Seventy kilometres south of the Rio Mala lies the valley of Cañete. The river, one of the largest on the central coast, comes from Ticllacocha, a lake 220 kilometres inland in the land of the Yauyos, at 4600m metres above sea level.
In the bus I had pa
ssed a hillside fortress town with multiple walls, marking the border between the broad irrigated coastal lands and the narrow river valley above. Further up the valley, there were intermittent signs of a historic road clinging to the hillside. And then the bus swings past Incahuasi, a large complex of adobe buildings with obviously Inca characteristics standing above the road.
Lunahuana is more of a village, four blocks wide by three blocks long. Many houses lie in ruins after the earthquake of 2007. It stands on the left bank of the river, high above the irrigated fields. Down by the river bank, in the summer, groups of spray soaked students land their inflatable rafts, after shooting the rapids. A petroglyph had been recently re-discovered here, and the town website showed a tantalising image from the rock, a rodent or a squirrel, beautiful and highly stylised, as if copied from a woven textile.