Roaming South America

Lircay, Perú: The Stairway That Didn’t Exist Yesterday

March 28, 2026

Travel notes from a small town in the Peruvian Andes at 3,278 meters.

Lircay, Perú, sits at 3278 meters (10,754 feet) elevation, and has a population of about 6,800.

I decided to spend a couple of nights here on my way south to Ayacucho. Lircay is in the high Andes, where I am sitting in my hotel; the elevation is 3272 meters (10,735 feet). It's cold. The temp is 12° C (53° F), maybe not so terribly cold right now (about 6 pm), but it will be in the single digits tonight. The average annual high temp is 19.8° C and the annual low temp is 4.1° C.

The History of Lircay: From Ancient Cultures to Modern Peru

The story of Lircay stretches back centuries and reflects the broader history of the region. Long before the Spanish arrived, the area was inhabited by communities linked to the Wari civilization, one of the earliest complex societies in the Andes. Among the earliest known inhabitants were the Anccaras, an Indigenous group that lived in the surrounding valleys and mountains.

Later, during the expansion of the Inca Empire, the region became part of the Chanka Confederation. The Chankas, along with related groups such as the Pokras, were known for their resistance against the Incas. However, after being defeated by the Inca forces, many local inhabitants were dispersed to other regions through a system known as mitimaes, in which populations were relocated to consolidate imperial control.

Spanish colonization brought major changes to the region. Beginning in the 1540s, the territory of Angaraes was incorporated into the Repartimiento de Huamanga, an administrative and economic system established by the Spanish Crown. The development of mining activities in the area led to increased settlement, and in 1572, the town of San Juan Bautista de Lircay was officially founded.

After Peru gained independence from Spain, the region underwent several administrative reorganizations. In 1825, the liberator Simón Bolívar created the province of Angaraes, which at the time belonged to the Ayacucho department. Shortly afterward, in 1826, Andrés de Santa Cruz incorporated Angaraes into the administration of Huancavelica. Later, in 1847, Ramón Castilla restored Angaraes as a province, with Lircay designated as its capital. Finally, on November 8, 1879, the province was formally reconstituted with Lircay continuing to serve as its administrative center.

Like many communities in the Peruvian Andes, Lircay also experienced difficult times during the late twentieth century. In the 1980s, the region was affected by the internal armed conflict involving the guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso, which brought violence and instability to many rural areas of Peru.

Slip Sliding Away

When I was walking around looking for a hotel, I was looking at the map, not really paying attention to the road I was on. It turned out to be a dead-end. I asked a man about it, and he confirmed that the road is closed at the bottom before reaching the river. He showed me where some high schoolers were cutting a new stairway into a steep slope that went down to the river. There's a footbridge across the river; the only way to get to it is down that newly cut-in stairway. It was very muddy, and the steps were still being cut with pick axes and shovels. The steps were slippery, and my hiking shoes soles were loaded with mud, which resulted in a couple of small slips, and that being that I had both my backpacks hanging on me. But I made it down without mishap, and chatted with the kids at the bottom where they were placing stones for the steps.

A Snapshot of Travel in the Andes

That little episode I just described is actually a perfect snapshot of how travel in the Andes often works. Not by guidebooks. Not by Google Maps. Just… the local workaround.

First, the road ends before the river. That’s very typical in mountain towns like Lircay. Rivers cut deep channels through these valleys, and building permanent roads everywhere is expensive and sometimes pointless when a footbridge works just fine. So what happens? The vehicle road stops, and the pedestrian route continues.

Second, the students are cutting the stairway. That’s classic small-town improvisation. In a lot of Andean towns, paths evolve in a very organic way. Someone starts using a shortcut down a slope. Then people begin putting stones into the dirt so it’s easier to walk. Eventually, it becomes a semi-official stairway. Sometimes the municipality formalizes it later, sometimes it just stays a community-built path forever.

The image of high schoolers literally carving steps into a hillside tells you a lot about the place. In bigger cities, you’d see warning tape and a sign saying “construction zone.” In a town like Lirca,y it’s more like, “We need a path here. Grab a shovel or pickaxe.” And they were obviously having fun doing it.

Third, the mud. That’s the Andes doing what the Andes do. A steep dirt slope plus moisture equals boot-sucking mud that packs into the tread until your shoes feel like you’re wearing two bricks. My Merrell soles filling up completely is exactly what happens. After about five steps, the tread pattern disappears and I was basically skating on clay.

At the bottom of this slope, a group of teen girls was laying flat rocks for the steps, and we got to chatting with them, asking the typical question - where are you from? And from that, I had a 5-minute conversation with them.

Here’s something funny about the universal traveler experience I had:

I started the day looking for a hotel. Ten minutes later, I was descending a muddy slope with two backpacks, following a stairway that didn’t exist yesterday, guided by teenagers with shovels and picks.

That’s pretty much the Andes in a nutshell.