Past is present in Peru's highlands.

• Author: Dempsey, Mary

THE WALLS OF Hacienda San Vicente, a tiny guest house in Cajamarca, in northern Peru, were built with packed earth, straw, and stone, then painted with ocher mixed with local plants and salt, using formulas handed down since the time of the Incas. In the center of the city, a colonial-era hospital and chapel house the region's cultural institute, where young Cajamarquinos take a break from imported U.S. pop music to study and perform the dances of their ancestors. Across town, students aged nine to ninety experiment with clay and glaze techniques in an effort to rediscover the art that centuries ago made Cajamarca a pottery center.

Nestled in the Andes highlands in Peru's dairy region, and home to the Banos del Inca hot springs, Cajamarca was the site of Francisco Pizarro's 1533 ambush of the Inca Atahualpa, which brought down the Indian empire. Now Cajamarca is a gentle city of 120,000, whose residents eschew modern buildings and customs, favoring instead the technology of the past.

"History is part of being Cajamarquino, of being part of a city that was an Inca stronghold," says Ira de Gamero, who with her husband decided to erect Hacienda San Vicente using traditional construction methods. "Children here know their history, know their past. They know they are descendants of the Incas, and they are proud to be so."

Under the inn's "pick a plant, sow a seed" policy, guests can wander into the Inca-style terraced garden to pluck their salad vegetables, provided that they plant something in exchange. Sometimes, guests are even treated to a pachamanca,--an Andcan barbecue where musicians play zamponas and quenas, traditional reed instruments, while wrapped meat, carrots, corn, potatoes, and herbs bake in underground pits lined with hot bricks.

The effort to look to the past has been fueled by people like artist Andres Zevallos, part of a circle of poets, painters, photographers, and writers who encourage local residents to restore colonial houses, study Indian dance, and reclaim ancient crafts...