"Amigo, the battlefield was right here," said Rodolfo Román Sandoval, gesturing around the plaza of Sangarará, the Andean village where he grew up. Set 3,800m high in the Andes and dramatically ringed by mountain peaks, the place had a sleepy feel; there were more sheep crossing the street than people, and the silence was broken only by the occasional barking dog or braying donkey.
Román remembers when electricity came to town; and told me that as late as the mid-1990s, the people of Sangarará still used a barter system in lieu of money. Currently, he's renovating his childhood home in the village to become a tourist hostel and pub. There's not much in the way of tourist infrastructure here yet, save a few rustic hostels and a pollo brasa (rotisserie chicken) restaurant with some of the best salsa picante I've ever tasted. But Román is one of a group of people who thinks this is a place worth discovering. That's because this dusty village was an early and crucial stop on the road to Peru's eventual independence.
Like many rural Peruvian towns, the plaza is eclipsed by an ancient and disproportionately large church. Directly facing the church stand two statues – Tupac Amaru II and Tomasa Tito Condemayta – wielding weapons. The rebellious spirits of these two figures remain deeply embedded in Sangarará's culture, as this was the site of one of the fiercest conflicts – and one of the most important Indigenous rebellions – in Peruvian history.