lived separately from the general population. They were tended by older women called mamacona and made things used in ceremonies and rituals. (Cusco’s accllawasi is now the Santa Catalina monastery).

After the Intihuatana complex, the tour finally gets to Vilcashuamán. We had lunch first, then visited the archeological site that used to have a sun temple and moon temple, like most major Inca sites. Unfortunately, the Spanish built a church on top and partly destroyed the original architecture. You have to use your imagination to see the place for what it was.

Next, we visited a four-tiered building called an ushnu nearby. In Cusco they’re also called usnu, and they are raised, flat-topped platforms used for ceremonies and rituals. (My favorite usnu is at Choquequirao). The structure in Vilcashuamán was completely dismantled centuries ago and has now been reconstructed, but not with enough care to get it looking original again. One of the consequences of Peru’s unequal tourism is that it funnels a lot of money to Cusco and Machu Picchu for archeological restoration but doesn’t leave much for the rest of the amazing sites throughout the country. If you’re concerned about overtourism, skip Machu Picchu and come to Ayacucho!

Day 5: Pikimachay & Huanta

Besides the battle reenactment, I was very excited to see the Pikimachay cave. The Inca sites are wonderful, but I get a lot of Inca sites around Cusco. The two things that Ayacucho has that nowhere else has is the site of the battle that won Peru’s independence and a cave that people lived in 20,000 years ago. That’s 18,000BCE, when people hunted mastodons and giant ground sloths. The cave itself wasn’t much to look at, but the area that was excavated is still roped off and you can see where archeologists have been working. I just loved standing in the cave and looking out across the Ayacucho valley, imagining herds of mastodons roaming around. It’s the oldest site of human habitation in the Americas. (As far as I know, the oldest site in North America is only 16,000 years old). The oldest civilization was the Caral-Supe, whose city north of Lima was inhabited 3,000BCE.

After Pikimachay, we went to the town of Huanta, which is about an hour from Ayacucho. Huanta is famous for waterfalls, more art studios, flavored pisco, a lovely plaza full of trees, and a student protest from 1969. The students were protesting a new law from the military dictator Juan Velasco Alvarado that would require them to pay exorbitant fines if they failed a class. What started as a peaceful protest became a bloodbath as police killed 20-100 students, depending on which news source you read. Official numbers were in the 20s, but the people of Huanta counted more than a hundred murdered children.

On food

I tried a few restaurants around the plaza, but only really liked ViaVia. It has several vegetarian options, the pitchers of lemonade and mint tea are fantastic, and it has a great balcony with views of the plaza. I loved the fruit juice and breakfast stalls at the market by the Arco de Triunfo, which of course celebrates the triumph of the 1824 battle. Presentation isn’t as well done as in Cusco or Lima, so I didn’t take a lot of photos of the food, but it all tasted good.

On prices

In 7 days and 6 nights I spent $84 for the hotel, $86 on food, $43 on tours, $7 on entrance tickets, $77 on souvenirs, $7 on taxis and $15 on tips. That’s a grand total of $319USD for a week in Peru and I wasn’t trying to stick to a budget. I had more money to spend on the trip but couldn’t fit more souvenirs in my bag and there wasn’t much else to spend money on.

My next trip

I plan to go back to Ayacucho in September to see chaccu, when wild vicuñas are sheared, and several sites that are better in the dry season. You can see in my photos that I didn’t get a lot of blue skies during this week and not everywhere is great in the rainy season. After chaccu, I want to visit the Millpu pools and see the Pachapupum volcano.

I also want to learn more about Maria Parado, who was such an important part of the revolution that the Spanish had her shot by a firing squad. The women above represent her in the battle commemoration every year. Today their crosses have modern messages, like the third cross on the right that says Abajo el Patriarcado - down with the patriarchy.