Providing reason alone to make the trip down from Lima, this former slave plantation with its stately hacienda offers a rare opportunity for Afro-Peruvian historical immersion – some of it gilded, some of it gruesome. One-hour tours of the hacienda and its famous catacombs include strolls through the original building, with its fine baroque chapel that dates from 1688.
Surviving artifacts include frescoes, agricultural equipment, and brutal remnants of a system once used to subjugate the slaves including an extensive web of catacombs and underground tunnels (which you explore with a candle). Should you arrive on a Sunday be sure to stay for the dinner buffet show (S70), which is accompanied by athletic Afro-Peruvian dancing in the shaded courtyard. A spectacularly ruined cotton factory, dating from 1913, sits next door.
