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Huancayo is the capital of the Junín region in the central highlands of Peru, set at about 3,250 metres in the broad Mantaro Valley and crossed by the Shullcas, Chilca and Mantaro rivers. With around half a million people it is one of the largest cities in Peru and the commercial heart of the central Andes. Its name comes from the Quechua for the place with the stone, after a sacred rock that once stood on today's Plaza Huamanmarca.
The Huanca people lived in the valley long before the Incas, who conquered them around 1460, and the Inca road through the city survives as the Calle Real. The Spanish founded Santísima Trinidad de Huancayo in 1572. Ramón Castilla signed the abolition of slavery here in 1854, and the railway from Lima arrived in the early 20th century, bringing rapid growth.
The city has few colonial buildings, but it is the base for the craft villages and festivals of the valley, the Franciscan convent of Ocopa, the eroded towers of Torre Torre, the glaciers of Huaytapallana and the Tren Macho to Huancavelica.
Built on land given by leading citizens, this neoclassical church was begun in 1799 and finished in 1831, and in 1955 the Pope made it a cathedral. It stands on the Plaza de la Constitución at the corner of the Calle Real, is dedicated to the Holy Trinity and keeps paintings of the Cusco School.
First called the Plaza del Comercio, the main square took its present name after the people of Huancayo swore to the liberal Constitution of Cádiz here in 1813. Since the early 20th century it has been the commercial, religious and civic centre of the city, with the cathedral on its north-east side.
The oldest public space in Huancayo may predate the Incas, and tradition says a great oval stone used as a shrine stood here and gave the city its name. Its Quechua name means the place of falcons, and today it is ringed by the city hall and the buildings of the regional government of Junín.
Built in 1809 in a plain colonial style, with a single nave, an atrium and a bell tower, this small church served as the main church of the town until the cathedral was finished. In 1839 the Constituent Congress met here and signed that year's constitution, and it became a national monument in 1935.
Built between 1992 and 1996, this 5,800-square-metre park is full of stone portals, water channels, flowers and statues of the region's best-loved artists, such as the singers Flor Pucarina and Picaflor de los Andes. Its curving design was strongly inspired by Gaudí's Park Güell in Barcelona.
Once called Cullcos, this hill on the east side of the city saw Ramón Castilla defeat José Rufino Echenique in 1854, and it was later renamed Liberty Hill. It is now a park and natural viewpoint linked to the main square by Avenida Giráldez, with a chapel, a public pool and the city's only zoo.
About 1.5 kilometres from the city, the rains have carved soft clay hills into a forest of earth pillars, known in English as hoodoos or fairy chimneys. Some of these towers rise more than 30 metres high, and erosion by wind and rain goes on reshaping them a little every day.
This glaciated mountain in the Huaytapallana range above Huancayo has been a regional conservation area since 2011. Its Quechua name means the place where flowers are gathered, and every year Andean priests climb to the foot of the glacier to give thanks to the earth for another year of life.
Founded by the Franciscans in 1725 as a college for missionaries heading into the Amazon, this convent 25 kilometres north-west of Huancayo is now a museum. It holds a library of 25,000 volumes, some from the 15th century, a large collection of colonial paintings and a museum of natural history.
About 6 kilometres south of Huancayo, this temple site was built under the Wari around the eighth century and later became a main shrine of the Huanca, who believed their first ancestors emerged from a spring here. The chronicler Cieza de León described it around 1545, and it now has a site museum.
This spring-fed lake 4 kilometres north of Jauja lies at 3,418 metres, with reed beds that shelter many water birds. It is more than 30 metres deep in the middle, and legend says Inca llamas laden with gold for Atahualpa's ransom were thrown into it when the Inca's death became known.
In the villages of Cochas Chico and Cochas Grande near Huancayo, craftspeople decorate dried gourds by carving fine scenes into the shell with a burin, a tradition thousands of years old in Peru. The carved gourds show farming, festivals and village life in browns, greens, reds and blacks.
Opened in 1926 after nearly two decades of work, this single-track railway runs 128.7 kilometres from Huancayo to Huancavelica through the high valleys of the central Andes. It is one of the highest railways in the world, never dropping below 2,819 metres, and was rebuilt to standard gauge by 2010.
The Central Railway climbs from the port of Callao through Lima to Huancayo across 58 bridges, 69 tunnels and a series of zigzags. In the Galera tunnel it reaches about 4,781 metres, and until the Qinghai-Tibet line opened in 2006 it was the highest railway in the world.
Every Sunday from early morning until nightfall this fair fills several blocks of Avenida Huancavelica, and it is the largest market of central Peru. Its origins may go back to the founding of the town in the 16th century, when mule drivers and traders met at this crossroads of the Andes.
One of Peru's best-loved starters is boiled potato covered in a creamy yellow sauce of fresh cheese, ají amarillo chilli and milk, served on lettuce with egg. The popular story says Huancayo women cooked it for the workers building the Central Railway from Lima, which gave the dish its name.
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