Cajamarquilla

Out in the dry Jicamarca ravine east of Lima, on the north side of the Rímac, lies one of the largest mud-built cities of ancient Peru: well over a hundred hectares of temple-pyramids, walled compounds laid out like a maze, plazas, streets, cemeteries and pits for storing grain, all of rammed earth. The Lima people traded here, and later the Ychsma, from around AD 600 until it was abandoned before the Spanish came. Archaeologists from San Marcos university have since dug up an 800-year-old mummy here, bound with cords, its hands over its face.

It is not set up for walk-in tourism. The site sits off the road to a zinc refinery, much of its edge is unfenced and pressed by houses, and a visit has to be arranged ahead with the Ministry of Culture or on the guided tours the local district runs. There are signs from the refinery road, but asking for the zona arqueológica helps.