Ventanillas de Otuzco

The arrangement is not random. The niches climb the rock in tiers, and the higher openings were reserved for the people who mattered most, which means the social order of a population is still readable in the face of the cliff. Some of the chambers go back into the rock further than the opening suggests and connect to others inside. The grave goods were removed long ago, so there is nothing to see within them; what you are looking at is the geometry, an entire population filed into a wall.

It reads as a cemetery and as architecture at the same time, which is roughly what it was. The valley floor below is still farmed, and the contrast between worked green fields and a rock face full of tombs is most of the reason the site photographs the way it does.

Two to three hours covers it, including the drive out. It sits at about 2,700 metres, slightly below the city, so there is no altitude to adjust to. The ground around the base is grassy and uneven rather than difficult. May to October is the better window, as with most of the open-air sites around Cajamarca, though the site itself is not hard going in the wet.