Culebrillas Canyon Trek and Sillar Quarry, Arequipa
From €9 per person
See availability →A Culebrillas Canyon trek from Arequipa with a visit to the Añashuayco sillar quarry, petroglyphs by the Wari culture and a stop at the Yanahura viewpoint.
The Culebrillas Canyon trek from Arequipa is four hours of volcanic stone and history on the Ruta del Sillar. The group is collected at hotels in the city centre and drives to the Añashuayco quarry, which is still in use. Here a vast gorge of ignimbrite cliffs, many metres tall, has been cut by the extraction itself, and the stonemasons begin work very early.
The guide explains how sillar is made and what it has traditionally been used for. One of the sights is the giant stone replica of the Compañía de Jesús church that the quarrymen sculpted, and you can visit some of them to see their daily work and cut a stone block yourself.
- Añashuayco quarry, a working sillar quarry
- Yanahura viewpoint, a traditional stop
- Quebrada de Culebrillas, with petroglyphs of the Wari culture
- The apachetas, small stone towers
The Quebrada de Culebrillas is about half an hour away from the quarry. You walk for around 20 minutes into this small gorge cut by running water, where rock faces of 15 to 20 metres rise higher the further in you go. At the far end are petroglyphs left by the Wari culture, more than ten centuries old. On the way back to town you pass the apachetas, which stand for thanks given to nature. The tour lasts about 4 hours, with tourist transport and a guide included. The quarry and canyon entrance tickets are extra.