Qualla: Girón, Azuay

Girón, Azuay: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jen, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Inca called it Pacaybamba - "valley of the guava tree." The Spanish renamed it for a man who never stayed. Captain Francisco Hernandez Giron passed through this narrow valley in 1534, left his name behind, and went off to other adventures on his way to becoming one of colonial Peru's more notorious rebels. Four and a half centuries later, the town still carries his surname, though almost no one who lives here thinks about Captain Giron. What they think about is the Senor de Giron - a wooden crucifix believed to end droughts and bring prosperity - and the treaty signed here in 1829 that ended a brief, bitter war with Peru. A village of about 4,353 people in Ecuador's Azuay Province holds onto two inheritances, one colonial and one national.

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Image: Jen | CC BY-SA 3.0

Girón, Azuay: The Valley Before the Name

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jen, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before anyone spoke Spanish or Quechua here, this was Leoquina territory - one of the many small cultures scattered through the southern Ecuadorian Andes before the Inca swept through in the late fifteenth century. The Inca named it Pacaybamba for the guava trees that grew wild a...

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Image: Jen | CC BY-SA 3.0

Girón, Azuay: Promoted, Demoted, Promoted Again

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jen, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ecuadorian politics has long had an appetite for administrative reorganization, and Giron lived through all of it. First a villa (small town), then a canton in 1824, then absorbed by Cuenca in 1854, then a canton again in 1884, then demoted in 1890, and finally made canton perman...

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Image: Jen | CC BY-SA 3.0

Girón, Azuay: The Casa de los Tratados

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jen, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1829, Gran Colombia was fighting Peru over disputed border territory - an old argument that had been building since the wars of independence. The climactic battle at Tarqui, a valley just north of Giron, was won by Gran Colombian forces under Antonio Jose de Sucre. The peace t...

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Image: Jen | CC BY-SA 3.0

Girón, Azuay: Water, Waterfalls, and Guinea Pigs

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jen, CC BY-SA 3.0. Giron sits between rivers. The Rio Giron runs into the Rio Rircay, which feeds the Rio Jubones heading west to the Pacific. Lesser streams branch off into the surrounding hills: El Chorro, Rio Falso, Rio Mandur, Rio El Burro, Rio Manzano, Rio Rosas o Zhurzha, Rio San Gregorio. La...

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Image: Jen | CC BY-SA 3.0

Girón, Azuay: The Crucifix That Brings Rain

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jen, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the central church, above the town's plaza, hangs El Senor de Giron - a wooden crucifix that local belief says can call rain during droughts and prosperity during lean years. Every year the town holds the Fiesta de Toros del Senor de Giron in honor of the icon, a festival blen...

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Image: Jen | CC BY-SA 3.0