Roaming South America

Pucará, Perú: A Cold Gas Station Room and a Town with a Deep Past

May 12, 2026

Pucará, Perú, sits along the highway north of Juliaca, a small Andean town that most travelers experience through the window of a bus. They stop, they browse a few ceramic shops, maybe visit the archaeological site, and then they’re gone. What they don’t see is what the town feels like once the buses leave.

This town sits at 3910 meters elevation, that's 12,828 feet. It's cold. All day, all night. Cold. But that's the same for this wide region of Perú. This town's history goes back to 1800 BC.

When I arrived, the day started out the way most days do at this altitude — cold, but sunny. That didn’t last. Within minutes, the sky flipped, and rain turned into hail. Not the soft kind, either. The kind that hits the ground and bounces. A reminder that at nearly 4,000 meters, the weather doesn’t ease into anything. It just changes its mind.

Finding a place to stay was its own small adventure. Pucará doesn’t really have hotels. A couple of hosterías, yes — but “simple,” the Spanish simple, is the word you’ll hear, and it’s accurate. One place was a quick no. A woman at a hostel pointed me toward the local grifo (gas station), where the gas station doubles as a hostel. It’s actually not bad, all things considered, except for one detail: no heat. Inside feels exactly like outside. That's normal through the Andes Mountains. If you're lucky, the place you stay will have an electric heater you can rent. Those are usually ambient heat, so it goes straight up to the ceiling and stays there. Up here, in the Andes, warmth isn’t something buildings provide. It’s something you bring with you.

A Town That Leaves Its Mark Under Your Feet

Walking through town, one of the first things I noticed was the sidewalks. Many of the sidewalks have concrete panels etched with designs — figures, animals, and pottery. At first glance, they look decorative. But they’re more than that. They’re a declaration of identity.

One shows a stylized human figure holding a head, a reference to the ancient “trophy head” imagery of the Pucará culture. Another shows a traditional ceramic vessel, the kind this town has been known for producing for centuries. And then there’s the bull, the Torito de Pucará, an icon of southern Peru, often placed on rooftops for protection and good fortune, and originally from here. I've seen a few around town and a few over doors. And there are always two, a male and a female. They're supposed to bring good luck or protection. I haven't gotten a straight answer on that.

It’s not often you see a town literally stamp its history into the ground like that.

Quiet Streets, Strong Bones

Pucará is a quiet place. Even the highway that runs through it carries surprisingly little traffic. The streets are lined with adobe buildings, many of them clearly decades old, some likely much older - centuries. What’s unexpected is the infrastructure — smooth, poured concrete roads running through much of the town. It’s a contrast: old materials, modern surfaces.

And then there’s the church. Massive. Far larger than you’d expect for a town this size. Like many places in the Andes, it’s a reminder of another time. A time when influence and religion shaped towns in ways that outlasted the eras that built them.

An Open Window into the Past

The archaeological site just outside town is one of the more accessible I’ve visited. It's a 5-to-10-minute walk from the main street/highway. You will need to stop in the museum on the way, across from the side of the church, and buy an entrance ticket (15 soles). There are no strict paths or barriers forcing you along a route. You can walk freely across the remains of what was once an organized settlement, including three plazas, one of them circular, likely used for ceremonial purposes.

Nearby, the museum fills in the story. Inside are artifacts from the site and photographs taken more than a century ago. Stone statues stand on display, including one that tells a very specific story. At some point during the Spanish conquest, its head was cut off, deliberately. The head was later found and reattached, and the angled cut is still clearly visible. It’s a physical reminder that the conquest wasn’t just about land. It was about erasing belief systems.

The museum also explains the “trophy heads” depicted in ancient art - symbols tied to power, ritual, and a worldview very different from our own.

Every day, tourist buses pull into town and park along the Plaza de Armas. The tourists unload, visit the museum, then the archeological site, then they leave. I saw that happen several times when I was there. When I was walking out to the archeological site, I passed by the museum, it was crowded with people, so I continued on by. I decided to see the site first, and the museum after. When I was at the site, I saw a woman tending sheep, chatted with her for a moment, then I passed some people working a farm field as I entered the archeological site. A few minutes into walking through the circular plaza area of the site, I heard a whistle being blown. I thought it was the sheep-tending woman or one of the farm workers. I kept exploring. Another couple of minutes passed, and a man caught up to me. He asked me for my entry ticket. I didn't know one was needed. I explained about the crowded museum, no signs about a fee, and nothing was written on the signs at the entrance to the site about a fee. He nodded with a smile and understood. So, I paid him. He called down to the museum and explained that this gringo would be coming by after viewing the site. It was all good.

As I passed the Plaza and a tourist bus, I saw a light-skinned guy sitting on a bench chatting with an old man. I'd seen this old guy a couple of times in town, and he mumbled a lot as he struggled to walk, so I smiled and passed by him. Well, there he was talking to a tourist off the bus. This tourist told me he is from Switzerland. The next point to note: he didn't follow the rest of the bus tourists, he stopped to chat with this old man. Anyway, up on the mountain behind the archeological site, there's a big gap. And this old man was trying to tell a story about that gap. I couldn't figure it out, and the tourist, also had trouble understanding him. I think the old man was speaking a mix of Spanish and Quechuan. I'm sure the story he was telling us was interesting and historical, but the breakdown in communications was too big. There’s history in these little towns that doesn’t live in museums or on signs. It lives in people. And sometimes, if you’re not from here, you only catch pieces of it… fragments that don’t quite connect, like a story told across a distance you can’t fully cross.

I've been asked why I visit these little nothing-towns many times over my 3+ years of backpacking across this continent. And I say it's becuase these town are where the real stories are, where the most interesting history lays. For me, traveling isn't about seeing an occasional historical site and checking a box off a list, it's about meeting people, talking to them, and getting a feel for life outside of what I have always known, outside of my comfort zone.

A Town That Doesn’t Chase Attention

What makes Pucará stand out isn’t any single feature. It’s the balance. This is a town that receives busloads of visitors every day, yet never feels like it exists for them. The shops sell ceramics, the buses come and go, but the town itself doesn’t bend around tourism. Unlike Cusco, Ollantaytambo, and Pisac, which are tourist-first cities.

It keeps its pace. Its identity. It's quiet.

Most people pass through Pucará and see only a stop along the road. Spend a little time here, and it becomes something else entirely, a place where history hasn’t been polished for display, but simply left where it has always been, woven into the streets, the buildings, and even the ground beneath your feet.

From the Andes to Paraguay: A Shared Craft

Walking through Pucará, it’s impossible to miss the ceramics. Shops line the main street/highway, many of them filled with the same forms repeated in different sizes and colors - vessels, figures, and the well-known Toritos de Pucará. It’s not just a tourist trade. It’s a continuation of something much older.

What struck me, though, is that I’ve seen this before, on the other side of the continent. In Paraguay, towns like Itá, Areguá, Itauguá, and Caacupé are also known for ceramics. Entire streets are lined with pottery vendors, their work displayed out front, often made just steps away in small workshops.

The styles are different. In Paraguay, the pieces tend to lean toward smoother finishes and more decorative forms, often shaped by Guaraní traditions and colonial influence. In Pucará, the designs feel older, more symbolic, patterns and figures that tie directly back to pre-Inca cultures.

But the underlying idea is the same. In both places, the craft isn’t something preserved behind glass in a museum. It’s alive. It’s local. It’s something people still make, sell, and live from.

There’s something grounding about that. Across thousands of kilometers, in completely different cultural settings, people have taken the same raw material — clay from the earth — and shaped it into something that carries their history forward.

Different countries, different cultures, but the same instinct: take what’s under your feet and turn it into something that lasts.

Pucará and Choquehuanca - neither has an ATM

While in Pucará, I also walked across the valley, about an hour walk, to another small town, Choquehuanca. It's noticeably larger than Pucará; it even has a bank. But what it doesn't have, and neither does Pucará, is a cash machine/ATM. So, if you decide to stay overnight, be sure to bring cash with you. The main plaza in Choquehuanca is being renovated, so it's completely surrounded by a wall of blue tarps, so I have no photos of it.

My Impressions

When I was in Ayaviri, before coming to Pucará, I met a couple from Switzerland. The first time chatting with them, they mentioned they would also be stopping in Pucará. The next day, they had changed their minds and decided to pass it by and continue south. I'm glad I stopped in this village. It's tiny, but it's interesting. If you happen to be passing through between Juliaca or Puno and Cusco, stop here, check out the archeological site, notice the imprints in the sidewalks, and have lunch; there are a couple of decent restaurants here. And there are at least a half-dozen good coffee shops. One sells a package of coffee, 250 grams, normal size, for 230 soles, about US$68. It's a very special coffee. And, of the last few towns/cities I've visited, this one has the friendliest people. Here, they greet you in the streets. Quite refreshing after the tourist cities where they don't care. So, is this a town that needs to be on your must-visit list? Not necessarily, but if you're passing through, it's worth a visit.