Peru is very diverse as you may already have seen in my previous blogs. There’s oceans, desserts, mountains, and rainforests. Together they form beautiful ecosystems that make Peru the wonder it is today. Today, I will be writing about Ancash. This is a mountainous region to the North of Lima that has various tourist spots. Along with Spanish as the official language of Peru there’s also Quechua and Aymara. Those last two are older languages from the Incan empire, Quechua is mostly from the Andes and Aymara is from the rainforest tribes.

As every region of Peru, Ancash isn’t just mountains, it is a combination of deserts, beaches, and mountains. Peruvian history is always fun to write about, so here it goes. Before the Incas, there was another ancient civilization called Chavin who occupied the area from 900 and 200 BCE. The Chavin culture is known as the first ancient civilization of Peru, from that culture, many others branched off until the Incas.

Religion was one of he most important pillars to all the ancient civilization in Peru. Al of them believed in Viracocha, the sun god that created everything known to humanity. There is a legend that says that Viracocha attempted to create life before humans; he created stone giants, but they failed the god and he was disappointed. As a result Viracocha sent them a flood and they all died. Afterwards, the god wanted to create life, so his second attempt were human beings from Lago Titicaca (remember the other legend from my last post? Yes, everything is connected). The Chavin had lots of temples, but the main ones, New Temple, had hundreds of stone heads that resembled “monsters” to make sure evil spirits stayed away from the temple.

Laguna de Quiracocha

Tourists go visit Ancash to hike mountains and visit the breath-taking lakes. Some of the most famous attractions are the mountains of Huaraz and Caraz. Many tourists also visit Yungay as a stop to their final destinations (Lagunas Llaganuco and Laguna 69).  On May 31, 1970 and earthquake devastated the city when an avalanche wiped out the highland town with about 25,000 people. The earthquake lasted 45 seconds and was of magnitude 8.0 in the Richter’s scale. Only 350 people survived because they were able to get to high grounds on time; among those survivors were 300 children that were lead by a circus clown to high ground right after the earthquake struck. Today, it is prohibited to excavate in the area the entire town is a huge cemetery for all the people that couldn’t be found.

City of Yungay

One thought on “Ancash”

  1. Those sites are absolutely beautiful. I would love to visit one day. The story about that earthquake is interesting, but sad. I like how you gave a history of the various sites you talked about. When I travel, I always like to know the history about what I am visiting. I really like this theme of Peru!

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