Cajamarca

People have lived in the Cajamarca valley for more than two thousand years. Huacaloma, now inside the city, was a ceremonial site where fire rituals were held between about 1500 and 1000 BC, and the water channels of Cumbe Mayo are thought to have been cut around the same period. The Cajamarca culture, known for fine pottery of white kaolin clay, flourished here for well over a thousand years; its last phase is linked with the Cuismancu kingdom described in colonial accounts. Inca armies conquered Cajamarca between 1463 and 1471 and rebuilt it as an Inca town.

In November 1532 Atahualpa, having defeated his half-brother Huáscar in the Inca civil war, was resting at the hot springs of Pultumarka, today's Baños del Inca, when Francisco Pizarro arrived with 168 Spanish soldiers. On 16 November, in the main square, the Spanish ambushed Atahualpa's retinue, killing thousands of his counsellors, commanders and unarmed attendants — an event many scholars now call the Cajamarca massacre — and took him prisoner. He offered a room of gold and two of silver for his freedom, delivered the ransom, and was nonetheless tried and executed in 1533.

Under Spanish rule Cajamarca became a farming and market town, and its builders used the local volcanic stone for six colonial churches. In 1986 the Organization of American States named it a site of Historical and Cultural Heritage of the Americas. Since the 1990s the Yanacocha gold mine, north of the city, has transformed the city's economy and population, and its water and land have been the subject of repeated protests.

Carnival is the heart of Cajamarca's identity. The city calls itself the capital of the Peruvian carnival, and for days before Lent the streets fill with parades, traditional dances and troupes, while friends and passers-by are drenched with water and paint. The parades bring floats and carnival queens to the main square and the city's avenues, and villages in the valley hold their own celebrations around the same time.

Religious life follows the Catholic calendar, with Holy Week and Corpus Christi among the city's main festivals, and the baroque churches of the centre, built of carved volcanic stone, are a source of civic pride. The cathedral and San Francisco face each other across the main square, and the cathedral's carved façade is counted among the remarkable achievements of Latin American art.

Cajamarca is also a rural capital. The valley is known for its dairy farmers, its pottery — still made in districts such as Mollepampa — and its markets. The Quechua name of the city, Kashamarka, is usually explained as "town of thorns". Two local universities and the branches of several others give the centre a young population, and the painter Andrés Zevallos is among the artists the city claims.

The city had about 245,000 people in 2020, according to Peru's statistics institute, and has grown fast: an estimated 81,000 lived here in 1981. Migrants from the surrounding provinces arrived during the mining boom, and the city has merged with Baños del Inca to the east; official projections expect the urban area to reach half a million by 2030.

The economy rests on farming, trade, government and mining. The Cajamarca region produces most of Peru's milk, with some 30,000 registered dairy farmers, and is the country's leading dairy and cheese-making area; its producers' association holds a collective trademark for mantecoso cheese. Yanacocha, one of the largest gold mines in the world, has brought jobs and money as well as long-running disputes over water and the environment.

Daily life runs from the busy markets along the San Lucas river to the modern malls. Mornings are cold and bright, combis and mototaxis fill the streets, and in the evening families gather in the Plaza de Armas.

Cajamarca's food is highland cooking built on potatoes, maize, wheat and guinea pig, much of it said to go back to Inca times. Caldo verde is a potato soup into which eggs are broken, served with quesillo and green with herbs ground on a batán, a grinding stone. Picante de cuy, guinea pig stewed in a peanut and ají panca sauce with potatoes, is among the best-known dishes, along with soups of chicken, quinoa and wheat. Chicharrón con mote pairs fried pork with boiled maize, and humitas are steamed parcels of sweet or savoury maize dough, sometimes filled with fresh cheese.

Dairy is what the city is famous for across Peru. Queso mantecoso, a soft, buttery cheese made from quesillo, a fresh curd, is the typical local cheese; queso andino tipo suizo is a harder cheese first made with Swiss help. Cheese shops in the centre are an essential stop, and local chocolate is sold alongside.

For everyday meals people eat menú lunches of soup and a main course, and the Mercado Central and Mercado San Sebastián sell the produce of the valley.