Perija

Perijá is the mountain country between the Cesar valley and the Maracaibo basin. Its steep ridges and rivers are part of the ancestral territory of the Yukpa, a Cariban-speaking people whose communities inhabit the slopes on both sides of the range. Spanish incursions reached the region in the sixteenth century; later Capuchin missionaries sought contact with Yukpa groups. Forested valleys and mountain paths connect the highlands with the warmer lowlands below.