🇵🇪 Peru · The Highlands and the Andes
Abancay is the capital of the Apurímac region, an Andean town with a mild climate set in a valley at the foot of the imposing Ampay peak, deep in Peru's southern highlands. Known as the 'city of eternal spring' for its pleasant weather and green surroundings, it's a natural stop on the route between Cusco and the coast, and a little-explored base for discovering the heart of Apurímac.
Its great natural jewel is the Santuario Nacional de Ampay, a protected area that shelters the intimpa forests (an Andean tree found almost only here), crystal-clear glacial lakes such as Lake Angasccocha (Uspaccocha) and the snows of the Ampay peak, which tops 5,200 meters. It's an ideal destination for hiking, birdwatching and time spent in an ecosystem of great ecological value.
This guide covers the essentials of Abancay and the Ampay sanctuary with a practical eye: how to get there from Cusco or Lima, which trails and lakes you shouldn't miss inside the sanctuary, what to see in town and around it (such as the nearby Saywite monolith), and how to organize a visit to a region that keeps its Andean landscapes and traditions intact, far from the big tourist circuits.
The Abancay valley was inhabited by Andean peoples and formed part of Inca territory, crossed by roads linking Cusco with the Chinchaysuyo and the land of the Chanca. During colonial times it developed as farming country, tied to the sugar cane haciendas. The town grew as the capital of Apurímac, a region created in the 19th century. The Santuario Nacional de Ampay was established on 23 July 1987 to protect the intimpa forests and the ecosystem of the peak. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The region of the 'god who speaks', Chanka land of deep canyons and snow-capped apus: gateway to Choquequirao, the Inca citadel that is Machu Picchu's sister, and homeland of the writer José María Arguedas.
Read the history of Apurímac →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Here, in the lands of Apurímac, one of the battles that changed Andean history forever was fought. Before the great Tahuantinsuyo existed, this region was the heart of Chanca territory, a confederation of warrior peoples that dominated much of Peru's central-southern highlands and came close to bringing Cusco itself to its knees. According to the chronicles, it was the victory over the Chanca that consolidated Pachacútec's power and lit the spark of the Inca expansion that would create the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The Abancay valley, inhabited since remote times by Andean peoples, was witness to that world in ferment.
After the region was absorbed into the Inca Empire, Apurímac was crossed by important roads of the Qhapaq Ñan linking Cusco with the Chinchaysuyo (the empire's northwestern quarter). The Apurímac river —whose Quechua name is usually translated as 'the lord who speaks' or 'the powerful oracle', for the roar of its waters— was considered sacred, and the region held shrines, administrative centers and Inca engineering works, such as the nearby Saywite complex and monolith.
The Ampay peak, which towers over the valley, was venerated as an apu, a sacred mountain that protected the communities. This spiritual geography, in which mountains, rivers and lakes were living, powerful beings, shaped the religious life of the peoples here long before the Spanish arrived.
Some 45 km from Abancay, in the district of Curahuasi, lies one of the most enigmatic archaeological sites in Peru: the Saywite complex (or Sayhuite), dominated by a large carved monolith roughly 2 meters high and 11 meters across, covered with more than 200 figures in relief representing animals, agricultural terraces, water channels and other elements of Andean geography. Some archaeological evidence suggests the site may have had an earlier occupation linked to the Wari culture, which flourished in the central Andes between the 7th and 9th centuries AD, before being absorbed and given new meaning by the Incas.
Archaeologists have proposed different readings of what this extraordinary sculpture was for. One of the most widespread understands it as a cosmological and territorial model in miniature, a kind of symbolic scale model of Inca territory and its system of terraces and canals. Another, more technical hypothesis suggests it may have worked as a hydraulic laboratory: a scale tool for engineers and priests to experiment with and teach water management, knowledge that was central to mountain agriculture. A third line of interpretation links it to a shrine dedicated to rain and to the fertility of the earth, in keeping with the enormous importance of the water cult in the Andean worldview.
Beyond the debate over its exact function —which probably combined several of these religious, educational and symbolic dimensions— Saywite is today recognized as one of the most singular pieces of stone art in the Andean world, and its closeness to Abancay makes it an unmissable complement to any visit to the region and to the Ampay sanctuary.
After the Spanish conquest, the Abancay valley turned into prosperous farming country. Its mild climate and fertile land favored the growth of haciendas, especially sugar cane estates, which shaped the local economy for centuries. The name 'Abancay' is usually associated, according to some interpretations, with Quechua words related to flowers or meadows, in reference to the fertility and greenness of the valley.
Through the viceregal period and the first years of the Republic, the region organized itself around these haciendas and the roads connecting it with Cusco and the coast. The historic bridge over the Pachachaca river, near Abancay, was a strategic crossing point on those routes and the setting for events during the civil wars between the conquistadors and, later, in the wars of independence.
The Apurímac region was created in the 19th century as one of the political divisions of republican Peru, with Abancay as its capital. The town grew slowly as the administrative, commercial and service center of a mostly rural, Andean region. Over the 20th century its role as regional capital was consolidated, with better road links to Cusco, Andahuaylas and the coast, in an area that kept a strongly agricultural and traditional character.
The Ampay peak and its slopes hold an ecosystem of exceptional value, whose most notable feature is the intimpa forests (Podocarpus glomeratus), an Andean conifer whose Quechua name means 'tree of the sun'. Those forests, along with chachacomo woods and other native species, the glacial lakes and the wildlife they support, prompted the creation of a protected area to keep them from being lost to deforestation and the advance of the farming frontier.
The Santuario Nacional de Ampay was established on 23 July 1987 and is run by SERNANP, the national protected areas service. It protects a territory running from the intimpa forests at mid altitudes up to the snows of the Ampay peak, which tops 5,200 meters, and includes lakes such as Angasccocha (Uspaccocha) and the big lake of Ankascocha, fed by the glaciers.
The sanctuary is a refuge for high-Andean biodiversity and an important regulator of the water that supplies Abancay. For visitors it offers trekking trails, birdwatching and plant spotting, and views of the peak, all right on the town's doorstep. Conserving it matters not only for its ecological and scenic value but for the environmental service it provides to the population, at a time when Andean glaciers are retreating because of climate change.
Over the last few decades, Abancay and the Ampay sanctuary have begun to win a place, still a modest one, on the tourist circuits of southern Peru, as an alternative or a complement to the classic route to Cusco and Machu Picchu. Better roads linking Abancay with Cusco, Lima and Andahuaylas, along with work to open up the sanctuary and the nearby Saywite monolith, have drawn a growing number of travelers interested in hiking, nature and less crowded archaeological heritage.
The region also faces the challenges typical of mountain ecosystems in the 21st century. The retreat of the glaciers on the Ampay peak, documented by scientific studies in recent decades, threatens the water balance that sustains both the intimpa forests and the water supply of Abancay, which depends heavily on meltwater and springs from the sanctuary. That situation has led SERNANP and local organizations to step up monitoring, conservation and environmental education work in the area.
Today Abancay presents itself as a destination that combines the everyday life of an Andean regional capital with direct access to a protected natural area of high ecological value and to one of the most fascinating and least known archaeological sites in Peru. For the traveler, it's a chance to see a corner of the Peruvian Andes away from the big crowds, where Inca history, colonial memory and the urgency of conservation are woven into a single landscape.