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Entering towards Quitor, a fort built in the 12th century lies on the top of a hill above the San Pedro river, the Pukará de Quitor is an ancient indigenous fortress which dates back more than 700 years.

It takes its name from the pre-Hispanic agrarian group, the ´´Ayllu de Quitor´´, whose cultivated fields are born at the foot of the Pukará Quitor, a fortress erected in the course of the 12th century, as a response to the expansionist designs of the Aymara neighbors.

In Quitor, all the constructions are made of stone, generally without edging and extracted from the liparite bank, on which it is seated. The houses and their small adjoining silo, the defensive enclosures that are noticed on the periphery and attached to the same defensive wall, the enclosures that store grains and the watchtowers, cover 160 in number and in an area of ​​2.5 hectares.

A good part of the hillside described has a height of 70 meters from its base contiguous to the cultivated fields to its culminating point. The roofs are always single-water, flat or with very little inclination: The same techniques have been used in both Quitor and Lasana: chañar or carob beams, branches, Ichu straw, covered with mud.















Second region. Located 3 kilometers northwest of San Pedro de Atacama and 321 kilometers northeast of Antofagasta.

Any point-Calama: airway. Any point-Santiago: airway. Santiago-Antofagasta: airway. Antofagasta-Calama: land route by Route 25 CH and air route. Calama-San Pedro de Atacama: land route by Route CH-23, through public and private transport. San Pedro de Atacama-Pukara de Quitor: land route by private transport or rental of bicycles or horses.







Declared a National Monument in 1982. Its pre-Inca construction dates from the 12th century. It is made of stones that climb a hill as a fortress with a perimeter defensive wall. The ruins of Pukará de Quitor are located at a bend in the ravine through which the waters of the San Pedro River or Rio Grande flow and on a steeply sloping plane.

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