Chile Guide
El Norte Grande
Iglesia de San Pedro
Address: Western side of the central plaza
The squat white Iglesia de San Pedro is one of the largest Andean churches in the region. It's actually San Pedro's second church, built in 1744, just over 100 years after the original church was erected near the present site of the archeological museum. The bell tower was added towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the thick adobe walls surrounding the church rebuilt in 1978. Inside, religious icons look down from the brightly painted altar, among them a stern-looking Saint Peter, the village's patron saint. Overhead, the sloping roof is made of rough-hewn planks of cactus wood and gnarled rafters of reddish algarrobo timber, bound together with leather straps.