"Tilcara" Tilcara by ptitetoile

Tilcara (2461m) was founded in 1586 and bears the name of the tribe that settled there many years ago. The town is known for its handcrafts market (on plaza Prado), its cultural life with its various museums (archeological museum, museum of the sculptor Ernesto Soto Avendaño, art museum of the painter José Antonio Terry and the modern-art museum Irureta) and the ruins of the precolumbian fortification Pukara.

The Pucará de Tilcara (The Fortress of Tilcara) is testimony of an agricultural community that has the guts and the ability to defend themselves from the attack of the Incas and other tribes. Remainders of the past - pucarás, paintings- are scattered all around. It's important to visit the fortified town of Pucará and the Botanical Garden of Altura. It is also recommended to visit the ecological houses and the Graganta del Diablo (Throat of the Devil). This fortress was inhabited by Omahuacas, 900 years ago, but the Tilcara were the ones that built the pucará ("fortress") in an strategic area, 80 metres above Rio Grande.

Quechua painting

I did not have the time to stay long in the town but I loved the dusty streets, the market where I bought all my "souvenirs" for my folks in Belgium and also this fantastic painting on the house!!!