Inca Tourism

A guide to 72 hours in Cajamarca, Peru

Cajamarca is a large city nestled in the hills on your way to chachapoyas or Trujillo. Once a major city for the Inca, it's now mostly a gold mining town, and the second largest producer of milk in Peru.

History is everywhere in and around the city, as is trash and petty crime. While the more affluent Locals or visitors are welcoming to foreigners or indifferent at best, there runs a large undercurrent of animosity towards “Gringos”. Not as welcoming as many of its nearby cities, you immediately feel like an unwelcome outsider, and stay that way your entire visit.

The plaza de armas is lively though, and the daily market, is likely to whet your appetite for local cuisine while also likely to relieve

Since international tourism is so low, tours are priced very attractively, you can do many of the tours for less than $20 soles. The main draw for tourism are the Incan baths, located a short ride from town. Fed by water that is heated by volcanic activity below, the mineral laden waters are favorites of locals and visitors

The guide will also, quite hilariously but also quite seriously, ask you to limit the amount of photos and selfies you take so that the tour can move along.

This is the only tour we can recommend as there is no public transportation that ends up at the pueblo. You can hire a local taxi if you wish, but you'll need to pay for the time he will spend waiting for you.

The tour starts off with a shimmy through the large rock structure at the base of the stairway, once through the other side, there is a small tienda that sells drinks and snacks.

Along the way to the aquaducts there will be many stops so that Peruvians can take the popular selfie. The guide will point out faces in the rocks, which will take some imagination in order to find the likeness described in the abstract formations.

There are ample opportunities to buy handmade, and offsite goods which helps support the families that reside in the area. The beautiful goods they make by hand can take almost a week on the simple hand looms, which they craft while waiting for tourists to come by and purchase waters or