The Peruvian coast is a desert, and the road up from Lima to the mountains is one of the most dramatic climbs in the Andes. Sisicaya and Santa Rosa de Chontay lie in the Huarochirí province, in the hills above the Rímac valley east of Lima, where the Inca road once climbed from the coastal plain to the high sierra. This stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan, part of the six-country UNESCO listing of 2014, follows ridges and dry valleys, with stone steps, retaining walls and terraces that are still visible if you know where to look.
Huarochirí has a special place in Andean literature. In about 1600, a Spanish priest in the area had local people tell the old stories of their gods, in Quechua, and the result, the Huarochirí Manuscript, is one of the very few records of Andean religion in the words of the people who lived it. It tells of Pariacaca, the mountain god who fought floods and rivals, and of the spirits that lived in rocks and springs. Reading a few pages before the ride makes the barren hillsides feel inhabited.
The road is the Carretera Central, the highway from Lima to La Oroya, and it climbs from the coastal haze through Chosica, a town of about eighty-eight thousand, past Ricardo Palma, a smaller place of under five thousand, and up the Rímac valley into the sierra. Fuel and food are easy in Chosica and the larger towns, but not on the climb, so fill the tank. The road is paved and winding, but heavy with trucks and buses, and corners are blind, with landslides in the wet season, from December to March. Above Chosica the air thins, the scenery turns to brown rock and cactus, and at the top the road crosses the Ticlio pass, above four thousand eight hundred metres, among the highest paved roads in the world.
The dry season, from May to October, is the best time, with blue skies in the highlands, though the coast sits under a grey blanket of cloud. Altitude sickness is real, so ascend slowly, carry water and a warm jacket, and chew coca leaves or drink coca tea if locals offer it. The valley's orchards, famous for fruit like cherimoya and custard apple, make a sweet stop on the way.