🇵🇪 Peru · The Highlands and the Andes
If Sillustani is Puno's archaeological star, Cutimbo is its lesser-known and, for many, more mysterious sister. Some 20-25 km from the city, on a flat-topped plateau that rises alone out of the altiplano, sits a necropolis of chullpas -stone funerary towers- that gets far fewer visitors than its famous neighbor. That relative solitude is exactly part of the appeal: climbing up to Cutimbo feels like finding a place that's almost secret, far from the crowds.
The chullpas of Cutimbo were raised by the cultures of the altiplano -mainly the Collas and the Lupacas, Aymara peoples- and later by the Incas, to bury their important figures. Some are circular in plan, others square, and a few are decorated with animal reliefs (monkeys, lizards, big cats), a feature that sets them apart. Reaching them means walking up to the plateau, which adds a touch of adventure and the reward of wide views over the Puno altiplano.
This guide pulls together the practical side of visiting Cutimbo: how to get there from Puno, what the chullpas are and what to see at the site, what the climb is like, when to go and what to bear in mind about the altitude. It's an ideal visit for curious travelers who want to go beyond Sillustani and take in, at their own pace, another of the great necropolises of the Aymara and Inca world of the altiplano.
Cutimbo was an important necropolis of the altiplano, attributed mainly to the Aymara cultures that dominated the Lake Titicaca region after the decline of Tiwanaku: the Collas and, above all, the Lupacas, an Aymara kingdom whose territory spread across the area. On this flat-topped hill those peoples built 'chullpas', funerary towers meant to hold the remains of their rulers and elites along with offerings, within the Andean understanding of death as a passage and the cult of the ancestors. The chullpas of Cutimbo come in both circular and square plans, and some stand out for their animal reliefs carved into the stone: monkeys, lizards and big cats. When the region was absorbed into the Tahuantinsuyo in the 15th century, the Incas left their mark on the site too, adding their characteristic stone-cutting technique. After the Spanish conquest the funerary practice was abandoned and many chullpas were damaged by looting and by time. Today Cutimbo is a protected archaeological site, less visited than nearby Sillustani, offering a more solitary experience and a valuable record of the Aymara and Inca world of the altiplano. The full history, the theories about the chullpas and the Aymara kingdoms are on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Folklore capital of Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca: Aymara and Quechua land of chullpas and floating islands, cradle of the legend of Manco Cápac and stage of the Diablada of the Candelaria.
Read the history of Puno →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Cutimbo comes out of the same world that produced the great necropolises of the Puno altiplano. After the collapse of the Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) civilization, around 1000-1200 AD, the Lake Titicaca region broke up into a series of Aymara-speaking kingdoms or lordships, warlike herding societies that fought over control of the pastures, the camelid herds and the resources of the altiplano. This is the period known as that of the 'Aymara lordships' or 'altiplano kingdoms', before the expansion of the Inca Empire.
Among these lordships the Lupacas and the Collas stood out, alongside other groups. The Lupacas in particular had their center of power on the western side of the lake, with their capital at Chucuito, and controlled a large territory and numerous herds, which made them one of the most powerful Aymara kingdoms. It is to this cultural sphere -Lupaca and Colla- that the building of Cutimbo is mainly linked.
These altiplano peoples developed a hierarchical society, with elites who claimed a special status that extended beyond death. The need to honor and preserve their rulers and important ancestors, in keeping with the Andean worldview, led them to build visible, imposing funerary monuments: the chullpas. Cutimbo, on top of its plateau, was one of those great funerary centers where the elites of the altiplano were laid to rest.
The chullpas of Cutimbo are the most visible legacy of those altiplano peoples. These funerary towers answered a view of the world in which death was a passage, not an end, and in which important ancestors remained bound to the community and had to be honored with monuments befitting their rank. Inside the chullpas were placed the rulers and elite figures, often in a fetal position and accompanied by offerings, food and objects for the afterlife.
A distinctive feature of Cutimbo is that chullpas of circular and square plan coexist at the same site. This variety of building forms, not so common elsewhere, suggests different traditions, phases or hierarchies, and makes the group especially interesting for the study of altiplano funerary architecture. The towers are built of stone blocks, and the best-made ones show remarkable technical command, capable of raising stable structures of some height on ground exposed to the altiplano wind.
The siting of the necropolis on top of a plateau, a flat-topped butte, was no accident. High, prominent places carried strong sacred value in the Andean world, associated with the apus (mountain-deities) and the world above. Placing the elite tombs in such a visible, commanding position reinforced their prestige and their connection to the sacred. Cutimbo was thus a monumental cemetery, but also a ritual space that tied the dead to the landscape and the cosmos.
One of the most fascinating and singular aspects of Cutimbo are the reliefs carved into some of its chullpas: animal figures such as monkeys, lizards, snakes and big cats (pumas), worked into the stone. These reliefs, uncommon in the funerary architecture of the altiplano, give Cutimbo a special artistic and symbolic value and make it a site of great interest for understanding the religion and worldview of the Andean peoples.
In Andean thought, animals were not simply decorative figures but beings loaded with meaning, associated with the different planes of the cosmos: the world above (hanan pacha), the world here (kay pacha) and the world below, or underworld (uku pacha). The puma was tied to power and to the earthly world; the snake and the lizard to water, fertility and the underworld; other animals had meanings of their own. That these figures appear on elite tombs suggests a role in the passage of the dead to the afterlife, in their protection or in the assertion of their power and prestige.
The presence of monkeys is especially striking, since they aren't altiplano animals but jungle ones: their depiction could point to relations, exchanges or symbolic meanings connecting the altiplano with other regions and worlds. These reliefs are a reminder that the chullpas weren't just architecture but supports for a complex religious language. Reading them -ideally with the help of a guide- is one of the most rewarding experiences a visit to Cutimbo offers.
In the 15th century the Inca Empire (Tahuantinsuyo), then expanding into the altiplano, brought the Aymara lordships -Lupacas, Collas and others- under its rule. The conquest was neither immediate nor simple, but in the end the Titicaca region was integrated into the empire, with its road network, its administration and its cult of the Sun. The Incas, as elsewhere, didn't erase local traditions but absorbed them: they took up the custom of building chullpas and contributed their characteristic fine stone-cutting technique, leaving their mark at sites like Cutimbo too.
So at Cutimbo traditions overlap: the rougher, older chullpas of the Aymara cultures sit alongside more refined Inca work. This accumulation of phases and styles is exactly what makes these altiplano funerary sites such rich documents for reconstructing the region's history. Under Inca rule, Cutimbo remained a funerary and sacred space, folding the prestige of the local elites into the imperial order.
The arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century changed everything. The new colonial order imposed Christianity and persecuted Andean religious practices as idolatry: the cult of the ancestors, burial in chullpas and the associated rituals were banned. The necropolises of the altiplano were abandoned. On top of that came the scourge of looting ('huaqueo'), driven by the search for valuables in the tombs, which damaged many chullpas. Time, earthquakes and erosion completed the deterioration, though much of the Cutimbo complex managed to survive.
Cutimbo today is a protected archaeological site and one of the most valuable records of the Aymara and Inca world of the Puno altiplano. Unlike nearby Sillustani -which became a first-rank tourist destination, beside the Umayo lagoon and with good infrastructure- Cutimbo has stayed well outside the mass circuits. Its position on top of a plateau you have to climb on foot, its remoteness and the shortage of services explain why it gets relatively few visitors.
That same condition of being little visited is, paradoxically, part of its appeal. Whoever makes it to Cutimbo usually finds it solitary and silent, which lets you walk among the chullpas and take in the immense altiplano landscape with a calm that's hard to find in busier places. For travelers after authentic, out-of-the-ordinary experiences, and for lovers of archaeology and photography, Cutimbo offers a special reward: the feeling of discovering, almost alone, a great necropolis of the past.
Visiting Cutimbo, ideally combined with Sillustani, gives you a fuller, more nuanced picture of the funerary culture of the altiplano: the different shapes of the chullpas, the symbolic reliefs, the sacred settings and the long history of the peoples -Aymara and Inca- who lived in this high land. It's an invitation to look beyond Lake Titicaca and to enter one of the deepest and most enigmatic chapters in the history of Peru's southern Andes.