The Colca Canyon History; It was known in the colony as the corregimiento of the Collahuas, thus being one of the most important areas of the Viceroyalty of Peru.
Francisco Pizarro entrusted his brother Gonzalo to establish himself in Yanque to exercise control of the Valley. At that time, more than 60,000 people dedicated to agricultural production, especially corn and potatoes, lived in the valley, which guaranteed the food of a large population and therefore a strategic area.
Later, with the arrival of Viceroy Toledo, the Reduction of Indians is applied and the vast population is reduced in towns, changing their old hamlets distributed in the valley for towns called “Reductions of Indians”.
These small cities were designed from Spain with detailed and meticulous planning. These had strict regulations for their construction, such as the design of a checkerboard, the width of their streets, the need to implement a prison, hospital, school, nursing home, etc. and of course a main square and an imposing church that would help in the conversion process of the indigenous people to Christianity.
Thus, it came to have 14 well-designed towns and magnificent works of architecture, as are almost all the churches that exist to this day.
Due to this experience and the interaction with the settlers, they changed the habits and customs of the Indians who began to deal with the diseases transmitted by the Spanish, which greatly reduced the population.
Records indicate that at the beginning of the republic only about 15,000 people remained. By the year 1630 the first silver, copper and gold mines were discovered in the region and therefore the interest is not only for its food production, but also for the volume of labor available for mining.
In the Republican era, the area was left aside until two aviators, Robert Shippee and George Johnson, at the end of the 1920s, carried out an aerial photographic survey and found a well-known populated valley that they called the “Unknown Valley of the Incas”. The following year they carried out an expedition to the area and came upon the surprise of the existence of a deep canyon that has twice the depth of the Colorado canyon.
In Peru, the use of the area was resumed in the 1975s, when, due to the construction of the Majes irrigation project, the Colca Valley became accessible for the construction of new roads and the infrastructure conditioned for the stay of the technicians and construction personnel.
These possibilities of access and accommodation allow some scholars, researchers, artists and adventurers to begin to explore the valley and discover an inexhaustible wealth in all fields, historical, artistic, scientific, sports, etc. that give renown and international diffusion.
In this area there are 16 towns that are direct descendants of the Collaguas (pre-Hispanic culture of the highlands) and Cabanas ethnic groups, with the towns of Chivay and Cabanaconde being the most visited by tourists.
Crafts and textile work stand out in the area and can be seen in the production of beautiful handicraft pieces such as rugs and embroidery with beautiful and colorful designs, as well as cut and embossed pieces in tin. They also highlight the elaboration of carved wooden images.