Peru Guide
Around Arequipa
The caves of Sumbay
Although small, the main Sumbay cave contains a series of 8000-year-old rock paintings representing shamans, llamas, deer, pumas and vicuñas. The surrounding countryside is amazing in itself: herds of alpacas roam gracefully around the plain looking for ichu grass to munch, and vast sculpted rock strata of varying colours mix smoothly together with crudely hewn gullies. To stay at Sumbay, on the road to Chivay and Colva, you'll have to camp, but if you have a vehicle it's easy enough to stop for an hour or so an hour en route, following the signpost (at Km 103 from Arequipa) down a bad track to the village of Sumbay (4532m), about 1.5km away. At this point you'll need to find the guardian of the cave (often just a small shepherd child) who can open the gate for your car to continue another kilometre to a parking area. From the gate it's a ten-minute walk to the caves, down into a small canyon just before the bridge. The guardian will have to unlock another gate to give you access to the site.