The Central Highlands

The Central Highlands are where the massive Andes crash into the impenetrable South American rain forests and winding, cloud-covered mountain roads dip down into stark desert terrain. The way of life has changed little in hundreds of years.

Most people still depend on the crops they grow and the animals they breed—including guinea pigs and rabbits. Local festivals, traditional recipes, and craft workshops date back to before Inca ever was uttered in the region. Natural beauty abounds, with thundering rivers, winding trails, and hidden waterfalls tucked into the mountainous terrain. Lago de Junín, the country's second-largest lake, is in the north.

Despite how little daily life seems to have changed, the area has been the setting for some of the most explosive events in Peruvian history: fierce wars between the Incas and the Wankas, the most important battles for independence, and the birth of Peru's devastating terrorist movement. The region was home to the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) terrorists and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement for almost two decades. The Sendero Luminoso, which arose in the 1960s around Ayacucho, was finally dismantled in 1992 with the arrest of its leader, Abimaél Guzman Reynoso. In 1999 then-president of Peru Alberto Fujimori led a successful manhunt for the leader of the Sendero Rojo terrorist faction, Oscar Alberto Ramírez Durand, shutting down the region's revolutionary stronghold for good. Now, apart from narco trafficking and the occasional protest from coca growers the region is relatively calm.

This beautiful region is quickly gaining prominence—particularly due to tight military checkpoints that have put drug trafficking on the decline. It's one of the few truly remote regions left in the world, although improvements in road, rail, and air services have made traveling less challenging than it was even in the late 1990s.

No one knows when the first cultures settled on the puna (highland plains), or how long they stayed. Archaeologists found what they believe to be the oldest village in Peru at Lauricocha, near Huánuco, and one of the oldest temples in the Americas, at Kotosh. Other nearby archaeological sites at Tantamayo and Garu also show that indigenous cultures thrived here long before the Inca or Spanish conquistadors ever reached the area.

When the Inca arrived in the late 1400s, they incorporated the already stable northern settlement of Huánuco into their empire. It eventually became an important stop along their route between the capital at Cusco and the northern hub of Cajamarca, and today Inca ruins are scattered along the pampas. Huánuco was officially founded by the Spanish in 1539 and the area quickly gained the attention of Spanish explorers, who turned Cerro de Pasco's buried gold, silver, copper, and coal into the center of the mining industry north of the Amazon basin. They ruled the region—and the country—until 1824, when Simón Bolívar's troops claimed Peru's autonomy by defeating the Spanish on the Quinua pampas near Huánuco.

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