Colca Canyon history · History of Colca Canyon
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History of Colca Canyon
History of Colca Canyon
The Colca valley was first populated by hunters and gatherers, probably about 6,000 years ago. Cave art at Mollepunku, near Callalli, is thought to represent the domestication of the alpaca at about that time. There is little evidence of continual habitation until two cultures arrived at about the same time, about a thousand years ago: the Cabanas, Quechua-speaking descendants of the Wari culture, and the Collaguas, Aymara-speakers from the Puno/Lake Titicaca region. They constructed vast expanses of agricultural terraces in the valley, creating irrigation systems to water their crops.
The region takes its name from the qolqas (colcas) that are found throughout the valley, mud and stone granaries built into cliffs or caves where the dry, cool climate makes for an ideal "refrigerated" storage for crops or seeds. (These can be seen at various places throughout the valley, but most easily at the "Puente Sifon" in Yanque.)
In the late 14th century, the Inca arrived, taking the Colca valley into their empire through intermarriage. They helped to perfect the construction of irrigation channels and terraces, and their influence is visible, too, in the stonework of some of the archeological sites.
With the Spanish conquest in the 16th century came the "Toledan reductions," in which the local governor demanded that the population be concentrated in a few major towns throughout the valley, instead of dispersed in their small settlements. This was the origin of most of the towns that are found today. The churches in each town were mostly built between the 16th and 19th centuries.
The Colca first became known to the world after the 1981 "Canoandes" rafting expedition, in which a group of Polish adventurers made the first successful descent of the canyon, and first publicized the possibility of its being the deepest in the world. The construction of Project Majes, a 100-km. canal that takes water from the Colca river to irrigate the Majes region, brought hundreds of workers to the area in the 1980's, and a 1991 article in National Geographic magazine all combined to kick off a tourism boom that began in the early 1990's, and hasn't stopped growing yet.
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Colca Canyon Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.