985

Von Kagen
Highway of

55-12327
$6*00
sim.

Books by Victor Wolfgang von Hagen

Exploration

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS (1937)

ECUADOR THE

UNKNOWN

(1938)

JUNGLE IN THE CLOUDS (1940)

ECUADOR AND THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS: A HISTORY (1949)

HIGHWAY OF THE SUN

(1955)

Biography

SOUTH AMERICA CALLED THEM (1945)

MAYA EXPLORER, THE LIFE OF JOHN LLOYD STEPHENS

(1947)

FREDERIC CATHERWOOD, ARCHITECT (1950)

THE FOUR SEASONS OF MANUELA (1952)

Ethnology

THE TSATCHELA INDIANS OF WESTERN ECUADOR (1939)

THE JICAQUE INDIANS OF HONDURAS (1940)
THE MAYA AND AZTEC PAPERMAKERS

1943 )

For Younger Adults

RICHES OF SOUTH AMERICA (1938)

QUETZAL QUEST (1939)

TREASURE OF TORTOISE ISLANDS (1941)

MOSQUITO BOY (1943)

SOUTH AMERICA ZOO (1948)

HIGHWAY OF THE SUN

HIGHWAY
of the Sun
by

VICTOR W. VON HAGEN

With 4 Maps
and 52 Pages of Photographs

Duell, Sloan and Pearce

New

Brown and Company

Boston

Little,

York

Toronto

COPYRIGHT,

I955

BY VICTOR W, VON HAGEN

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK IN EXCESS OF FIVE

HUNDRED WORDS MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT
PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 55-10763
FIRST EDITION

DUELL, SLOAN AND PEARCE-LITTLE,

BROWN

BOOKS ARE PUBLISHED BY

LITTLE,

BROWN AND COMPANY

IN ASSOCIATION

WITH

DUELLj SLOAN & PEARCE, INC.

Published simultaneously in Canada

by

Little,

Brown

& Company

(Canada) Limited

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA

To

the

memory

of

Sigmund Gildemeister

The

roads of the Incas were the

most useful and stupendous works

ever executed by man.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

Contents
I

II

The Grandest Road

in the

In the Beginning

World

in

The Floating Road

iv

Towers of the Dead

v
vi
vii

vni
IX

X
xi

Into the Car ab ay a Country

Cuzco

the Four Quarters of the

World

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

Apurimac: the Bridge of the Great Speaker

The Sanctuary of

the

Hawk

<

i.

The Highway of the Sun

The Road

to Chachapoyas

The Unliving Desert

2<

xni

The Marked Desert

xiv

Chala: the Fourth Quarter

xv

The Kingdom of the Moon

A Great City Called Tumpiz

The End of the Road

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

Index

XII

xvi

xvn

Illustrations

Maps

Photographs

9, 85, 255,

277

306-307

HIGHWAY OF THE SUN

The Grandest Road

in

the World

IT WAS 1548. At the side of a road which went on out across the
bare Andes, a young soldier was keeping his vow to write down the
"wonderful things of these Indies." Pedro Cieza de Leon looked
again at the stone-paved highway he had followed for so
leagues and then he slowly wrote:

many

Accordingly the Inca constructed the grandest road that

is in the world as well as the longest, for it extends from
a
Cuzco to Quito and was connected from Cuzco to Chile
distance of 800 leagues. I believe since the history of man, there
has been no other account of such grandeur as is to be seen on
this road which passes over deep valleys and lofty mountains,
by snowy heights, over falls of water, through the living rock
and along the edges of tortuous torrents. In all these places, the
road is well constructed, on the inclining mountains well terraced, through the living rock cut along the riverbanks supported by retaining walls, in the snowy heights built with steps
and resting places, and along its entire length swept cleanly
and cleared of debris
with post stations and storehouses and
there

Temples of the Sun

at appointed intervals along its length.

In the four hundred years since the young traveler wrote

of this grandeur has been laid waste by the insults of time;

much
much

is in ruins, many of the superbly made halting-places of the

road reduced to formless mounds. Here and there, during the inter-

Highway of

the

Sun

vening centuries, explorer-archaeologists have wandered over the

empty spaces of Peru and have painstakingly pushed away the debris of time to ferret out some of the clues with which to recon-

But between what is known and what is not

known lies an immense hiatus, and between what we know of the
ancient cities along the road and what we do not know is a great
gap. "We know only that the thread which bound the widely sepa-

struct an empire.

rated communities was the

Road

that ubiquitous overwhelming

which Cieza de Leon described

est in the

What

Road

then

from end

as

the "grandest

and long-

world."
if this

to end?

fabulous road were to be found and followed

What

if

one were to employ the techniques

now

available in the scientific fields of archaeology and geography, and

were to make use of advanced methods of travel such as the double -

transmissioned truck and the airplane?

sible to discover the route

their heights

the

many

and lowlands

forgotten

cities?

taken by

its

Would

accessible to those

And

if these

it

not then be pos-

various roads, and so

who would

make

search for

were found might they not

how the Incas lived, how by building their

roads
were
able to communicate with almost teleamazing
they

reveal the secret of

graphic speed with the most remote sections of their empire?

To travel this ancient route, seeking to find some light on the

enigma of the history of

Man in the Americas, was my

dream. Until

now much

of this history had been a mystery

one with scale,
and
drive.
There
clues
were
to be found from which deductions
plot
were to be made
there was the drama of suspense and continued
novelty.

Where

on the way

if

Movement

did the ancient roads lead and

is

as old as

the earth.

And Man

is

of the earth. Since

he has been a great roamer. As early as 10,000 B.C.,

the Traveler opened a route to the Baltic to obtain amber,

earliest times

Man

what would one meet

they were followed?

The Grandest Road

in the

World

"that special act of God/* The earliest man-made roads were built to
obtain salt; the oldest Roman road was the Via Salaria, the "salt

road" to Ostia.
Persia excelled in

business/'

good roads "crowded with men on the King's

trade, extending its way into India, found

The caravan

roads already built; for, ever since

man

invented the vehicular

wheel in 3000 B.C., traffic had rolled out of the larger Indian villages. Alexander the Great said of these same roads, built of clay-

made

brick with stairways of broad steps and low treads easily

climbed by laden camels and lined "with all manner of trees bear-

ing fruits," that they were the best he had ever seen.
Egypt too had its roads. As early as 3000 B.C., a ten-fathom-wide
road had been built by King Cheops for the purpose of transporting
the huge limestone blocks destined for the Great Pyramid. "The
road," said a certain Greek geographer, "was not much inferior, in

my

judgment, to the pyramid

itself."

There were ancient many-

gated roads in Africa over which one

moved

across the desert,

Sennacherib the Assyrian built his royal road and made "it shine like
the light of day." Darius the Persian constructed another from
Susa to Babylonia, spacing it with stone markers and posthouses. In
Crete there were wagon roads which led to the palace of Knossus.

The Greeks became

systematic road builders, extending their roads

into Sparta; and, even at this early date, they prepared a manual on

road

repairs.

over them

were luxury highways and

obsidian, amber, gold, jade, silver, emeralds; and
Greek fruits such as olives, figs, lemons, almonds.

Most of

these early routes

moved

for delicacies,

Spices were carried to every destination; silks

van

routes, frankincense

came over the cara-

and perfumes from Arabia.

The Romans constructed

the

road system. Now for the first

without tolls or prerogatives. It

first

time the "road" was open to all,

exclusively one road only for the luxury trade, or
reserved for royal travel. Pompey .built his roads over the Alps;

was no longer

High-way of the Sun

Africa was traversed by a Roman road network from Gabes to Tebessa; Emperor Claudius built roads in Britain. On all of these,
milestones were commonplace while posthouses mushroomed all
along a Roman way. At the height of the Empire, the longest continuous road ran from Antonine's Wall in Scotland to Jerusalem,

thousand miles. Even during the declension of

the building of roads went on in Spain, in France and in

a distance of three

Rome

Africa.

After the seventh century the upkeep of roads throughout Europe and along the Mediterranean rim was neglected, and by the
sixteenth century for a traveler to arrive in Madrid he needed
falcon's eye, an ass's ear, a

**a

monkey's face, a merchant's word, a

camel's back, a hog's mouth, a deer's foot." For a thousand years

Europe's roads remained quagmires. It was Napoleon who rebuilt

Roman Road in the nineteenth century.

Yet during these same centuries, far across the world a people
called the Incas built a road system which bound
together all the
the

discordant elements of their land

the desert, the mountains, the

and was in many respects superior to any European road

jungles
network. "Nothing in Christendom equals these wonderful roads
in Peru," said a literate conquistador. "The great Inca road from
Quito to Cuzco is as much used
and I cannot say more ..."

as the

road from Seville to Triana

During my many years of exploration through South America I

had heard much about and had seen fragments of these fabulous
royal roads of the Incas.

Now

was determined to seek

the reality of these ancient stone arteries and, wherever
they might
lead
through jungles, across deserts, over towering mountains
to follow

way

from the

system

at

long

last I

starting point to the end this great Inca highwhich for centuries bound the Inca em-

these roads

and which, like the Persian highways, caused the

downfall of a great and ancient civilization.

pire together

The Grandest Road

This, then,

men

is

in the

the story of the six people

World
two women and four

who formed

our Expedition and who began, in the winter

of 1952, to seek out the remains of the "most useful and stupendous
works ever executed by man."

As

the fog begins to rise from the Andes like a theatrical drop
curtain, the Expedition's caravan slowly makes its way across the

Not

nor plant, nor bird voice animates

this void; the only moving thing is our caravan of two cars, rolling
out over the puna toward Lake Titicaca.
bare roof of Peru.

a tree,

In

Vv E CAME upon

the Beginning

the lake at the

end of the day.

. .

It

was,

we

later re-

membered, the same hour of the same day of the same month that
the first white man chanced upon it in the year 1553. At 12,500
feet above the surface of the sea, Titicaca lay immense and shimmering and as blue
with the sky.

Over

as

the heavens

almost on a

level, it

seemed,

of grass balsa boats, hurrying before a following wind, was sailing toward Puno, gliding over the glass surface
without disturbing its polished water-skin. Far in the background
the lake a

fleet

backdrop were the snow-draped peaks of the Bolivian

Andes, biting into the sky with their glistening white glacier-teeth
and so sharply outlined that we could not believe they lay forty
like a painted

miles distant.

The truck caravan came

to a halt,

and for

a brief

moment we

sat

by the magnificent sight. Then Silvia von Hagen,

wife, bundled heavily against the almost arctic bite of the cold,

there spellbound

my

stepped from the truck and scrambled up to the top of a rock.

"I never dreamed it would be so beautiful," she said as she

pointed to a small distant figure. "Look, you can see the bright color
of the Indian's skirt, and see how the golden color of the grass is
reflected in the lake."

After the upward climb from Arequipa and the drive across the
8

Highway of
cold, treeless

and sombre puna,

in this twilight hour

upon

it

Sun

the

was a

stirring experience to

come

Titicaca. For five thousand years, people

have lived and died about the shores of

this great lake.

Amoeba-

over one hundred and thirty miles in length and forty

shaped,
miles, more or less, at its greatest width, and as deep as the Atlantic
Ocean off the coast of Massachusetts.
it is

One

river flows out of this

;grass-bound puna and empty

into a

lesser lake in Bolivia,

Gargantuan lake to curve about the

many hundreds of miles southward

from whence the brackish waters

filter

'down to form salt-swamps at Argentina's borderlands. This lake

cc
and its fringes of good soil had for centuries supplied the alF* for
ancient peoples

who lived

along

its

shores

fish in

abundance, wa-

ter for crops, fertile earth, a plenteous supply of the reeds which
took the place of wood for building material for houses and for
balsa boats. Around its shores lived large bird-colonies of gray-

suited

ibis,

ducks and black-winged flamingos. From one of the

legended, came the first Inca King. The environs

remain the most thickly populated section of the
Andes. Indian in custom and language, these people live much as
lake's islands, it

of the lake

is

still

their ancestors lived centuries before.

Across the puna we could see the path of the Inca road, a fragthat fabulous highway which had not been annealed by

ment of
time,

moving up from
Silvia

and

the lake to where

drank in the

we

stood on the bare land.

Lake Titicaca in the fore-

scene.

Together
ground, and the ancient road marching across what seemingly was
*
the top of the world
.

had traveled

dorian Andes
road. It

was

a long road since that

when

saw for the

first

at the ruins of Ingapirca

10

day in 1934 in the Ecua-

time a fragment of the Inca

and

was on

my first

expedi-

In the Beginning
tion to South America, and very young.

had been an Inca

fortress I

had seen

From

the

summit of what

a clearly defined road, several

yards wide and bordered by a stone wall undulating over the treeless

land.

"That, Your Grace,"

my

Indian guide had said then, touching

I had followed it for

the brim of his felt hat, "is the Inca road."

some miles

until, at the edge of a canyon, it disappeared in a tangle

of masonry. Was this a part of that great Royal Road system I had
heard about? Did this road really lead to Cuzco, fifteen hundred
miles to the south, and to Tucuman in Argentina, three thousand

miles away? In time the Royal Road became a sort of obsession; it

was always in my thoughts. Later, when I was exploring the Maya

ruins in Yucatan, I walked a stone causeway that connected the sea

with the Maya capital and I thought again of the Incas and
/* I promised
wondered about their road: "Some day I must
.

myself.

Throughout all the intervening years, I was haunted with the idea
of rediscovering that road. Now I realized that all my other expeditions to

South America were merely a preparation for the exploraand dead civilization.

tion of these ancient highways of a great

After
done,

all

it

these years of

seemed

at the

on the heights of

The

flags

hoping that someday such a thing could be

scarcely credible that we were now

moment

Titicaca, about to begin the exploration.

of our caravan beat time with the wind.

From

the

smaller truck, the red and white banner of Peru flew above the

American

flag.

On

the larger, a fiery red

Power Wagon, the blue

its
device,
ensign of the American Geographical Society
beat violently at its
B I Q u E, encircling a design of the world

jackstaff.
I

had

basically

felt

from the beginning that our Expedition was to be

engaged in geographical research. Where the ancient road

II

Highway of

the

Sun

one route and not another had been selected by the Inca's.
engineers, was, in this "doubled-up world" of Peru as the Spaniard

ran,

why

in the early
it, primarily a geographical study. Therefore,
the Ameriout
had
I
for
this
of
sought
expedition
stages
planning
called

can Geographical Society.

For a century this Society has sent expeditions to the far reaches
of the globe and their blue ensign has floated over many an isolated

America had, for many years, been a focus of their

and their famous long-term project of an accurate mapping

region. Latin
interest

of

all

from pole to pole has kept the Society very

the Americas

to developments in Hispanic America.

The Director of

close

the Society

agreed to our association with the Society, allowed us to make use

of the prestige of its name, and in the months that followed, assisted us in

preparing our

On October
the first

field

maps*

American Geographical Society made

formal announcement of the Expedition:
12, 1952, the

The most novel and one of

the most ambitious archaeologiand geographical expeditions of modern times will begin
when Mr. Victor von Hagen leaves for Peru. In cooperation
with the Society, Mr. von Hagen will direct an intensive twoyear study of a forgotten and almost incredible world, the
thirteenth-century highway of the ancient Incas whose remains still stretch for ten thousand miles along the west coast
of South America. The Inca Highway began
cal

The geographical
had to be

rediscovery of the Inca Royal Road, of course,

closely related to archaeological research, for the ruins of

the way stations (fampus) that once lined the highways throughout the entire length, when found, would have to be mapped, and
such artifacts as came to light studied for the characteristic detail
that

would "date"

the ruins

and the road.

Although knowledge derived from archaeological research is

more reliable than such information as might be found in writings
ri

In the "Beginning

we

about the road,

still

had to begin with the early writings for

Dr. John Rowe of the University

basic information. I contacted

We

of California, an authority on Peru and an old friend.

decided
that everything ever written about the roads would have to be

sought out and catalogued under regional headings, a task over

which one of his young graduate students labored for more than
a year.

The nature of such

a geographico-archaeological expedition sug-

gested a group of five or at most six members.

I, as

the leader, pro-

work and concern myself principally

of the Royal Road and the co-ordination

posed to do the ethnographic

with the actual discovery

of the things we found with the evidence supplied to us from the
literature; in addition I would make ethnological studies of the na-

through which the road passed. Silvia, who is a

textile designer, would be the staif artist and study the weaving
techniques used in the ancient textiles found in the graves and
tives in the regions

would assemble our

collections.

who looks like an American, is in fact Brazilian. Born in

educated
in the United States, tall and long-limbed, with
Berlin,
dark hair matching her dark eyes, she has a fearful and passionate
Silvia,

curiosity about life and, to balance

of

humor with

way

it,

a wonderful gaiety

and

sense

of puncturing sophisms with thrusts of dis-

arming frankness, and in addition she has a poet's feeling for nature, for the color of an autumnal tree, a bird in flight, a flower or
a design in nature.

was lecturing at her college; later when we met, I

found that she was from Brazil and that she was connected with a
family long established in Peru. Being still in that period of "wantIn 1952

ing" to organize

this Expedition, I told

drawing, I suppose, as one will

her about the Inca roads

under these circumstances, the whole

business in dramatic overtones. So, seduced

13

by

my own enthusiasm,

Highway of

the

Sun

our plan to seek out the Incas' roads developed in the counterpoint
of her interest, and the Expedition suddenly left the dream stage

and metamorphosed into being.

But coming into being was not

matter of saying, "Let it be

done." Our project called for travel within the three Perus: desert, jungle and mountain. Each region demanded a different type of
just a

equipment. For the heights we would have to be prepared to face

an arctic cold; on the desert, a heat which during the day was as
torrid as the Sahara's; while the jungle, insect-filled

and dank, de-

manded yet another type of equipment. All this was expensive;

there was the matter of raising money. Where were we to get
enough to maintain five or six people in the field for two years and
to purchase all we would need? I sought out foundations, instituand there was nothing or next to nothing to be
tions, museums
had from these sources. We next tried industry, and here we found
there was interest; eventually, we had a promise for all the gasoline,
cameras, medicines, batteries,

tires,

power

generators, film, dehy-

drated foodstuffs and coffee, and transportation, that

needed for the Expedition.

the halfway mark set by

June 1952
we had in services and materials more than half of the

Thus it went on
ourselves

would be

until, in

thousand dollars needed to undertake the Expedition. With

the feeling that we had passed the initial critical stage, I negotiated

fifty

for the literary rights of the Expedition.

The

New York Times

and

North American Newspaper Alliance, gave us a conmonthly article; Life Magazine wanted certain picture
rights, and my publishers felt enough confidence in the project to
make a substantial advance on contract. With this accomplished we
had reached the mark set by Sigmund Gildemeister, Silvia's grandits affiliate,

the

tract for a

father.

you can assure me," he had written, "that you can yourself
more than half of what you feel you need, then I will match

"If
raise

14

In the Beginning

that half with dollars which you need for carrying out the Expedition."

Herr Gildemeister could have stepped out of Thomas Mann's BudHe had a gentle but worldly look, the inherent probity

denbrooks.

of a

man who

has come from a long line of Gildemeisters who

development of the free cities of the Hansa.

played their role in the

His parents had been married in Peru in 1853 and as a young man
he had gone from Peru to Chile to look out for some nitrate interests. Eight years later he entered the family corporation. After the

war which he spent in the suburbs of Hamburg, the most

bombed area of all Germany, he went to Brazil where he formerly

last

had had business 'interests, there

to re-establish himself. In a sense

Sigmund Gildemeister had returned to the land which had launched

him on what was to be a successful career. In him we, as the Spaniard has

it,

had found our patron.

Now to the others who would form the Expedition. To carry out
program we needed one or two archaeologists, a topographerdraughtsman and a cinematographer. To take a larger group of peowhere food, or its lack, is a very real
ple into this barren earth
and gnawing problem
would complicate matters. There were
this

other considerations. For two years we would have to live on quite

intimate terms with each other. Members of the Expedition would

not only have to be expert at their particular tasks but they should
have other talents and interests as well, for they would undoubtedly
have to lend a hand in many ways. Then too there would be many
physically trying aspects to our journey through low-lying arid

high altitudes and humid jungles. There would be many

difficult hours and no matter how well organized the Expedition,

desert,

there

would be constant

irritations.

So for our topographer, one

cameraman, we picked

New

who

also

happened to be an expert

Yorker. In his

late thirties

Charles

Highivay of the Sun

Daugherty, the son of a well-known illustrator, had studied at Yale,
worked under John Steuart Curry and learned about mapping during his five years in the Pacific as a Captain of the Engineers attached to Admiral Nimitz's staff. I had known him personally for
years; quiet

and

effective,

he was an able skier, inured to the cold

and the heights. In the first weeks of our trek he grew a beard
which gave him the look of one of El Greco's hollow-eyed saints.
It

had not been easy to find

cinematographer, a

specialist in the

film, one with the tough endurance needed to carry

cameras over these high altitudes. In addition he would have to be
a man of stability and patience, a quality he would have much need

documentary

of in photographing the natives and ourselves, his principal actors.

Had there been money involved perhaps it would have been easier
to find such a one, but those

who

could afford to risk

life

for

years in perilous journeying for the sheer joy of adding a bit

two

more

knowledge of ancient man were not easy to come by. Such

a one was Richmond Lawrence. He came all the way from a mid-

to our

west university to announce himself ready to undergo any hardship

or privation in order to film the phantom roads of the Incas. Born
in

Upper

New York

State,

Lawrence had

first

been employed with

one of the major film producers and so had a thorough knowledge

of the fundamentals. After several years in the Army, he had traveled

all

over Mexico and Central America photographing the culsmall man, Lawrence we soon discov-

tural life of the Indians.

ered, daily

whether
It

was

consumed an extraordinary number of cups of coffee

gave him his endurance we were never to learn.

this

Silvia

who

suggested

Dorothy Menzel

as

the Expedition's

archaeologist. She was the young graduate student who had done
such a remarkable job for me at the University of California on the

research on the Inca roads.

asked Silvia, was better qualified?

She had gone through four hundred years of literature written in

Who,

several languages, selecting those passages

16

which mentioned the

In the Beginning
roads;

and

at the

end of

a year, her research notes filled three

huge

notebooks. She had often said rather wistfully that she would like to
come along as the Expedition's archaeologist.

was an idea that presented certain problems. Dorothy had yet

finish her doctorate thesis and I was concerned about her ability

It

to

to stand the strain.

Her own

field

work had

not, as she herself ad-

mitted, been too extensive. Moreover she was both unmarried and
attractive;

"I

and for two years

know,

know,"

Silvia

this objection often: **Never

tion.
I

was

had

said

with emphasis, for she heard

more than one woman on an expedi-

."
still

undecided.

talked the matter of an archaeologist over

many times with the late Dr. Wendell Bennett of Yale University,
who helped us formulate the archaeological approach. Even though
he himself could not accompany us, he gave us without stint all of
his available time. "He must be the right man, he has to be. And he

must have considerable

now

field experience.

at Yale and, too, even

two

chaeological investigation at

We

have no such person

years will not permit extensive arsite. Your expedition from

be
to
mainly reconnaissance and

any given

an archaeological standpoint
your man will have to go through Peru with blinders on
is

not to run after every

I'll see what I can do
as

his eyes so

ruin. This will take a special type of

man.

."

was most important that the geographical rediscovery of the

Royal Road be combined with archaeology. After finding the
It

tampus, which appeared on the Highway every twelve to sixteen

miles, experimental pits would have to be sunk and the potsherds

We

would have to know if a particustudied for stylistic sequence.

lar section of the road was Inca or pre-Inca. While the pottery

would give some evidence, the architectural styles of the buildings

would also have to be studied so as to assign a definite period to each
road station.

Highway of
was now the

It

fall

the

Sun

of 1^52* Ever since our marriage Silvia

I had lived Expedition, breathed Expedition. With six other

at the beginexpeditions in the craw of my experience, I had tried
in
in
for
were
we
what
to
tell Silvia just
my most pessiyet
ning

and

mistic

moments

never thought the planning would be so involved.

far enough along even to set a

But we were now committed, and

sailing date.

The matter of an archaeologist was still unsettled when we prepared to sail that December day in 1952. It was a day of calamitous
rain when noon was but a thin solution of night. As the vessel was
about to leave, the purser brought us a telegram from California:

HAVE MARRIED FRANCIS RIDDEIX ARCHAEOLOGIST WILL TRY

TO DIVERT HIM FROM AMERICAN NORTHWEST ARCHAEOLOGY
TO PERUVIAN AREA. DOROTHY MENZEL RIDDELL.

The

retiring sun

was lighting up

all

the glacier-topped mountains

on the far edge of Titicaca.

The snow took on

pastel colors, shades beloved

by the

a variety of

glowing

impressionists; streamers of mist

glowing first red, then crimson, like the crests of a dent

du midL We took a last look at the thin ribbon of the Inca road,

floated by,

now

blue-shadowed, entered our cars and started

major city on the

At

down

to Puno, the

lake.

Puno we were stopped by a redbarred our entrance, and when we were

the gateway to San Carlos de

and-white ridgepole that

approached by a guard, neat in powder-blue uniform and peaked

visored cap, I saluted, pointed to the door of the car with its insignia of the running chasqui figure

and the legend, INCA

EXPEDITION, and said, "Official car.'*

Carefully he examined our license

plates.

Then,

as I

HIGHWAY

handed him

our much valued document

the decree granted us by President
Odria of Peru which in broad and generous terms granted us "all

18

In the Beginning
aid

and

he read

facilities"

it

through after

first

summoning

Corporal of the Guard who in turn called the Sergeant. They

saluted; the ridgepole was raised and we drove on into Puno.

the
all

The cobblestoned street was filled with Indians moving at a half

walk, half run, a mountain stride which they use untiringly for
hours. It gave a lively cadence as if the whole town were hurrying
toward something. The dun-colored houses which fronted the
street were uniformly flat, forming as it were a continuous monowhile the brilliantly colored ponchos of the Indians and the
gaudy skirts of the cholas, openly and proudly half-caste, gave a

lith,

joyous note.
trotted
their

The

chola

women were

particularly colorful as they

by with their high-crowned derbys

numerous

crinoline skirts,

set at a rakish angle,

wrapped tightly around the

waist,

swelling out so that the wearers looked like animated tea cozies,
their skin tints varying from bronze to yellow-red, their round full

with dark almond eyes shaped like those of well-fed Buddhas.

The males by comparison were dull birds of passage with the plumfaces

age of black carrion crows and their ill-fitting black suits inevitably
topped by large-brimmed black fedoras.

at

That night we stopped near Puno and put up in a rustic chalet

Haqui, a mile outside of the city. This was fortunate, for there

was not another place

in

all

Puno

for passers -through like ourselves.

read of our Expedition kindly made us

gracious lady
the loan of her house for as long as we stayed in the region of the

who had

The house, surrounded by high moldering adobe walls, had

rooms made entirely of sun-baked brick. The largest of these Silvia
marked for the kitchen study while the other three served for our

lake.

bedrooms. Between the house and the shore were walls of highgrowing totora reed, where unseen ducks cackled and frogs kept up

throbbing ululation throughout the long frigid nights. In a day's

time we had put the place in working order. Our electric generator
a

19

the

Highway of

Sun

own portable sanitation; and stoves,

gave us our light; we had our
were installed. As for the
camp furniture and two gasoline heaters
water, which was always of questionable purity,

we put up

a large

back
bag in the patio and kept our Indian helpers traveling
fill it.
to
water
and forth like processionary caterpillars, carrying
Puno has the "air-temper" of Burgos in Spain, noted for its ten

Lister

months of winter and two months of

hell or, to retain the Spanish

dos de infierno. The days are warm

pun, Diez meses de invierno y
and sun-filled, although the shadows are always cellar-cool; but
once the sun disappears it becomes bitterly cold. Actually Puno
it is
has two seasons, wet and dry: the dry or "winter" because
cold; the

though

it

wet or "summer" because it rains and is warmer. Alwas May, the edges of the lake and the pools on the road

well as the water in our Lister bag were frozen every morning.
Yet no matter what the day or the food or the freezing night, our
arctic sleeping bags of feather down provided the comfort that was
as

denied us by the climate.

We acquired Francisco along with our chalet. His face like beaten
bronze had a Mongolian cast of eye, Hyperborean cheekbones, and

was fretted with an astonishing arabesque of wrinkles. Francisco

was pleasant, ineffectual and affirmative. He answered "Ari" to
everything, so

we

called

"We would have been

him Ari.
lost,

however, without

his

twelve-year-old

son. He was already a miniature man and as astute as an Indian of

no more than at twelve. The
thirty, yet at thirty he would know
wore when we first met, we
he
what
original shape and form of

were never to discover, since his clothes were so rainbow-patched.

Where he needed his pants most he had nothing at all and at any
moment we believed he would expose that which society insists be
hidden.

And so we

decided to dress

him

a personal servant to the Expedition.

fitting, gray, coarse

homespuns,

new

station as

clothes

tight-

befitting his

With

his

new

a form-fitting jacket

and a brightly

In the Beginning

colored ckumpi-belt, sandals, a stocking cap with ear flaps to keep

out the night cold, and a gaudy-colored poncho
Silverio was
ready to attend us.
Since an Expedition, like an army, travels on
tion of house

won

and food had

to take precedence over

to the logic of food, presently

our supplies. Puno

is

not, as

its belly,

Andean

we went

into

cities go,

Puno

very

organiza-

program and
to

old. It

so,

augment

was noth-

ing in ancient times and did not even appear as a formal city until
1 66% when the Viceroy of Peru,
by grace of a newly discovered silver mine,

named

it

the Villa of San Carlos de Puno. Its streets are

cobblestoned and progress on them is a little like bouncing on a

pogo stick. The houses that face the streets are of uniform height
and are uniformly painted. In Puno's center near the large square
is its

its

cathedral.

coldly austere edifice

intricate decorations the date

ANO

Over

which

bears in the midst of

DE 1754, the church

is

deco-

doorway an Indian -inspired

St. Michael wearing a feather headdress and flounced skirt kills a
dragon, while nearby mermaids, curiously popular with Indian
rated in the mestizo style.

the

sculptors, play their ukulele-like cbarangos as they float over the

niches containing austere- faced saints.

From one

cold shadowed street to another,

Puno

is

a long

market

place with the main one in front of the railway depot providing the
drama of the day. There shopping is not much different from being
in an evening

subway rush hour, except that here one

is

endangered

by the loaded workers carrying out-sized baskets, or he may be

spattered with gore from a cart in which "4! drayer is transporting
of buying. Food
the viscera of a flayed ox. Here too
jousting ^ part
abundant. Vegetables range from pur ie potatoes the size of
prunes to artichokes. There are bananas and avocados from the

is

yungas hot-lands and enormous salmon trout from the rivers,

shrimp from the coast and seaweed from the ocean. The butchers
are

women, shrouded

in white

wraparounds and wearing the brown,

21

Highway of

Sun

the

high-crowned trilibies. They wield an instrument shaped like a beheading ax, and no sooner is the amount of meat gauged than the ax
crashes down. You are then handed an undistinguishable mass of
meat, bone and viscera. Apparently, from the toughness of the
meat, the seventeenth-century Italian law of Lex Foscarini is
strictly

oxen are not slaughtered until unfit to work

adhered to

in the fields.

In the open market, outside of the concrete walls, lies the traditional market. Here Indian women sit with much dignity before
their offerings,

which

are placed atop

cobblestones and heaped

up with

woven mats

their specialties

ing pots, painted clay bowls, glazed clay figures,

laid

over the

earthen cookfish,

seaweed,

talismans, fetishes, potatoes, oca, frozen

chuno potatoes and corn.

women

Man first
man in the

There are no hucksters

merely wait.
knew peace from commerce and the market is as old as
Andes.
All

manner of

the

things are for sale here, including such standard

condor fat for rheumatism, starfish for headaches,

simples
aborted llama foetus for good luck and other equally unpalatable
as

and aphrodisia. Since the Incas did not have the

money, trade was by barter, and so, even though the Indian has now
had coins for five centuries, barter remains the trade technique. We
recipes for fertility

watched an Indian

woman who

sat beside her offering of potatoes.

They were stacked neatly on her woolen poncho, arranged like a

diagram of chemical molecules A buyer with her baby strapped to
her back sat down, pulltH a handful of beans from her blouse and
offered to exchange then) for an amount of potatoes. The vendor

gave a disdainful glance t t the offering and simply ignored her. The
woman reached inside her blouse and pulled out another handful of
beans and placed these on the pile. The vendor, now satisfied with
the exchange, swept the beans into the fold of her skirt like a
croupier pulling in lost chips while the buyer picked up her pota-

22

In the Beginning
toes, stuffed

which

them

into her blouse, then pulled out a

down

few more beans

token of good feeling.

It took us only a short while to purchase the supplies which
would complement our own dehydrated food store. That done we
she tossed

as a

returned to Haqui, there to make ready for our reconquest of what

Pedro Cieza de Leon called "the grandest road in the world/'

23

The

Floating

Road

WE WERE now well on our journey into the past. The moment we
eft

Puno

to follow southward,

first,

the traces of the Inca road,

and vaulted back four hundred years. And

once we were aware that we had undertaken a gigantic

re left the present

Imost at

The Royal Road was

ask.

uries

rack
>east

here somewhere, buried under five cen-

of earth-drift, but to find

its

course

we would have had

to

much as one does the spoor of some gigantic prehistoric

who had left its footprints in the sands of time. It was going
it

was convinced, an engrossing sort of puzzle played on the

backboard of time. We had the literary research, the maps and
o be, I

orrowed

photographs, and these had dovetailed to form the

antagonists were time and geography. Yet, if in the

aerial

Our
days we

icture.

did not always find what we had hoped immediately

o find
the broad expanse of the Royal Road running like a
lodern turnpike across the level land
we still had the land and
irst

he people of the land

Now our

who

vacuum.
research was having

filled

elaborate literary

in the

its first

full test.

was scarcely an hour of the day that I was not using our noteooks filled with information about the direction the Inca road
"here

ad taken around the edge of the lake. For although the little vil~
tges mentioned in the research notes still retained their names,

xany of them had been

moved from

their original sites.

That made

The

Floating

Road

much geographical confusion and could

and often did
throw our survey of the road off for many miles.
No one helped us more than our "Cieza." We never thought o
for

who had

those

centuries ago preceded us along these roads as

"chroniclers" or disembodied authorities.

books

was

it

Through

mere

the text of their

they were actually talking to us and, themselves,

as if

living.

Who

Leon who since 1553

Road? We knew no more

for example was this Pedro Cieza de

has conducted his readers along the Royal

him than he

chose to tell of himself, which was precious little.

was
not uncommon in that robust century, for unless
Anonymity
a man were well born and had his official scribes to record his deeds,

of

little

attention was paid to him, and few were bold enough to speak

of themselves. So
or

who in

Seville

boy

it

1532, at

to a knight

Don

Cieza. He was, in his society, nothing

an undernourished boy from the hovels of
the age of fourteen, had signed on as a lolly-

was with

than nothing

less

bound for the

New

Pedro mentions nothing of

World.
his first years in the

Americas.

Yet when boys normally would be studying the arts of civilization,

he was learning his in the savage school of experience. At twenty-

two he began

his journal.

dores, to set

down

moved him

to write?

What

inspired him, of

all

the conquista-

the events that took place before his eyes?

He

was not,

like

many

What

of the knuckleheads

That he could write was an

that surrounded him, an illiterate.

achievement sufficiently startling in itself for those times, but he

also wrote well
which is even more surprising; "... there came

upon me
and

a strong desire to write

an account of some of the great

strange things that are to be seen in this

which can be seen with

my own

eyes.

its

intensity

and

vitality,

Cieza

may

those

.*'

If a talent could be said to justify itself not

by

new world;

by

its

originality

but

be placed beside William

the

Highway of

D ampler,

the pirate,

who

Sun

while sailing the Spanish Main wrote his

in the hollow of a bamboo

on Winds" which he kept

''Discourse

tube. Despite long days in the saddle, living off the meager fare of
the country, attacked by Indians, disturbed at night by the roll of
dice and the coarse humor of soldiers frolicking with Indian

wenches, Cieza wrote:

sleeping, I

was

te

Ofttimes

by

tiring myself

when

the other soldiers were

writing. Neither fatigue nor the

ruggedness of the country nor the mountains and rivers nor raging
hunger and suffering has ever been sufficient to obstruct my two
duties: writing

and

my

my

my

chronicle and following without fault

flag

Captain."

Don

Pedro, then, was our constant companion, and through his

eyes, four hundred years to the day and year that he published his
1
chronicle, we saw the roads, the bridges, and better still the people

who had

rought the road.

ec

Of

the lake of

Bonbon and how it is

La Plata.
Of

supposed to be the source of the great river of

the

manner

in

which the

Roads which lead from

city of

it

."

Cuzco

One

is

built of the four

places trust in such a

Royal
man.

his time, he paid his obeisance to God and his King.

was exact and critical. What he himself did not
Cieza
Beyond that,
see, what did not actually "transpire before his eyes," he sought out

Like those of

weighed what he found, balanced

experience, and then used it.

from

own

others,

it

in the scale of his

Long in the "Indies," Cieza returned to Spain in 1550 without

any fortune, and in a sordid garret in Seville he composed his
chronicles. Physically worn by years of hardship, living off poor
wine, eating bread, garlic and olives, finding it difficult even to buy

new pen

quills

and writing amidst

all

the squalor and filth of

the Seville slums, he was, after thirty years in the

New

World,

The First Part of the Chronicle of Peru, which Treats of the Demarcation of Its Provinces and the Description Thereof, of the Foundations of
New CitieSy of the Kites and Customs of the Incas and Other Strange
Things Delightful to Know, by Pedro Cieza de Leon. (Seville, 1553 )
.

26

The Floating Road

"The hardships that had to be
terrible.
Oh! to have
conscience, wasted my time, and lost

old before his years and broken.

endured in those countries were so

gone there, damaged

my

my

teeth!"

Three years

later

thing published the

some printer-publisher with a nose for a good

first of the Chronicles and within a year they

were translated into several languages. Unfortunately by that time

Cieza was dead.

we slowly followed the spoor of the Inca

houses
seemed
and
road,
people
part of the landscape. This region
was the most densely populated in Peru. It was May and the time
In this bare land, where

for planting. Everyone was in the fields, the very

young and the

Women

were predominant, as if to under scor the belief

that agriculture was a female discovery and under the aegis of the
earth -mother. Little girls, counterparts of their mothers, were setvery

ting

old.

down

"*

the patterns of existence which, with only slight varia-

theirs the rest of their earth-days. The windowless

of
made
adobe and thatched with grass, were clustered near
houses,
sheltering rocks away from the fields. The winter wheat had not

tion,

was to be

yet been harvested and the golden sheaths with the blue sky and
the blue lake as backdrop was a picturesque setting for the lives of
these Indians. In this, his

with

environment, the Indian

is

as

one

Love for the land, a yearning for land,

piece of land, is the dream of every Indian;

his tradition-filled life.

a desire to have his

he will starve for

his

own

own

land.

own

it,

even

kill

himself working to get

money

to

buy

The people of

the lake, however, are quite unique in that here

the old Inca system of the ayllu, or communally held land, is still
in effect. The community is the "earth-cell." The land cannot be
sold. It

can only be worked, and

as a

27

member

of the clan you are

Highway of
born into

this earth-cell. Still the

of our civilization; he

resists

the

$////

Indian does not seek the comforts

symbiosis with the white man.

The lake was always with us. It reflected like a mirror all the
moods of the sky. At times it seemed more like the sea with the
constant wind raising high waves and the opposite shore lost to
view.

Much

Mora which

of the shore was fringed with the

the Indian uses for his balsa boats,

tall

reeds called

and from the shore

swept up to heights a thousand

feet above the lake surface. It was in such places that the road ran,
for its builders had always tried to avoid running their road through
the land retreated

upward

until

it

fertile land.

confusion of maps and overwhelming

as traced in our research, went
geographical detail. The Inca road,
into two parts the town of
on both sides of the lake,

At

first

we were

lost in a

separating

of Titicaca. The road

Ayaviri which lay above the northern end
which ran on the west side, where we were now camped, was named
the Oma-suyu, while that which ran along the east side was called
the Urco-suyu.

At the southern end of the one-hundred-and-thirty-

the Royal
mile-long lake, the branches came together; southward
and
to
Chile
down
thence
and
Bolivia
ArgenRoad continued into
tina.

We

had decided

caravan
needed,

when we
by

foot. It

entire province
erty,

who had

to follow the route

could,

on the west

by horse when

was an enormous

which the Incas

by truck

vehicles failed us,

first project,

called the

penchant for giving a code

did, called it ''Operation

side

for

it

and

if

took in the

Koya, Charles Daugh-

name

for everything

we

Koya/*

Aside from the trouble of trying to find the remains of any Inca
road, we now began to have mechanical difficulties. This, of course,

was

to be expected at these high altitudes

where the rarity of the

atmosphere greatly affects the functions of any mechanism. First,

28

The Floating Road

our jeep had developed a death rattle and then the long fifteenhundred-foot climb up the side of the Andes to Puno had done the
jeep in. Stalled in the streets of the town, with the temperature at
I

freezing,

sought out a mechanic called "the Master."

He promptly

diagnosed the problem as a "little nothing" and promised that became up over the roofs on the morrow it would be re-

fore the sun

paired and ready for the road.

However, when

next morning I found he had gone

far beyond the call of duty. Jeep parts were strewn all over the
dust-filled garage. The garage was a madhouse swarming with no
less

than

called the

dozen Indian boys

business reminded

When

me

who

acted as his assistants.

The whole

of the theme of the "Sorcerer's Apprentice."

inveighed against this delay, he meekly replied, "Your

tomorrow, Your Grace, it shall be ready."

Grace, tomorrow

There were

many "tomorrows" and when

at last

we

set off

many

noticed at once that the jeep was without

sustained power and that the oil pressure seemed erratic. In that
high whine and rasp of sound was the leitmotif of an Andean com-

days behind schedule,

edy of

errors.

Within
the

At

best

we

could

move but

a fortnight, however,

first real bite

of the night

we

we had

slowly.

fallen into a

rhythm. At

stopped, searched out a campsite,

pulled the caravan around so that the cold winds would be broken
and set to work. One of the trucks of our caravan, the Dodge

Power Wagon, had been designed

for the Expedition. It had a four-

wheel drive and was capable of climbing in low gear up a sixtydegree angle. On the front there was a geared winch of tremendous
power.

We had built

a special

the side with matching

body for

steel doors.

In

it

with

steel cabinets

along
planned, the
could lower the

these, as Silvia

food was so arranged that at any given time we

door which then became table or cutting board, and so prepare our
meals. Unless one has lived in lands where once out of the larger vil-

29

Highway of
lages there
this rolling

the

Sun

nothing to be had, one cannot fully appreciate what

commissary meant. It had taken much precious time to

is

to carry our food but we knew that all this

would now be worth the time and expense given
had worked out every detail carefully. We had our own

think out the

way

careful planning
to

It.

We

power; we could sustain ourselves without contact for

months if need be; with supplies and with our sleeping bags, tents
and other related equipment we moved in our own self-contained

electric

world. Lawrence would set up the generator and within a few minwe had electric light. Meantime, while Charles had set up the

utes

and I would start work on the preparation of

of the Power "Wagon were let down. At one end was
the gasoline stove; in the center our plastic dishes and the spices; in
the third cabinet was the food, mostly of the dehydrated variety. In
"facilities/' Silvia

food.

time

The

sides

we would augment

it

when

with fresh food, but the

possible

variety and when you travel across it, you must

puna
be independent of all other sources or else most of the time will be
spent in futile search for food. Canned goods were not for us. They
offered

little

were expensive,

space-filling

and wasteful.

On our first night out our menu consisted of

duck

a la

puna with
this was

To

dry mushrooms and dehydrated carrots and

added a handful of dehydrated spinach cooked in water with a
onions.

soupgon of garlic powder and salt. From a moisture-proof envelope

Silvia poured out a quantity of dried fruits which she made into

The duck and the

were baked in

oven
was Nescafe. By the
time the beds were up, the double arctic sleeping bags unrolled and
the stars had made their heralded appearance, dinner on the top of
the world was ready. Then on this first night on the road as we lay
back to allow our whole beings to enjoy what in this clime had been
the filling for a pie.

on the third burner of the

an arduous day's work,

stove.

pie

Our

a flat

coffee

thought back to our

arrival in Peru.

The Floating Road

and

Silvia

had arrived in Lima two months before the main

part of the Expedition, so that

the arrangements with the

we might make,

officials

we

thought, all
for the clearance of the vast imas

pedimenta of the Expedition. Then came the day when Silvia and I
had risen betimes and had gone down to the port of Lima to see the

Lena-Dan come

with the other members of the Expedition

and our vehicles and supplies for two years of exploration and

S.S.

study.

The

in

sea journey

had

filled

our friends with a sense of ex-

pectancy; they were anxious to get cleared of Customs and into the
field. I had played a fantastic game with the Customs. Possessed of

an executive decree, which in general terms promised "everything,"

had to give actuality to that '"everything." Since in the lower

echelons of the bureaucracy of Peru there

decisions cannot be
I

made

at this level.

Yet

no executive power,

is

it

was on

this level that

had to work in order to get Customs clearance for the Expedition.

list headed by the two vehicles, a Dodge Power Wagon and a

The

jeep,

was

a long one; cameras, film, surveying instruments,

equipment,

saddles, personal effects

all

camping

of these could be admit-

ted on a temporary basis since these tangibles could be checked out

of the country at the terminus of the Expedition.

"And what about these items?" said one official. Using his small
finger as we use the index finger, he went down the list.

"There
are

mixed

is

here your

first

two

item

cases of Daiquiris

and Martinis."

cocktails, I take it

He was

those

correct.

shipping agent had put these by mistake at the top of the

Our

list

of a

shall

not

thousand different items.

"Now
take

these cannot be admitted temporarily, since

them out

you

again, I take it."

And

explained how an enthusiastic sales promoter thought it might be nice to donate some
mixed drinks to inspire us on some of the cold Andean nights.

"Of

course not, but you see

"You

shall

need a permit

."

31

."

Highway of
*c

But we

the

Sun

really are not interested in the cocktails."

Now somewhat suspicious of

all

we

went over the

carried, he

list

item and there were thousands: thermometers, copying de-

item by

vices, cutlery, books, film splicers,

machine

tools, axes,

machetes,

gasoline stoves, altitude masks, oxygen-breathing devices for high

altitudes. Day after day I would turn up at Customs in a freshly

At

ribbons.

last I called

would

my

temper frayed to
on the Finance Minister, an old friend.

pressed suit; each afternoon

leave,

There were telephone calls and orders, more paper, more delay. At
last it came to an end. A compromise was effected. A bond was offered for the Expedition's impedimenta in transit for a period of

two years, the cocktails excepted, and after two weeks of effort,
we were more or less ready.
we could only
Then gasoline had to be cached along the way
transport a small amount. This

we had

to arrange with the Interna-

Petroleum Company. The foodstuffs destined for two years

of travel had to be separated into stores for coast, jungle and Antional

des

and

a selection of the things

we would

take along for the

first

phase of the Expedition had to be made.

While

all

this

went

on, Silvia and

selected the

maps

offered us

those marked "Secret" had to

by the Institute Geograftco Militar
be released to us. Some of these, based on aerial surveys, were won-

derfully detailed. Later

we went out

to the Peruvian Air Ministry

to select aerial photographs.

Ever since the Shippee- Johnson Expedition of the American Geographical Society in 1931 had photographed Peru from the air, the

Government had worked

steadily

on

complete

aerial

mosaic of

Peru. This project was of great value to us, for we could now select
aerial photographs in the areas of our interests and obtain the copies
at a small cost.

On
search

These proved to be invaluable in our road search.

the eve of our take-off,

from the

we summed up

all

we had

the re-

literature of chroniclers, knights, conquistadores,

32

The Floating Road

and

picaros, Incas, padres, travelers

three large black notebooks.

Our

archaeologists, correlated in

specially prepared Inca

Highway

maps showing the road directions as deduced from that literature

were supplemented by detailed Peruvian military maps and by the
aerial surveys we had made in various air flights. These, with aerial
photographs from the archives, completed our list of necessities
or so

we

thought.

We

believed, then, that

with these

lessened our research problem considerably

more

assists

we had

and that we should the

easily find the roads.

This was oversimplification.

last day before we moved out, we were still frantiin
enmeshed
cally
things undone and wanting. Then on the sixth of
March, 1953, we went through a small official ceremony in Lima.

Even on the

We were interviewed, embraced, photographed. Then we set off and

within an hour

That noon

we had put Lima behind

sent off

my

first

us,

dispatch to the

and were

in the desert.

New York Times:

AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS OF DREAMING IT AND TWO YEARS

PLANNING IT, THE INCA HIGHWAY EXPEDITION LEFT LIMA
TODAY TO BEGIN ITS DISCOVERY OF THE FAMOUS INCA HIGH-

WAY SYSTEM

After

all

these irritating complications the hardships of the

Ex-

pedition now seemed as nothing. The most difficult part for us all
was the adjustment to each other. Our first weeks of traveling over

the puna in search of the roads were not always in wilderness that
was "happiness enow." There were the natural irritations of propinquity. Then, too, we all suffered from the first onrush of soroche, altitude sickness,

when our food never seemed

to digest,

headaches were frequent and tempers short. Self-control here was as

necessary as breathing if our individual discomfort was not to take
the

form of anger toward one another. This

33

is

always a danger

Highway of

the

Sun

persons unused to each other are thrown together on a continually intimate basis. Silvia held up well, although I could see that

when

the enforced intimacy was galling; few

women

could have endured

day after day, night after night. Charles, under the pressure of
altitude, withdrew into himself and was inclined at times to be uncommunicative. Lawrence, like most who live alone, became hyperit

he grew short-tempered and explosive. I was equally irritating, for the altitude seemed to give me
more energy
I have more than my share under normal conditions
and my pushing of the program certainly strained nerves
efficient; a

martinet over

that were already taut.

details,

And

yet despite

all this,

animated by the

tremendous challenge that our exploration offered, we were making

good progress in searching out the Inca road.

By June we had followed the road down from the puna and arrived in the "Kingdom of God," the halfway mark between our
starting point and the border of Bolivia, whither we were bound. At
Juli, in the center of this "Kingdom/' we drove into its small square
dominated by
into a crisply

baroque cherub holding a fish which spewed water

carved fountain. Here the buildings about the plaza
a

dated back to the sixteenth century. One with an ornamental doorway was now the jail; another had housed a printing press which is-

one of these, dated 1595, is a bibliographical

vast area about these shores of Lake Titicaca had been

sued early books

rarity.

given by the Viceroy in 1576 to a militant order of God and at

that time the Jesuits, gathering the Indians into villages, had imposed a veneer of Christianity over their paganism and had taught

them

to carve

and decorate in the Spanish

today there are churches

as

astonishing

style.

as

As

a result in Juli

they are original. All

through the Titicaca region we were to find such churches bordering the Royal Road of the Incas.

34

The Floating Road

By the time we arrived at Pomata, the next village on the
we found that time had almost obliterated its traces. The low
walls that

had bordered

it

road,

stone

had been removed and used for the mak-

ing of houses. In many places fields occupied the place where the
highway had been. Only on the bare puna or on the high grass

which did not lend themselves to cultivation was the road

veldts

to be clearly seen.

We

had now to depend on other chroniclers for

the exact location of the

phantom

road.

Our

aid in locating

friend Cieza's scant

and tantalizingly brief descriptions were not now enough to aid us.
It was here, at the little village of Pomata, that we began to consult the writings

Ayala.

He had

of another

also

New World

chronicler, one

Poma

de

written a valuable documentation to the early

history of the Inca. Compiled during the years 15671615, this

contains in its thousand pages, hundreds of pen drawings at once

it

and

one could almost

This strange old history

comic book history of the Inca empire

lively

nai've.

oddly enough, in the

came to

Royal Danish Library

at

call

light in 1908,

Copenhagen. Written

partly in Quechua, partly in archaic Spanish, it reflected the author's origin, an Indian mother and a father who was one of the

Spanish conquistadores. Poma de Ayala was apparently educated at

the school for Indian nobles at Cuzco. As a young man he traveled

about

his estates, witnessed the

took their

sides in disputes

degradation of the Indians, and

with their Spanish overlords; and in

time he began to work on his book.

The

result

was a profusely

illustrated

volume,

difficult to

read

but invaluable as a sourcebook on the religious customs, dress,

daily life of the Incas. It was of tremendous interest to us, especially

under a chapter headed "TAMBOS" (tampus), Poma de

Ayala had a complete listing of these wayside stations along the
highway from Colombia to Chile. At this point at Pomata we
so since

came upon

a succinct entry in his book:

35

Pomata pueblo tanbo rreaL

Highway of
From

this

we knew

Sun

the

that Pomata, city of the royal tambo,

had once

and that even though

the road we sought had long since disappeared it had in fact passed
this way. And so Pomata became one more historic link on the

been an

official

stop on the Inca highway,

Royal Road of the Incas.

As the land became less

fertile

and

less

peopled,
longer stretches of the ancient Inca road.

pick up
ran unobstructed

we were

On

puna it
its width

and eye could make it,

feet. Apparently it had been paved

as straight as line

the standard measure of fifteen

able to

the

except where marsh lands had converted the land into a quagmire.
Otherwise across the puna> as firm and hard as a macadamized road,
the Inca road was laid

down

marked with a low

adhesive. The Andean

in a direct line,

wall usually made of stone mixed with a mud

earth here was subject to severe erosion due to the alternate assaults of sun and rain, those "insults of time'* as the French have it,

much of the

had been worn away.

Occasionally, however, we could see enough of the old roadbed to
mark it, measure it, and even travel this path of an empire. For
so that

original course of the road

many miles we followed the Royal Road over a land as

the moon for while the Incas had made a practice of using

vacant

as

the short-

est route to get to their destination, their engineers had avoided any
land that could be cultivated, so the road traveled through barren

regions.

In this

way we came

to Zepita.

Our

research said very clearly:

^Cipita (Zepita) Village: Royal Road near to the river bridge/*

All day we searched for ruins of old Zepita and its Inca tamptt,
yet we found no indication of its remains. I questioned the old and
the young, even sought out the padre, guardian of the church and
the special amenities. He could tell me nothing. He was a singularly
obtuse man who insisted that the road of the Incas here ran under-

ground.

Why,

he could not say, except

it

was what was

said in

The floating Road

these parts. Exasperated, I finally led

and pointed out the plainly

visible

him out back

Inca road, but he

of his church
still

held to his

original argument.

Beyond this little village, the littoral of Lake Titicaca is transformed into a grotesque tableau of sandstone and limestone sculptured by the winds. It had taken fantastic shapes and would have
seemed uninhabitable except that wherever there was
in the cliffs there was an Indian's house.

For three weeks

now we had

been skirting the

lake.

purchase

We were now

border town of Desaguadero, the coldest spot on Titicaca.

The cool shadows of night had fallen and the winds whipping across
at the

the lake carried a penetrating cold.

for the Arctic

We were dressed as we would be

sheepskin-lined jackets, fur gloves, stocking caps

over ears.
I

had expected to find

a large river here, since the

the only river to drain the huge lake.

But not

until

Desaguadero

is

we drove

along
reed-choked estuary did we see it.
hundred feet wide, marshbound on both sides, this river which marks the border between

Peru and Bolivia was spanned by a battered wooden bridge with

iron gates on either side strung with barbed wire and patrolled by
guards. In Spanish times there were no such boundaries. The Inca
road threaded its way through the fantastic cliffs of sandstone,
crossed the river

by means of

the next

station.

tampu
Here the tampu known

a balsa

as

pontoon bridge and went on to

Cacha-marca was famous for

its

ct

bridge. ln the days of the Inca," wrote Cieza, "there used to be a

toll-taker who received tribute from those who passed over the

bridge which

is

made

of bundles of stalks in such a

strong enough to allow

men

and horses to cross over

way
it.

that

it is

."

Re-

famous floating pontoon bridge was to endure for over eight hundred years and was still in place in 1864

newed every year

this

37

Highway of
when
upon

the
it.

Sun

the

American explorer-diplomat, E. George

Fortunately for us, he sketched

Squier,

He came into the village of Desaguadero much as we did

hungry, seeking a place to sleep. He arrived during a fiesta.
the entrance to the

little

two crooked

plaza were

came

it.

poles

tired,

Across

and stretched

between them on ropes by way of decoration dangled silver spoons,

silver goblets, silver soup tureens and night' pots, cups, plates and
strings of Spanish dollars, gathered
lage. Indians,

drunk

trich plumes, beating

ing around the plaza.

"The scene was

from

all

the people of the vil-

Dionysus and barbarically costumed in osdrums and blowing at pan pipes, were dancThe elite of the town sat on mats drinking.

as

droll

and barbaric," Squier wrote

involuntarily checked our horses as

we

ct

later,

and we

passed beneath the extraordi-

nary string of treasures which garnished the entrance to the plaza."

The

resident priest of the village "red of face, his glistening eyes

watery and blinking," staggered forward, bottle in hand, gave them

a drink and offered them the village. They took only a part of it, a
small hovel on the floor of

which Squier spread

his bed,

while his

companion, Harvey the daguerreotypist, who carried an enormous

primitive photographic apparatus with him, ^contrived to dispose
himself on some bags of barley in the corner."
When Squier died in the Great Blizzard in 1888, he was

bered

chiefly as

Frank

Leslie.

ologist.

Born

Yet he had been the

in

remem-

one of the five husbands of the formidable Mrs.

Upper

first

New York

important American archaeand with little formal

in 1821

schooling, Squier became a self-taught civil engineer and journalist.

At twenty-seven he wrote his book on ''Indian Mounds," the first

book published by the Smithsonian Institution. At twenty-nine he

was the American Minister to Central America and in 1863 he was

named

Lincoln's Commissioner to Peru.

official duties,

On

the termination of his

he traveled throughout Peru and eventually wrote a

book on the archaeology of Peru.

38

The floating Road

And now here

we were to try to
bridge,

The
was

at

Desaguadero, with Squier's Peru as our guide,

once famous balsa pontoon

relocate the site of this

on the Royal Road of the Incas.

village

was empty and cold, but overlooking the river there

and while there was no priest to welcome us

a hotel of sorts;

with generous bottle, there was the official of the place who, having
been advised of our probable arrival by the Prefect of Puno, gave
us welcome.

was freezing. We had already put on our arctic clothes. After

supper which seemed to congeal on our plates, Silvia gave up arid
It

took to the shelter of her sleeping bag. We stayed below, and in the
light of a single gasoline lamp we talked over the details of to-

morrow's building of the balsa bridge. The official, a youngish man

in a black suit with matching black fedora who seemed warm

enough although his hands were as red as parboiled lobsters, informed us that, on receipt of the telegram from our friend in
Puno, he had

about to gather up the needed Indians.

"I work, you must understand, through my Indian officials, who
are called gobernadores. They are usually elders of the villages, the
set

best informed and respected. I have asked

them

to

come here

to-

night to talk to you."

I indicated that this

was very good and thanked him for what

considered to be a miracle of organization.

." By
"But of course," he went on, "you must do the rest
alcohol
that he meant the supplying of the common incentive
he
Indians
will
went
"our
and coca leaves. "Unfortunately,"
on,
.

not work properly without coca, and then if you give them in addition some alcohol, matters proceed faster."
go out at once and see, even at this cold hour,
about these indispensable items but the official stayed me with one
I felt that I should

of his lobster-red hands.

39

Highway of
"There
here

no

is

,"

eral bottles

Sun

the

need, Senor, of your going; I just happen to have

four large bags of coca leaves and sev-

And he produced
of pure alcohol.

By

this

time the Indian elders had ar-

rived.

Each gave

me a flaccid handshake, the white man's greeting which

they perform limply. Each

murmured

few words

in sibilant

Ay-

mara, showing their stained teeth in a vacant smile of salutation.

Their dress was a common one
pants, jacket and high woolen
poncho. All wore the cbullo, a crocheted stocking cap with earflaps,

and

all

which

carried silver-headed sticks

are the

wands of author-

passed around generous glasses of "incentive," and after a

while the chill of the atmosphere was noticeably warmed. The offiity. I

spoke. "These scientists," he said solemnly, "have come here to

Desaguadero to study the place where once the balsa bridge crossed
cial

the river.

They want

in their balsa,
see

how

and before

their eyes

to ask if they

and

their

was made."

this ancient balsa bridge

He went on

them bring
cameras they want to

to assemble all the Indians, have

remembered how

it

was made. At

this

they fell into excited talk among themselves, although no one

said
seemed to be listening to anyone else. The oldest of them all
to be a century old

at first sat quietly

deaf to the talk-talk, but

when

it

munching coca leaves,

a few minutes,

had gone on for

he raised his wrinkled hand. In the silence that followed he spoke.

It seems (so it was translated to me) that as a boy he had seen
the bridge built;

was

it

had been the

last

of

its

kind. (If the old fellow

hundred that would have placed the erection of his

really
bridge somewhat before the arrival of Squier in 1863.) The pontoon had to be renewed every year, the old man went on; and every
a

year each Indian had to

One

make and

deliver a thirty-five-foot balsa.

bridge was built here at Desaguadero and another at Nasacara

down the river.

farther
I

took Squier's book printed in 1870 and laid

40

it

in front of them.

The Floating Road

There on page 265 was a wood engraving of the balsa bridge at
Nasacara, some fifty miles down the river to the southwest. It
showed forty or more large balsas fastened together with ropes over

which

reed road was

women

while

laid.

Two

mules were crossing the bridge

in native dress stood before stone towers to

which

the cables of the bridge were attached. Excitedly the Indian elders
peered at the sketch, pointing to details of the bridge. Once again
the old man held up his hand and, nodding as one who knows, said,

"This

how

is

the bridge was built."

Through our interpreter I spoke: "Well, this is how we want the

bridge built. Follow it as the ancient ones did it. Don't change anything. Come in the morning with your balsas; come with ropes,
matting and totora
will

pay

all

grass;

who work,

come

in native dress;

I will give all

who come

come on

time.

coca. I will give

all

alcohol."

And

as

an earnest

The day
never
lage,

felt a

passed another round of coca leaves.

for the bridge-building

was

New England winter-cold

which was on

of Bolivia.

From

a direct line

clear, beautiful

and

cold. I

as intense as that in this vil-

with the snow-topped mountains

winds raced across the lake,

these the ice-laden

what an eighteenth -century traveler

who had taken an early walk,
had come back with his body ice-stiff from the cold, and with icicles in his beard. We prepared oatmeal on our paratrooper stove and

leaving a perpetual trail of

called "frigorific particles." Charles,

drank multiple cups of

coffee. It

gave us courage to brave the

winds.

There was no one in the

streets at this hour.

Our rendezvous was

where the rock from the eroded hills approached close to the
The lake itself was as rigid and as mirrorlike as glass. Around

a spot
lake.
its

shores ice clung to the reeds

and fringed the moored balsa boats.

41

Highway of

the

Sun

A bird walked across it to stand and peer uncertainly in the stygian

water.

The snow-topped mountains

in the distance were deep blue

shadowed and shimmering; then glowing, first green, then

and, as the sun mounted, gold. It was breath-taking. Now In-

at first,
red,

dians began to arrive paced

the gobernadores carrying their

sil-

they spoke little Spanish and we no Aymara

broke the cold of our relationship by ordering our carriers

ver-headed
speech, I

by

sticks. Since

to pass out hatfuls of coca leaves.

At

way

up their poles and made their

Then the entire fleet of little boats,

the signal, our Indians picked

across the ice to their boats.

their totora-reed sails operating like

river

toward the

Venetian blinds,

sailed

up the

village.

Lawrence waited on the small wooden bridge that today connects

Peru with Bolivia to photograph the balsas sailing in single file un-

modern

der the bridge; at a predetermined spot below the

the

first balsas

holding to the
fled

came
sides

up with only

to anchor

and the others began

of the other for anchor.

his nose visible, leaned

bridge,

to pile up, each

A Bolivian soldier, muf-

on

his rifle staring at us

few dogs barked; and an old woman, come to

with unseeing
gather water in an earthen-red pot, watched us curiously. That
eyes; a

was

all.

The

place was as

empty

as

the sky. So

we

set

about our

business.

The

reed boat

is

one of man's more fascinating inventions. It was

Peru where there was no wood for boat-

perfected in those parts of

building.

Around

of totora, and

the littoral of Lake Titicaca, there

it is this

is a profusion
tubular reed, half an inch in diameter and

eight feet in length, which furnishes the material for the boats.

The making of

reed boats

is

so ancient a craft that

it is

pictured on

Peruvian pottery dating back to the first century B.C.

The reed is dried, made into four cigar-shaped bundles, the length
of the bundle determining the size of the projected reed boat. (Al-

42

The Floating Road

though the Indians can and do construct boats forty

feet long, caof

these
are
a
carrying sixty people,
pable
rarity.) First, two of
these bundles are tied with rope made from the twisted fibers of

ichu grass to form the prow of the balsa boat. The other two, laid
on top and off center, form the sides and the cabin of the boat.

Using only such material

as

the lake offers, the balsa boat

is

com-

pleted within two days. Sails also are made from the totora reed.
Since the balsa has no keel, it cannot tack and can only sail in a fol-

lowing wind, so propulsion

water is deep, by paddle.

The buoyancy of

is

mostly by punting and, when the

is amazing. The
Egyptians used
made from the papyrus, and the White Nile
navigated by the Kinka tribesmen in boats made of a batch-

the reed boat

a similar type of craft

is still

reed, so similar to the reed boats of

Lake Titicaca that the

human invention is startling.

Since man is a practical animal, he

parallel-

ism in

has

made

use of the floating

bridge in many parts of the world, and here at Titicaca he made use
of the reed boats as pontoons or foundations for the floating section of the Royal Road.

The centenarian who had remembered the original directed the

building of our bridge, so we had only to record and to watch. The
main anchor was two poles stuck into the low bank of the river. To
was attached; and this, in turn, passed along to all
of the forty balsas, was seized by the occupants and fastened to the
wooden pegs that had been driven into the boats' sides. "Within a
short time all of the balsas were fastened together in a pontoon and
this a grass rope

anchored to poles driven in on the Bolivian side of the river. They

were now stuffed with totora reed, forming a solid flooring. Then

woven

reed mats were laid

on top and fastened

though this was not as firm a bridge

was a good facsimile. For that moment

as

43

to the sides. Al-

that built
at least

by the

we had

Incas, it

rolled

back

Highway of

Sun

the

the flight of time, for there again a balsa

pontoon bridge stood

as it

had centuries before.

The moment had

We

had

arrived for the dedication of our balsa bridge.

on watching the building of the balsa that

we were unaware that we were being watched. But when we atso concentrated

being urged across the

bridge, the press of people was so formidable that Lawrence could
not even see the bridge. We would have preferred complete indif-

tempted to photograph a

ference. Instead there

selves to

[lamas,

line of llamas

was utter chaos. The onlookers helped them-

the Indians' coca leaves. Bottles of alcohol disappeared; the

stampeded by the mob, ran rather than ambled in their

walk across the balsa bridge. And above the din of

usual stately
voices,

the

town savant

ittempting a speech,

as

drunk

as

was

morning allowed

the

something about the greatness of the Incas.

All the carefully laid plans of balsas and men dissolved in this
We had hoped to cross the bridge, and go on to Huaqui
n Bolivia
where, according to Cieza, there were "buildings of

:onfusion.

there to begin the survey of that section of the Inca

;he Incas,"

down into Argentina. But Bomoment going through one of its periodic upsets,

oad that ran through Bolivia and

ivia

was

at the

ind our experience with the balsa pontoon project was so frustrat-

ng that we ended, for

;outhern Royal Road
However,

the

moment,

at

this

phase of our search for the

Desaguadero.

the local savant,

who was

still

trying in vain to

make

us speech, provided a measure of comic relief. For, angered at the

ack of attention, he strode off across our balsa pontoon bridge. He

lad gone only a few yards when he stepped into a vacant pocket of
otora reed and, like Mephistopheles, disappeared as if swallowed
>y a trap door. The last we saw of him was his head, bobbing
jid

down

in the river, with the natives

who had

up
up

been clustered

round the balsa bridge running down the bank in pursuit of him.

44

Towers of the Dead

WERE lost in

a veritable forest of cbullpas, the stone

the Dead. There were so

many

place of trees. It was an eerie feeling as

tombs on

across these extraordinary

who

astonished," wrote Cieza,

Towers of

of them that they took in effect the

we

rode north to come

barren plain. "I was truly

in his travels

had wandered among

these same towers of the dead, "to see how little these people cared
as
for the living while they bestow so much care on the tombs
.

if

happiness did not consist in something

the tombs were built in the

the rank and wealth of those

to the place where the
or

more llamas

accompany him on

tomb with

tomb

kill

else.

On

form of small towers

the

who
is

built them.

prepared

the plains
.

there they

servants

the corpse

burn ten

who

are to

All these are buried in the same

The mourners then walk along

the body.

according to

They carry
.

women, boys and

his last voyage.

uttering sad

while an Indian goes before them beatand mournful songs

a
are so numerous that they occupy
The
tombs
drum.
great
ing
.

more space than

is

given to the living."

On our way back to Puno, Silvia and I had decided to have a look
high plateau that overlooked the lake, hoping to discover that
section of the Inca road we had missed on our southward survey. As
at the

the land was too precipitous for the Power "Wagon to negotiate,
Silvia and I, equipped with food and rifles, set off alone in the jeep.

On our second day out we picked up the Inca road, lost it again, and
45

Highway of

the

Sim

then at Qutimbo we came to the forest of cfaullpas. As far as we

could see there was nothing to relieve the eye except these stone
burial towers. Fourteen feet high, some circular, others square, the

Towers of the Dead were wonderfully fashioned of stone in the

megalithic style, with huge polygonal rocks fitted together so exactly that even moss could not find lodgement.
inside,

almost

as

high

as

The

corbeled vaults

the towers, were of meticulous stonework.

few bone fragments lying about, and some

not much more, for these tombs had been sacked

There were

bits

of

first

by
pottery
the Incas and later by the Spaniards, and so thoroughly that just
who built the Houses of the Dead has never been discovered.

We wandered

about the tombs for the rest of the morning, then

an elusive

in the afternoon set our course east, to search again for

stretch of the Inca road.

We

drove endlessly, the sky above us angry and overcast, gray

and somber. The land was as vacant as the open sea
the undulat-

and the lonely piercing cry

ing puna might have been its waves
of the gull, that of the seabird following the wake of a ship. Occaan Indian hovel would appear made of crumbling adobe
and propped up against a lava boulder. Thatched with the same

sionally

icbu grass which covered the plain, they were so well camouflaged
that only on close inspection were we aware that these were houses.

We

were up 14,000 feet. I had not at first paid any attention to

the jeep, although I should have remembered that lack of oxygen
its efficiency. Now it began to sputter and, like ourseemed
to
be gasping for air. The oil gauge took to oscillating
selves,
madly and I realized that something was terribly wrong. Although

would reduce

we were only seventy

miles as the condor

in effect hundreds of miles

I tried to get to

down

in case

we

from

the top of the

stalled,

flies

from Puno, we were

effective aid.
hill so

that

we

but we never got that

could
far.

make

run-

Suddenly the

Towers of the Dead

jeep stopped dead as if

motor

it

had struck a concrete

a rather useless
is

things

small

mense weariness.

procedure, for

my

knowledge of such
was overcome by an im-

and then unpredictably I

staggered back to get the

wall. I looked at the

tools

and was so over-

come with

giddiness that I had to clutch the sides to keep from fallbackward.

Silvia climbed out to help me extract the tools and
ing
that was enough. She too turned a pale-green color and cupped her
hands over her eyes.

clung to the car I knew that I had to force myself to do

something about our problem, so I managed to propel myself forward and began to work on the engine. I released the brake and, on

As

the assumption that a push might start the engine, went around
back. One push and I slipped to the ground panting for breath. Sil-

what was happening and, seeing me

down, her strength too took flight. We found ourselves lying there,
both as completely done in as if we had just run ten thousand
via

came back

to find out

meters.

As we

lay there, I could hear

the decrease of oxygen.

Yet

my heart pounding, fighting against

in a

few minutes

I felt

completely re-

covered. I looked at Silvia. She was pale, her lips colorless; her pulse
fluttered and her breathing was short and hardly audible. I stood up

and again the feeling of dizziness came over

me. But this time I managed to stay on my feet long enough to boil
a hypodermic needle, select an ampoule of caffeine sodium and into get the medical box,

ject it in her right arm. I followed this

lin.

with an injection of adrena-

Presently she fell into an exhausted sleep and

simple effort, lay

down

I,

wearied by this

beside her.

There was a condor far up in the sky and I watched it gliding

about effortlessly and wondered if it had any trouble with soroche.

Then

recalled that physiologically a

i2,ooo-foot elevation in

At o feet of altitude,
Andes was equivalent to 5000
there is 760 mm. of atmospheric pressure. Here we were at 14,000
the

in the Alps.

47

Highway
feet

where we had only 430

us a

mere 86

mm.

mm.

of the Sun
of atmospheric pressure, allowing

of oxygen tension.

At

this elevation

anoxemia

01

shortness of breath is a permanent condition, and soroche or acute

mountain sickness is, for those not used to it, a little like experienc-

ing death.
trareler

thought of Father Jose Acosta,

who was making

sixteenth-centur)

his first trip across the

Andes when

it

"came on him."

Now some [said he] hold it to be a fable, and others say 'tis
an exaggeration, but I will tell you what happened to me.
There is in Peru a very high mountain range which they call
Pariacaca; I went "upstairs" as they call it when you go up the
highest part of the mountain range. There I was suddenly
seized with such mortal anguish that I was of a mind to throw
myself off the horse; I was seized with such retchings and vomitings that I thought that I should give up my soul, for after
the food came up and the phlegm, then came bile and more
bile, this one yellow and the other green until next I spit up
blood
finally I declare that if it had gone on, I believe I
would most assuredly have died. This soroche happened be.

cause the air

is

one's bowels.

so thin
.

and penetrating that

it

goes through

did far better than the good Father.

tempting to work on the

stupid "master" mechanic

Within an hour

was

at-

inveighing the while against that

Puno, for in taking out the vitals of

jeep,
at

the car he had apparently pinched the oil line with the result that
motor was frozen and the bearings burned out. The car would

the

have to be towed. Although a mere fifty miles from Puno,

as well have been on the moon! We could not both walk

we might
it

that

would be too much for Silvia, and I could not go alone and leave
her. The cold was intense. Perhaps I could get some Indian at that
last hut ... I wakened Silvia and told her of my plans, then I was
following the spoor of our tires, and in less than an hour
I came across an Indian
happily I was walking slightly downhill
off,

Towers of the Dead

The pale blue smoke mushroomed out from grass thatch,
and after calling in vain for a few minutes I pushed against a door
that hung so perilously on broken thongs that it almost fell at my

house.

touch.

A small light from a cooking fire burned pallidly in the cor-

room as small and as bare as a prison cell. I could just see

the people in one corner. I spoke in halting Aymara.

ner of a

explained; I imitated an automobile; I made noises of its dying;

in a game of charades to explain my plight. I grant it was

I tried as

poor performance but certainly,

it

seemed to me, they should un-

derstand something.

The group was

women

seated around a large cooking pot.

The men were

No

one laughed, no one spoke. They

a
swallowed and gulped in
kind of gloomy haste. A rather young
the
over
woman, kneeling
cooking pot extracting something with
dirty, the

disheveled.

her fingers, had one enormous well-shaped breast exposed. To this

a little boy clad only in a jacket, who had also been picking scraps,
turned to suckle noisily.
of getting out of our difficulty was to make
these people understand, to buy their aid, and, if that failed, somehow to compel them to aid me. Forcing myself to be patient, I be-

Our only chance

all but a young boy

gan again; they were unheeding
tached himself from the huddling group.
"I understand Spanish."

Did he know Puno? He

did.

who

de-

Could he possibly know the Mission

of the Maryknoll Fathers?

"Oh,

yes, I

was taught to speak there/

Would

I held up a
he be willing for this amount of money
to take a message to Puno? For this too? In my
sizable amount
He was most willing. .
right hand I held a mouth organ.
.

gave him the note asking for aid, the money, the mouth organ
and a handful of coca leaves, and off he sped in the direction of

Puno.

49

Highway of
I

the

returned to the stranded jeep where

covered, had the sleeping bag unrolled.

Sun
Silvia,

We

now somewhat

re-

got out the paratrooper

stove, took out the dehydrated soups and other emergency rations,
gave ourselves a hot supper and spliced the main brace. Then, as

night

fell,

we crawled

into our sleeping bags.

We were alone with the

night.

The wind howled

across the

puna

bringing with it wisps of snow. Crawling deeper into our sleeping

bags, we were dwarfed by the magnitude of the darkness.

Three days later we came back to the Expedition house at Haqui,

frozen and hungry and angry over the mishap that had used precious time, unnecessarily exposed us to danger, and lost us our jeep.
Shortly after our arrival
chose the

wrong moment

met the

to ask for

"master'* mechanic.

more money

prise I

showered him with a colorful array of

ulent.

He

my

for

me in

He grew

truc-

he came too close

physical comfort, I pushed him. That set

He came

his sur-

him

off like a

Puno

free-style, legs and arms swingWhatever the gods that succored him, Master Pilon was in

maniac.
ing.

curses.

forgot his earlier obsequiousness and, as

He now

and to

at

the

good graces that day. He offered so many opportunities for

to break his head that I have often wondered how I managed to

their

me

withhold myself. As
were struck.

Two

hours later

it

was,

I easily

was drafting

warded him

my

off

and no blows

cable dispatch to the

New

York Times:
PUNO, JUNE I 5 INCA ROUTE TRACED OFF LAKE TITICACA.
THE EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF THE LOST AND FORGOTTEN
GREAT STONE HIGHWAYS OF THE INCAS HAS FINISHED ITS
FIRST SURVEY OF THE TOWERING LAKE TITICACA BASIN. THE
EXPEDITION WILL NOW SHAPE ITS WAY TOWARD CUZCO THE
:

Towers of the Dead

ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA EMPIRE. LIVING THROUGH

THE FREEZING NIGHTS AND SEARING DAYS AROUND THE RIM

OF THE HIGHEST NAVIGABLE LAKE IN THE WORLD HAS TAKEN
ITS EFFECT ON BOTH THE MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION AND
MACHINES. THE ...
I

was aware that the iron gate of the

villa

was being shaken vig-

orously.

"Francisco,"

I called.

He

appeared, his face an arabesque of wrin-

kles set in a smile.

"Ari," he answered.

"Whoever

is

rattling that gate, tell

them

to go away. I

am busy

working, writing."
"Ari."

The

rattling

went

on.

Francisco was back again. "It

Ion

"Tell

your Grace, the mechanic Pi-

him

"Ari.

to go to the devil."
have told him that, but he

they are armed with big

"Well
"It

is,

."

is

is

there with the police,

and

rifles."

."

as I say," insisted a

"you must come with

us.

blue clad officer of the National Police,

This man," and he indicated Pilon,

stood there in cat-swallowed-the-canary triumph, "accuses

assaulting him.

You must come

within the hour and bring,

who

you of
if

you

have them, your witnesses."

My

witnesses, such as they were,

than the

set

hour when

were scattered,

Chief of Police in a paroxysm of rage.

was

later

found the

had shown him grave

dis-

arriving late. I began to speak. I was silenced.

by
"Twenty-four hours

respect

so I

I arrived at the Police Station. I

he asks," he stormed.

in

jail

and then pay

this

man

whatever sum.

Highway of
One's private

from prying
comes

affairs in these

ears.

All

is

once part of the

at

is

known

which

affair

Sun

Andean
to

taken

at

is itself

So this incident which anywhere

villages

know no

escape

and every private act beSince nothing is private and

all,

social fabric.

public, sides are

everything
be involved in an

the

once and

of

else

little

whole

village

can

importance.

would have been

a small dis-

pute between mechanic and client had now mushroomed up to

dangerous proportions. I was now about to be marched off for a

was understandably in a thoroughly defiant mood

since the Expedition was under the protection of the Government.
tenure in

jail. I

someone had suddenly turned on the light of reason, the

police captain came back, his face wreathed in friendliness. He understood our actions, the strain we had been under, the loss of time

Then

as if

and equipment to the Expedition, and he apologized for the to-do.

The mechanic, who had been sitting basking in his triumphs, was
utter bewilderment

in

when he was

actually

shoved out the

door.

What
and
lice

in the

world had happened to change the picture?

Silvia

puzzling over this when we emerged from the PoStation to see Francisco Deza standing waiting for us with his
I

were

still

quizzical smile reflected in his fine serious eyes.

"At your
"You did
"Well

service," he said, lifting his hat.

it?" asked Silvia.

."

Francisco Deza was the type of man that the early Spaniards had
hoped would evolve out of the merging of the two bloods, native

and Spanish. In him were blended the best elements of the two races.
spoke both languages with equal enthusiasm and, as Director of

He

Rural Schooling, he had given his entire

within the framework of his own society.

life to

An

aiding the Indian

avowed enemy of

all

Spanish rodomontade, he had wit, enthusiasm and direction. His

Towers of the Dead

house was book-filled. His wife, a charming woman who shared his
interests, taught in an Indian school. Few aided our Expedition

more than

he.

Once indeed he had saved Charles from imprison-

ment.
"I

was backing up the Power Wagon," so Charles had reported

te
and I backed into a power line; I never knew it until

the incident,

the whole business began to fall down on me. In no time a policeat the window and before I could even say who I was

man was

which would have been difficult as

that the damage would be taken care
But the

of the "master" mechanic was far from ended.

affair

matter continued to boil even

around the
nus of the

lake.

lake,

and
don't speak Spanish
hustled
off
I
was
to
of,
jail."
I

On

we

as

carried

The

on with our search

prolonged trip north, to the northern termi-

where the Rio Ramis enters Lake Titicaca, we trav-

eled the path taken

by the Inca road along the

eastern side of Titi-

caca toward Bolivia.

On
office

our return to Puno weeks

of the Prefect where

was asked to appear at the

was presented with an official doculater, I

ment. This, he explained, was a charge to be laid before the Judge

of the Criminal Section. In it, the mechanic accused me of assault
His claim?
and asked damages.
with a heavy club breaking his arm, and
.

be recompensed to the

That

had struck him

that, therefore, he should

sum of five hundred

each day he had

soles for

been incapacitated and, along with this, several thousand soles for
Medical affidavits?
Yes, there
punitive damages and
.

were

several, attached to all

these documents.

what did the Prefect wish us to do? ... It seems that he

wished to save us embarrassment, and so had held up the document
and had not submitted it to the Criminal Section, intending to wait
until he consulted with us. For once it was filed, it would set off a
"Well,

train of events that he

would find

difficult to control.

53

Highway of
"But
pute

the

Sun

absurd, these charges and the amounts asked. We'll dis-

it is

it/* I said.

"That, of course, is your privilege, Senor. It will take time, drag

out for years; you have no idea of the vagaries of the laws of my
country."

can not matter

it

"Well,

much

to us," said Silvia.

"We

shall

be

hundreds of miles from here/'

"That

is

the point, Seiiora.

You

can be summoned back here at

any time, which means your important work will be subject to con."
stant harassment. Therefore, my advice would be
.

"To buy him

off!"

held out his hand in quizzical gesture. Who was it that said
the human hand is about twenty thousand times more versatile than

He

the

mouth? That

Rising, I said:

All Puno,

taking on

it

gesture conveyed everything.

"We

shall consider it."

seemed, was divided over the case.

a nasty turn.

We

The

episode

were advised not to walk the

was

streets

after dark in Puno.

It

was Francisco Deza who worked out the

appeared at the door.

"Come with me

some papers for you to

In one of the cold

solution.

he

to the Public Notary; I have

sign. I believe there is a

little

One day

way

out."

windowless niches that faced the main

plaza, where the eighteenth-century Cathedral caught the first rays

of a warming sun, we found the scrivener hunched over mounds 'of

paper. Rising, he gave us a limp hand, asked us to be seated, and

brought out

a sheaf of papers.

"Our counterclaim," said Deza, who,

made our problem his problem, "accuses

fortunately for us had

Pilon of criminal negli-

gence, of sending you out in a car which was unserviceable.

You

will sign."

"Now," he

said,

pushing a second paper at me, "you sign

document. This will charge him for the

54

loss

this

of the jeep. That

is

Towers of the Dead

and for the purchase of your new pickup, another
This, added to what you have lost each day through
90,000
all this, makes our counterclaim 250,000 soles."
50,000

soles

soles.

Some days

later

we met Francisco Deza

pressionless face he talked

most to

hear.

Then

"Oh, about
the way,

at last

Pilon!

you must

counterclaims.

How

With an exabout everything except what we wanted

.

You know
sign this

did

it

at the Plaza.

he has dropped his suit? And,

paper in

by

which you withdraw your

come about? Well, before the papers

were shown to him by the Prefect. I met him walking on the

with all the virile gladness of an unspotted soul. I told him

street
I

had

overheard the Prefect talking about your counterclaim for 250,000

soles, and I advised him as a friend to do something about it. 'These
people are frightfully rich,' I said; 'they spend thousands while you
they'll ruin you, brother Pilon, They'll ruin
spend only centavos

what could you do? he asked. Then I said I happened

to know you and perhaps I could persuade you to drop your
counterclaim if he would drop his. 'Anything, he said, 'anything.*
So today we visited the Prefect's office and signed the paper relin-

you.' Well,

quishing his claim. Case closed!"

55

V
Into the

Carabaya Country

VVE HAD arrived at a point of decision. Here at the road junction

of Juliaca, near the northern end of Lake Titicaca, we could either
continue our road research toward Cuzco or we could venture eastward
It

into the mountains of the "verie riche river of the Carabaya."

was Willi Golz who weighted the scales in favor of the Carabaya.
He was the finest mechanic in the entire southern section of the

Peruvian Andes, and since he had spent so many years in remote

places, Willi Golz was an almost legendary figure. During his Odyssean wanderings he had installed electric plants, worked in mines
and had been involved in so many different enterprises, all claiming

mechanical

his

skill,

that his

little

cough, the result of gassing in

wasted figure and his dreadful

I, were known to many.

World "War

Beaten by the passing years, almost as toothless as the day he was

born, he had settled in Juliaca, where he owned a garage. Between
the intervals of working on our trucks he told us about the world
he was a treasure house of information.

beyond
ec

lf

you want Inca roads,"

said Willi Golz, as he sat

on the run-

ning board of our truck, "y u must go to the Carabaya. There I

have seen stone steps going up the mountains so"
and he moved
his

hands in an ascending

three thousand steps."

went on,

te

of gestures: ^up and up, one, two,

sensing our almost hypnotic interest, he

series

And,

"Who but Incas would have

56

built like this in the

Car a-

Into the Carabaya Country

baya? Yes, I have seen these, and
such is there, it is there."

Our

when

Willi Golz says such-and-

notes had given hints that, off to the east of the Lake Titi-

caca basin, there was evidence of Inca roads which led into these

little-known mountains. However, on our field maps these were no

a line of provocative asterisks. Now we had the con-

more than

firmation of the existence of such roads.

In the full glare of the sun,

these maps, we could see that

we spread out our charts. Looking at

we would have been wiser to pursue

known route of the Royal Road, moving toward Cuzco. Yet

here we were, at the gateway to the mysterious Carabaya and those
the

Inca roads which climbed up thousands of steps into the puna like
stairways to the moon.

The American Geographical Society map gave us a graphic picture of the topography. The vast Carabaya country lay midway between the environs of Lake Titicaca and that part where the Andes
begin their precipitous drop into the jungles. Glacial valleys lay
close to snow-bound peaks, which in turn were flanked by still
higher peaks.

Then

the land

fell

downward

into deep valleys and

which rushed on through forest-covered montanas

cascading
into lowland jungles. This was the Carabaya.
rivers,

the San Gaban, the HuariThe map showed four large rivers
also a bewildering numand
Inambari
the
Huari, the Tambopata

ber of smaller ones which apparently cut their way through an utterly wild country. It was a land of extremes. Here and there, dots

pin-pointed villages hanging, so

pata, Ituata, Usicayos

...

roads. Willi leaned over the

all

it

seemed, from the clouds: Ayaby stone-laid Inca

held together

map, "And there

He

is

gold there, too,

marks? Well
pointed. "See those
these are the places where they found the gold of the highest carat
in Peru." That, then, was the reason why the conquistadores called
floods of placer gold."

it

little

"the verie riche river of Carabaya."

57

Highway

of the Sun

glanced at Silvia, who was staring fixedly at the map. She knew
what these contours in the map meant. The going would be diffiI

there

cult;
places.

would be bad

reaches

and

insect-infested

it

winter; at about eight

sleeping

At dawn around
o'clock,

food

with the
its

Titicaca Lake,

arrival of the sun, it

zenith,

it

is

summer. One

is

is

spring; and

when

the sun

passes through the seasons

within a few hours.

When we

started out

from

Juliaca the next daybreak after first

thawing out the motors, we rode in those first hours with frost
thick on the windows. Yet, once we rounded the northern shore of
Lake

Titicaca,

we found

tions of this climate.

with bird

life.

ourselves caught in one of the contradic-

Here

at 13,000 feet the shores

Rose-colored flamingos

were

alive

birds I have always asso-

went stalking by, maintaining their balciated with the tropics

ance on the ice in stately fashion; there were ducks in profusion;
and sooty-black
seemingly

only

as

ibis,

and white-winged

unperturbed by

the freezing winds as

all

if

of

them

they were

tropic breezes.

The marshland about

and

aerie gulls

as treeless as

the lake was as flat as the velds of Africa,

moon; we went snaking around on a raised

continuous bog. As far as we could see behind

the

causeway through a
us, the land was waterlogged. Once we were out of the swamps, we
came onto a plain dotted with what at first glance appeared to be
tepee-shaped dwellings. Then, as

we drew

nearer and had a good

we saw that they were the twenty-foot high mud houses

of the Aymara-speaking lake Indians. Fashioned out of tundraturf which had been cut like flat adobe blocks, each house was
look,

built so that the blocks converged

toward the

top, leaving

an open-

Into the Carabaya Country

ing which became

in this singular windowless niudhouse

chimney.
as

Within, each house was as snugly warm as an oven and as filthy

an abattoir. Untanned cowhides stretched out on the hard baked-

mud

floor were the beds, the piles of blankets upon them emitting
an overpowering stench. In one corner the untended fire consumed
cow dung; on the blackened walls hung bright woolen festive

with next to them the carcasses of flayed sheep. On the one

hand we had the beauty of the land; on the other, the filth of these

clothes,

human habitations.

Beyond the environs of

Titicaca,

we continued through

villages

of monotonous sameness. Presently we had left these behind us and

began the climb. All through the day we climbed. In the late aft-

ernoon we came to the village of Asillo and a swift-flowing stream

<e
which was none other than that verie riche river of Carabaya," the

waterway

to the region of the

same name.

The

village was, or rather had been, a tampu station on the Inca

That the ancient highway had passed through here was attested to not only by the ruins which we could see like jagged scars

road.

but by our ever helpful friend and guide, Pedro

Cieza de Leon. At the plaza in Asillo, we stopped to look at our

on the bare

hills

maps and I opened my Cieza: "From Ayaviri, another road goes

."
it passes by the large village of Asillo
Oma-suyu
in
the
late
afternoon
the
hill
that
shadowed
Asillo
High on
.

the natives call

village.

it

the Hill of Calvary

Undoubtedly

so placed to keep

lake's periodic overflowing

once

was the ruin of

it

this

same

out of the reach of the

and away from the marshes,

and the way

to

station.

it

was

at

high-top fortress
the plaza of Asillo, a dirt road traveled toward the north-

From

Highway of

the Sun

west in the same direction taken by the Inca road

baya country, that region

more than 1,700,000

from which the

into the Cara-

early Spaniards took

pesos of gold of "such fineness that

it

ex-

ceeded the standard/'

The most surprising feature of Asillo was its church. An imposing

structure of carved red stone with a marvelous three-storied f agade,
it

was done in Indian baroque

style

with

a strong

Quechua

flavor.

Likenesses of Indians, guardians of the Sacred Heart, accoutered

with feathered headdresses

detail

rarely

found

in

church

were carved on the doorway. Almost twenty years in

sculpture

(16781696), it had throughout a strong native acfound the Indian name of the architect carved on an

the building
cent. "We

immense red

ashlar:

BARTOLOME SUCARTJ ZAPANA HUAYLLIO

COLL A.

Once

the

Church of San Jeronimo de

ing must have been fantastic

The

iron.

the

Asillo

had had

a thick grass

the contrast between the plaited straw and the rich carv-

roof

life

but

now

the roof was of galvanized

was equally noteworthy. Enormous canvases of

and times of San Jeronimo, the church's patron saint, as
interior

painted by Indian artists in one of the seventeenth-century ateliers

of Cuzco, were hung in enormous barbaric frames with a wealth of

gold lead adornment. With its great baroque porticoes and the barbaric wealth of a parvenu, all designed and executed by Indians, it

was

a bewildering contrast.

We
Not

followed the Carabaya River on into the precipitous

overly wide, the river

hills.

which was deep and

swift, had grooved

existence. Now wide and

out a canyon during the millennia of its

pampas alternated with weird upthrusts of limestone and
granite mountains. Atop these crags were more burial chullfcas,
sterile

which

Cerro Inampu appeared as ruined medieval battlements

offering their mummified dead to the fury of Andean climate.
at

Into the Carabaya Country

After several hours of slow travel, we suddenly were aware that
actually paralleling the course of an ancient roadbed which

we were

ran above the river level

it were, into the high banks.

road where the river narrowed and was

etched, as

At one of the bends of the

compressed between stone embankments, we came upon a platform

cut into the living rock, an outcrop of which had been chipped
away to receive the cyclopean stones. The rounded towerlike base
terminated in two piers eight feet higher than the ramp, and on

were suspended. The bastions on

the other side of the river were similarly constructed. In a deserted
these the rope cables of the bridge

house nearby

we found

the bridge

itself,

a skein of rope cables and

guy ropes which when unwound became the suspension hangings.

The bridge was evidently still used and had only been put away until

the onslaught of the rainy season.

As we went on, we found ourselves time and again traveling

along a narrow road, the importance of which to the Incas was indicated by the numerous ruins of bridge sites along its route. Again
we climbed
this time from the river up into an immense blackness. The twisting and turning of the road took us higher and yet
higher, carrying us
Silvia

and

I led

up

to the

crests.

snowy

the caravan in the jeep.

The

slower

Power Wagon,

ton or more of equipment, was far behind, growling in

low gear. At times we glimpsed it, far, far down, a swatch of red
against the gray-black desolation of rock.
carrying a

It

was

a tortured grassless

wound our way upward,

it

land

was

as

unliving as the desert. As we

climbing out of a crater's

like

mouth, round and round, out of the blackness into the light.
When we gained the top we found we were on another wide
wasteland which stretched away, patterned only here and there by
greensward. With scarcely a rock or a tree to break the icy blast, it

swept by unremitting winds. The only living

things other than ourselves were four watchful vicunas who, stand-

was

a stony nakedness

Highway of

the

Sun

ing high on a peaked ridge, curiously observed our coming. When

we halted and I climbed out to photograph them, they disappeared
in a concerted leap. After they were gone, the shrill warning whis-

down to us.
Night was coming on. The long shadows fell across the empty
way, and we looked at the altimeter. "We were close to 15,000 feet
up. Our motor was turning sluggishly and we ourselves were experiencing the now familiar onrush of mountain sickness. My own
tle

of the male floated

heart

pounded

as if it

eardrums were

closed.

ting there
labored, as

wax

images, our faces

as an exhibit in a wax museum.

unmoving
stiff

would tear loose from its moorings, and

We must have presented a strange picture
like

my
sit-

set,

our breathing

As

best I could, I

went through the mechanical details of driving.

Where, I wondered desperately, was Macusani, gateway to the
Carabaya? As if the compassionate gods had heard me, the land suddenly dipped down, a wide chasm opened up to the left, and there
were the small flickering

lights of

at the magnificent sight before us.

Macusani. Wordlessly we looked

of the dark void already lost

Out

rose the snow mountains of Allin-capac, reflecting the

of a setting sun which the Indians in their poetic way
called "Magnificent [Allm] Youth \_capac~\" In its reflected light

in

shadow

last light

we

skidded

down

the slippery road into the village.

Macusani was, as Willi Golz said it would be, both high and cold;
but the twentieth century had found it out. Electric lights illuminated the plaza and the stores. They were not the pallid little lights
of other mountain villages, where one has to use a match to find the
switch in order to turn them

off.

This was light, Golz-installed,

constant and direct. The village, nearly three miles high and so
above the natural range of plant and man, was devoid of most of
the other comforts of normal living. The villagers huddled around
the open doors of the stores, shivering in their woolen ponchos. The
dwellings were low and squat and of

62

mud;

the adobe church had a

Into the Carabaya Country

tower roofed with straw, and an open belfry. The bronze
thick with verdigris, bore the date 1607. Under the belfry

storied
bell,

was

sound box,

music that

A man

it

to

which gave out such raucous

a makeshift radio

drove us out of the plaza to find shelter elsewhere.

whom we

applied for rooms welcomed us, opened his

tumbled. Our trucks did not need watching,

door wide, and in we

he said, for within the hour the natives would be either too drunk
or too frozen to steal anything.

worry.

By

this

time

we were

too

numb

to

He showed us

too poor, as

look at what

our quarters. It was a good thing that he was

he said of himself, to afford electric light. One good

we were

sleeping in

would have driven us out again

Nature has given us ignorance to act as

she
for
our
souls,
certainly here in the Andes had given us
eyelids
night to obscure our surroundings. Although we were famished,

into the freezing night. If

none of us had the energy to bother with our

supplies*

We each had

hot toddy, a barbiturate for sleep, an aspirin for our altitude headaches, and then we all sought oblivion in the sleeping sacks. Across
a

the plaza the radio was blaring out a mambo.

curse on WiJli Golz and his electric generator, I thought, as I

drifted off .

"Your Grace,

have the honor

/'

Dawn

had come

to

Macu-

sani. I opened one eye still heavy with barbiturate-induced sleep,

and there
shook my head in an effort to drive away the cobwebs
."
"Your Grace
mummy sack and came out of

again was the insistent voice:

I

zippered open

my

pupa. Standing over

it

like

an in-

me was a man of uncerHe had a thick cob -nose

emerging from its

unshaven and wall-eyed a a pike.
and thinning hair which hung down, to his shoulders. His cavernous
mouth was filled with ill-set yellow te\^th. As he talked, he thought-

sect

tain age,

a nostril with a dirty forefinger.

fully explored the inner rim of

Highway

of the Sun

contrast between his appearance and his cultured speech was

amazing. His was not the speech of a mountaineer, a broken thread-

The

bare limping speech.

"Your Grace," he

"your f am^ leaping over the Andean

crags, has penetrated even these remote regions, which know only
the hindquarter of God. Yes, your fame has swept the lofty Andes
and you

will one

said,

day rank

"The Lord-Inca!"

."

exclaimed, and turned back into

my

sleeping

sack.

Unmindful, he went on. "Yes, even

us the best days of his years

From deep down

as

the great

Raimondi gave

/'

in his sleeping sack in another

groaned. "Whatever

it is,

room, Daugherty
What is he
ask no questions, shoot
it first.

3*

saying?

Dimly
quickly.

we were being
"You were saying ...?'*
realized that

"That

have the honor to explain that

through me
.

my

patron,

Lord of the Manor of Macusani, sends

speak, the

and

invited somewhere. I sat

who

is,

so to

his greetings

begs leave that you consider his house your

up

and

own

."

Charles Daugherty stood in the doorway clad only in his long

red underwear. With his beard and puffed eyes, he could have been
a doughty conquistador just recently poured out of his armour.

"Well, then

Our

."

looked from one to the other. As the representative

of Macusani's most important official, he could not fathom our
visitor

jesting about so formal an invitation. So I

ping into

my clothes,

hat with

its

asked him

put on

my

put matters right. Slipfur-lined jacket and my tyrolean

medallions and luxuriant gamsbart.

to lead the way.

bowed low and

His patron turned out to he a charming person. Don Luis received us from his
gleaming metal bed. An imposing sight with

Into the Carabaya Country

mustache and impudent eyes, he lay

enormous
pillows, exhibiting the while pajamas
propped up by
which were cut like a hussar's jacket with silken arabesques encirhis olive skin, black twirled

cling the buttons.

Above

the brass bed was an oleograph of Christ,

within arm's reach was an electric heater and an expensive

The room reeked of eau de cologne and sanctity.

wli'le

radio.

The

large house with

an

windows had

leaded

its

a neat

thatched

of distant English moors, and also, so Silvia

roof, giving
whispered, a real functioning toilet, a small miracle in this region.
Don Luis offered a hand on which was displayed a huge aquamait

air

and then motioned us toward

rine,

chairs. Everything here indiwith

vast wealth, which came
Along
ownership of vast herds of alpacas, the real wool -bearing

cated a comparative opulence.

from

his

member of the llamoids, went considerable political power. He had,

so we learned from the villagers, fought with the Communists in
Spain when it was fashionable to be inclined to the Left. Later he
became

new

patterns, he

power.
himself

mously

with the Agrarian Party.

kaleidoscope had brought on

a Nationalist identifying himself

But now that the turn of the

He
as

had found

political

it

expedient to side with the party in

had, however, been extremely

candidate for congress in

politic,

all parties,

and had offered

and had been unani-

elected.

Don

Luis had read in the Lima papers, it appeared, of our progand he had hoped that we would arrive here on our way to
these parts. We had heard of course of the Inca roads in the Cararess,

baya that threaded through the montana? It was all quite true, he
assured us. Moreover, there were ancient cities in the region whicK
no archaeologists had ever seen. Now that we were here, what were
our plans and how could he further them? We explained that this
was only a reconnaissance and that we had unfortunately a very
tight schedule since in our travels
fore

all

we could hope

to do

we must

now was

avoid the rains. There-

to cover

as

many

of the roads

Highway
and

as possible

of the Sun

later return for a specific expedition to further

ex-

plore the Carabaya. In order not to duplicate our effort, and knowing how difficult it was to arrange horses and pack animals for a

had planned to go on alone. We would need

only two pack animals and two horses. Meanwhile Lawrence and
Charles were to continue their special project, the study and pho-

large party, Silvia

and

tographing of the alpaca in its native environment. Also while they

were here, they would like to photograph and if possible capture a
condor alive.

Our

host put a fresh cigarette in an extravagantly long holder

and, caressing his mustache very delicately, observed that Silvia and

two riding horses, two pack animals, four

guide. As for those who wished to catch a condor,
a dead animal and they too must have Indians and
would
need
they

would need
Indians and a

at least

He pursed his lips while making the calculations;

then he clapped his hands. At once, as if he had been shot out of
the floor, our friend of the extravagant manners appeared. Our desaddle horses.

sires

and our needs were outlined.

"Remember,"

said our host,

emphasizing each word with a stab

of his cigarette holder. "Tomorrow without fail. I do not want our

friends to be held up a single moment." Then he turned to us and
the interview ended.

shook the hand with

its

large aquamarine

and departed.

We were

following a high Inca road which my altimeter showed

wa$ at an elevation of 14,800 feet. As soon as we were out of Macusani,

we had picked up

this

highway which

led to the

montana.

Built to be only a lateral road to the fabulous gold regions .of the

had been

well constructed as the main Royal Road.

low stone wall marked its boundaries, culverts were spanned with

Carabaya,

it

as

small stone bridges, and on the slopes the road was built

66

up and

Into the Carabaya Country

made

level

with dry-laid masonry.

mals had traversed

loose

And though

hundred

in four

it

thousands of ani-

years, kicking

paving stones

with their iron-shod hoofs, the road was still essentially in

And what grandeur! Here we were, traveling over

good condition.

a road constructed

lakes

some

five

hundred years

which skirted

earlier,

and clung to mountains. Built for eternity,

had withstood

it

the assaults of nature, and, running like a long wound through

the region, it would yet remain visible for centuries.
Presently

we came

to a glacier

under which the road passed.

Here the

engineers, anticipating the glacier's movement, had raised

a retaining wall to catch the cascading rocks and to divert the

snows high above the road. Here and there the eternal sweep and retreat of the glacier had sent rock crashing into and destroying a
part of the road, but generally speaking

it

was in

good

state

of

preservation.

At noon we came to our first apacheta, one of the

tory cairns that we were to find at frequent intervals

stone propitia-

along the way.

of
small
in
small nugrocks
size
from
shaped
ranging
gets to those the size of a human hand, these stone piles are to be
found on the highest passes of the road. Our Indians as they passed

A pyramid
now

reverently added their stones. Not to be outdone, we did the

same. From now on in the high mountain areas, wherever there

was an Inca road or where one had been, we were to find an

apache fa: apa (burden), chef a (depositor). The stone thus became
a

symbol of the burden, and the placing of

a stone

an act of horn-

age. An early traveler described these piles of stones, which are built

up

in every

and crossroad: "The Indians carry a

mountain

pass

up on the

trail a little

while before arriving; they believe that by adding to that apacheta, they leave their tiredness behind and that the gods will give them new strength/'
stone picked

This
all

first

the rivers

marked the continental divide. From this point

would flow toward the Amazon. We had now entered

cairn

Highway of

the

the "verie riche land of Carabaya."

Sun

We

could see ahead of us

chasms cut deep into the mountains, fog poured in from the forests
and hundreds of little ice-cold rills tinkled out of marsh and tarn,

Amazon-bound. Even the "air-temper,"

all

as

the chroniclers

changed once we were over the divide, or perhaps it was

we were becoming acclimated to the high altitudes. Below
us in the rift of clouds we could see a wild country, jagged and savage in its violence. I knew that this was a region where we must
travel alertly or perish. At best this was hazardous traveling for
we were
which there had been no careful ground preparation
just riding off into the unknown. We followed the road over mountains and down the precipitous descents to the valleys; we followed
called

it,

just that

it

to the edge of lakes and around glaciers.

As we
felt as

drove,

he traveled

understood better than ever what the good Cieza

this

same route:

One of the things which I admired most was the way the Indians could have made such grand and admirable roads along
such dizzy and frightful abysses that, on looking down, the
sight failed one. In some places, to secure the standard road
width, it was necessary to hew a path out of the living rock; all
of which was alone done with fire and their picks. In other
places the ascents were so steep and high that the steps had to
be cut from below to enable the ascent to be made, with wider
spaces at intervals for resting places. In other parts there were
avalanches of snow, which were more to be feared. .
these snows obstructed the way, and where there were
forests of trees and loose clods of earth, the road was levelled
.

Where
and,

when

necessary,

paved with

stones.

On the third day out of Macusani we dropped down to the Tamand found that here the road ran along the riverbed.
had heard much about the paved roads of the Incas but until

billo valley

We
this

moment we had not

seen any.

68

Now

we were

riding over

Into the Carabaya Country

enormous

stones. Silvia

just like the

turned to

me

in astonishment: "It looks

Appian Way!"

The roadbed was constructed of huge paving

stones

sunk deep

into the ground with drains cleverly laid and so well preserved that
it

could have been yesterday rather than the year 1400 when these
Had there been any lingering doubts about the In.-

were put down.

cas* right to be known as road builders, they were dispelled by one

look at this Tambillo road. Generally the Incas avoided water, and
fearing wet earth they placed their roads high above the reach of

which here

with great swiftness. But at this point, for

some reason, they had run their road at the river's edge and had
paved it with these immense flat stones so that it would be imperrivers

rise

vious to the rampaging river.

herd of llamas into the

Over

this

pavement we followed a

village.

We

stopped for the night in Tambillo. It lay in a small valley

at the base of abruptly rising hills, which in former times had been
terraced.

The

chua was

its

villagers,

who

was Indian, or almost entirely so, and Quelanguage. Here in the declining light we talked to the
village

gathered about us, and from them

dians for the morrow's trek.

One

skin was like beaten copper and

we

chose our In-

of them, Cutimbo, whose bronze

who

seemed more knowledgeable than the

spoke broken Spanish and

we selected as our head

rest,

guide.

The

present village of Tambillo is but a short distance from the

ancient tampii, which we could see on a promontory in the opening

of another valley. Cutimbo took us there.

That afternoon while the light still held we visited the ruins. They
consisted of several structures, all of dry-laid masonry, and a small
plaza around which were grouped various buildings, one of

which

contained a stone table arranged with seats and steps. The road
bifurcated here. One section went up a steep hill in a superb sweep
of steps called pata-pata by the Indians. This was the road to Itu-

Highway of

the

Sun

Aya-pata and Ollachea. To

to take on the morrow, the
road led to an amazing stone bridge such as we had not seen before.
It had been made wholly of stone. Inca engineers, cutting into the
ata connecting the

tampu

stations of

the left and east of the path

we were

which protruded on both sides of the gorge, had built

walls
the
and gradually extended the larger rocks into a corbeled
up
arch, and had bridged the gap with four gigantic fourteen-foot

living rock

lengths of rectangularly cut stone.

were

also of stone. It

The approaches on both

sides

was a marvelously ingenious piece of con-

struction.

ct

Quechuan word, kara meaning wound." And

now as we rode along we could see how beautifully expressive the
language is. We were in a country marked by gaping abysses, a humid unhealthiness in its rivers and a terrible cold in its heights. We
Kara-waya

is

had climbed the Inca step-road out of Tambillo valley

steps that
I counted over one thousand, and then lost

went up, up, up

we had come out once

again on the puna. The land

with upthrust rock of reddish granite that
assumed fantastic forms. Through this we followed the track with

count

until

was broken and

our

filled

safari of horses, llamas

and Indians. As the

rising

sun touched

the tops of the rocks to gold, we came out of a rock passage to find
the road running along the side of a terrifying chasm, so deep that

we

never once glimpsed the river, yet

we

constantly heard

its

dull

sound ricocheting against the vertical rock walls. It was

two
thousand feet down. It seemed scarcely credible that
easily
workmen had once crawled up that precipice and, with a tenacity
roar, the

which now
races to its

our understanding, had built up agricultural tervery edge. This was the Kara-waya, alternately cold and
defies

hot, rain-filled and fever-filled

a forbidding land, entered

only

to fulfill the wishes of the Lord Inca for the Carabaya's gold. "In

70

Into the Carabaya Country

Peru," wrote a sixteenth-century lawyer to his Viceroy, "there are
gold mines in many places, as for instance in Carabaya ... in
which the Indians* labor is greater beyond comparison because the
air-temper therein

washing ore

is

so hurtful they are in the water all the time

."

In time the Carabaya became the graveyard of countless thousands of Indians who labored to pry out the metal which the Incas
regarded

as

the "sweat" of the sun.

Yet the terraced

plots

on the

vertical hills overlooking the river gorge indicated long occupation

while the carefully constructed roads suggested great movement.
The road along the chasm now became so treacherous that Silvia,

preferring to trust her safety to her own

Hung over the edge and narrowed now to
trail

made

lowed her

tumble

sensible

two
less

feet,

dismounted.

than four

feet,

the

very possible, and very soon I folexample and together we walked gingerly along
off into space

that narrow way, hugging the rock wall. Landslides, the result of
the torrential rains, had destroyed sections of the road, and every

now and

then a gap appeared. Picking our way carefully across the

disarranged stones, we came to one place where the gorge was most
precipitous and the road all but gone. Our guide, Cutimbo, went

first

with

holding the rope of the lead horse. Silvia's mount followed

difficulty since some of the large paving stones which once

formed the road were perched on end. The vertical wall to the
right went straight up, only spined cactus grew in the interstices
of the rock, and to our left was the void of the chasm. Next it was
the turn of our lead cargo mule. It carried two large boxes and our

canvas bags containing our beds and sleeping bags. An intelligent

mule, it sniffed at the situation and, not liking it, hesitated for a

moment

before it moved rapidly across the uncertain road. In the

center a rock slipped. Frightened, the beast doubled its hind legs
into a leap and so gained our side. The next mule, equally terrified,
stepped on the loosened stones, which began to slide. The startled

7*

Highway of

the

Sun

beast leaped toward a narrow edge, but one of the boxes it carried
struck against the cliff, throwing it completely off balance. There

the poor creature hung for a moment; then with a terrific crash it
slid back onto the trail, pushing out a loose section of the road.

Both dropped over the edge, to disappear below. It was an awful

moment. First there was a dull thud, then the splinter of boxes,
followed by the rattle of cooking gear striking the cliffs.
When the dust lifted and the landslide had rolled down and over
the gorge, we were amazed to see that where the road had been
there was now nothing but a gaping crater. On one side there was
the ascending rock; on the other an interval of at least twenty feet
which as effectively cut us off from the others as if an impassable
river flowed between us.
retreat.

They could not advance

Aghast, we stood looking

ered on the other

side.

we

could not

across the gap at the Indians gath-

Recovering somewhat

asked

if

there

was

another road.
"Ari, but

we must

leads back," said

first

"How far is it?"

He did not know. He
a boy,

reach Pukuta.

From

there another road

Cutimbo.

but he thought

it

had not been over

must be

this

route since he was

at least six leagues

about eight-

We

would not have much more dayfor

our
this
narrow trail. I thought sadly
light
making
way along
of the food which had gone with the mule over the cliff.
"Tell them"
I indicated the Indians who stood stolidly on
een miles.

looked at the sun.

the other side

"tell them that they are to go back to Tambillo,
obtain food and take the other road to Pukuta and meet us there."

The message
tied it

delivered, I

and threw

it

wrapped some paper money around a rock,

As soon as they had disengaged

across to them.

the money from the stones, they turned their llamas around and
moved off*
The night shadows thrown by the towering cliffs brought the

7*

Into the Carabaya Country

first

hints of cold.

By

five in the afternoon, twilight

would be on

us, and after that we would have to prepare for the night. Camping
on a three- foot- wide ledge with no shelter from wind or rain was

Cutimbo, who had gone on, came running

back to tell us that there were some large caves ahead. The sky
darkened, rain began to fall, and by now the shadows were so ink-

not

a bright prospect.

black that

had

to use

my torch at some spots. During some fright-

Andes bubbled into a boiling upthrust

and rock bubbles had burst and cooled, leaving enormous caves
ful geologic nightmare, the

along the canyon wall. One of them, directly above us, looked large
enough to house ourselves and the animals; and while Cutimbo be-

gan to make the ascending steps more secure, I tended to such supplies as were left. First we brought up the boxes, a difficult operation, then the sleeping bags, and then, by urging and pulling, we
succeeded in getting the animals themselves up to the cave, a sorry
substitute for night quarters, which gave out a loathsome odor.

"At

least the

beds and sleeping sacks were saved," Silvia observed

philosophically as

we unpacked.

a tin of Nescafe,
Happily we had some emergency rations
some bouillon cubes, a canteen of water, the paratrooper stove, a
few bars of chocolate
and my cameras. Everything else had

gone with the doomed mule. Cutimbo was a godsend. He climbed

out on the edge of the nothing that was our world to cut some grass
for the horses and the two mules. Next he brought in a few faggots
he found.

Our

supper consisted of a cup of bouillon, black coffee

of
chocolate
each. Outside it stormed and raged; thunpiece
der echoed through the gorge to mingle with the roar of the swol-

and a

len river. Gusts of

wind blew

in the cave,

making

it

impossible to

keep alight our small candles: The Indian wrapped himself in his
poncho and crawled into the sweat-filled mule blankets, while

we

slid

into our sleeping bags

and in a moment were snug and

warm.

73

Highway of

We

the

Sun

could not help laughing at the irony of the moment. Here

we were

lost,

cut off from everything and everyone.

We had

lost

most of our food, what small supplies we had now would not last
for more than two days, and yet here we were lying in comfort in
our luxurious sleeping bags. In the darkness we discussed our prospects.

"What do you
audibly.

is

suppose

in this deep cave?" Silvia asked, sniffing

"Do you think there

For answer

picked up

my

any animals in here?"

torch and swung it around the cave.

are

Stalagmites were hanging from the ceiling; there was the steady
drip of water and there seemed to be some past evidence of occupation. Then my light froze. In the back of the cave were several

mummies. One,
to

its

sat

its

sack broken open and

with

hair streaming

its

skull.

body,
The head was thrown back

all its

might!

its

arms and

down from

as if it

its

legs flexed

mummified

was laughing at us with

Cutimbo left, as prearranged, at daybreak. I brewed some coffee

for him over the paratrooper stove, gave him the last of the chocolate

and then with such words of cheer

chua, sent

We had

him

off

down

the path. I

could muster in Quewatched until he disappeared.

as I

agreed that he should go ahead to see if the road

and to

was

pass-

we

could get to Pukuta. If not, then our

was
to
back
only way
go
again to where the avalanche occurred
and somehow get over that road. When he had gone we deable

ascertain if

cided to have a look at the

mummies which

Silvia

had

now

dis-

covered.

Our examination

of the pottery fragments which lay about in-

their design that they were "Cuzco polychrome" and

been made about 1450. The mummies were all male
had
probably
and the weavings poor. There were pieces too of some wooden tools.

dicated

by

74

Into the Carabaya Country

One

bronze piece was a sort of metal wedge which could have been

used in mining. We had, we suspected, come across a burial cave

of Indian miners, some of those who had gone to the Karawaya to
get out the gold for the Inca. These were fragments of a long-ago
these fragile pieces of cloth which dropped apart at the
touch, these remarkably well-preserved skeletons and pieces of pot-

-existence

tery.

The

shadow when

valley lay in deep

Cutimbo. As

down from

the

went out again

to look for

was searching the canyon, pebbles rolled noisily

cliff. Instinctively I drew back. On a high ridge

four guanacos were feeding.

never been properly zeroed,

I called Silvia.
I

had no

My Remington rifle

telescopic sight,

nor had

had

the

means of gauging the wind; and the animals were at least 1000 feet
away. The only thing in my favor was that I was in the shadow and
could neither be seen nor scented at

moment

I fired

they would

all bolt,

this distance. I

knew

that the

so I chose the largest of the four

and aimed for the shoulder. The sound ricocheted about the canyon.

The four guanacos sprang up

as if they

were running on

Then suddenly

level

the side of the steep

cliff as easily

ground.

the largest animal slipped, missed a projecting

rock, fell half backward, recovered, then began a rapid descent,

its

sharp hoofs instinctively digging into the soil. It landed on the narrow road only five hundred feet from where we stood. I slipped

another shell into the chamber.

The guanaco

rose unsteadily,

wav-

Then, its front knees buckling, it sank to a kneeling position,

head slipped forward and it was dead.

ered.
its

had already begun to

He had found

the

way

flay the animal

when Cutimbo

to Pukuta, he said;

it

appeared.

was open. Then

as

he dropped the load of firewood he had been carrying the two of us,
impelled by hunger and companionship, fell to work on the still

warm

guanaco.

75

Highway of

the

Sun

A day later we reached the ruins of the ancient mining village of

Pukiita. It lay at the junction of

waters could not reach

it.

On

two

rivers, raised so the rising

our second day there, our other In-

who had been cut off by the avalanche arrived with food.
Had they delivered the messages? They had. But in this land of

dian

extremes, where everything was an exaggeration, the message,,

highly embroidered in the telling, was that we had gone over the
cliff

and were washed down the

newspapers in Puno,

who

The news reached the

local

talked to their office in Arequipa, who

New York. As we were to learn

talked to Lima,

who

weeks

New York

later, the

river.

cabled to

Times carried the following dispatch:

Von Hagens Overdue 3 Days on Inca Highway

Search parties are being organized to go into the jungle to
von Hagen, leader of the Inca Highway Exthe
American
of
pedition
Geographical Society, and his wife
Silvia, who left the Lake Titicaca on May 20 for the desolate
interior of Peru to seek the mysterious Inca Highway. They
search for Victor

are

now

three days ovedue at Ayapata, to which point they

after having crossed the 1 5,000 foot high Cor-

were descending
dillera Oriental.

Mr. von Hagen

was studying the

Mr. von Hagen

at the

moment was

neither lost nor missing.

ruins of Pukiita, trying to discover

He

what that

gold-mine village had looked like.

There were twenty-five dwellings, ruins of what were probably
miners* houses with typical stone mural niches set in the walls, a
of Inca architecture. There was a small plaza,
rounded storehouses. There was nothing that would

telltale characteristic

and one or two

had been gold mining, for gold had

been taken from the rivers by the panning process or by means of a
series of stone riffles laid across the river. Gold in the Carabaya was
found in nuggets and, carried down in high water, was deposited in
indicate that the chief activity

76

Into the Carabaya Country

these riffles and later collected in the season of low water. The gold
was then taken to wind-furnaces built on the tops of the highest
hills. These furnaces built so as to catch the persistent winds blow-

ing from the Amazon and called buayras, were circular in shape
with the tunnel or mouth of the oven facing the windward side, so
that the strong winds produced sufficient draft to obtain the high
temperatures from the charcoal fires necessary to melt the gold,

which was then shaped into crude bars. These were carried to Cuzco
to the Lord Inca.
There were,

other gold villages along the road.

By careful questioning of the Indians and our recording of the information so obtained on our map of Carabaya, we discovered that
it

seemed,

many

which throughout the region

connected the isolated villages that lay between the Andes and the
montana. To the southeast the road went on to Coasa, to Usicayos,
there existed a whole system of roads

to Limbani,

and

montana

7500

at

we longed

feet altitude, to terminate at

to pursue these roads into the jungle

Once back

low

to Sandia, an important village lying

Tambopata.
Still

at headquarters, leaving Silvia at the

in the

How

house of the

patron Don Luis to rest

I

and then to prepare for our continuing trip,

rode out fifteen miles through the great herds of shaggy white al-

pacas

which were being shepherded on the grass-covered puna,

over the bare frozen

hills

to the base of Allincapac Mountain. If

one could forget the cold, the land had a raw charm and a terrifying beauty. The golden turf ran along unbroken except for outcrops of rock and a peculiarly shaped cactus which in bloom had
a canary-yellow blossom later replaced with a grayish beard. Here

found the "condor expedition." In a makeshift blind, Lawrence,

blue with cold, sat with camera "at ready," while Charles huddled
in his sleeping bag. In front of them in a small hollow of land was
I

77

the bait.

Sun

the

Highway of

dead horse, bloated with the juices of organic dissolutrap. Below and unseen, lying on thick branches

lay on the

tion,

in a trench cut

under the dead animal, two Indians waited for the

trap. They would then seize the bird by its

condor to light on the

legs,

to

thus enabling other Indians now hidden behind a large rock

lasso it. As I neared the blind, Charles frantically

run out and

waved me off my
ward to gain the

horse.

On

the

flat

of

my stomach, I wriggled

for-

blind's protection.

"What a bore!" Charles had plainly had enough. "These birds

have done nothing but sweep down and up. There's one now
sitting on that crag
right under the snow line."

And

there

was the great

bird, its white ruff

around

his

neck

as

unsullied as Cyrano de Bergerac's white plume, its beak, curved

and strong, cruelly sharp.
"We almost had one," Charles went on. "They came down to

have a

our bait; but one of our Indians was so drunk that

it's a wonder he did not lose it
hand out too soon

sniff at

he stuck his

and, of course, they

condors.

Now

we have

What happened
I

all

to

took

They

off.

are terrible cowards, those

to wait until their suspicions are quieted.

you?"

told them.

"What

a trip,"

he said wistfully. "I wish

on that one instead of

Dick Lawrence

this

sat motionless,

scopic shot of the condor the

began

had elected to go along

."

waiting hopefully to get

moment

a tele-

it

leaped off into space and

We

had decided to work our

it on north to Cuzco,

its glide.

I told

them of

way back

a change in plans.

to the Royal

Road and follow

about one hundred and fifty miles away. They could,

follow us at their

leisure, so

Inti-raymi, the great

as

they arrived

if

they chose,

the time of the

long
by
Sun Festival. In Cuzco we hoped to find

living

Into the Carabaya Country

quarters for the Expedition, and there we would work out a further
said our good-bys and I wiggled out again
program of work.
and over the rocks to where my horse waited.

We

made our way down

of Carabaya" on our way toward Cuzco.

was snowing

It

riche river

as Silvia

Once we had made

and

the "verie

La Raya, we were out of the

Lake Titicaca region and almost at once had dropped down into
the warmer valley of Vilcanota, where the air was almost benign.

We

the high pass at

could well understand

abandoned

their

how

the people

who became

the Incas

origin place around Titicaca to seek out the

warmer climate of

this valley.

For some days we followed the Inca road through pleasant villages not much changed since the time when their Inca ruled the
land, through the lava fields of San Pedro de Cacha, until
to the great temple of Kontiki Virachoca.

we came

The temple was now

in

ruins but even so the fragments of high stone and adobe walls and

rounded stone
Inca.

As we

pillars

spoke of the great architectural genius of the

drove, the road was at times clearly revealed and then

at other times so

we could find no trace of

we found a length of well-

thoroughly erased that

At Chuqui-cahuana,

it.

for example,

preserved road, part of the Royal Road, measuring fifteen feet

from wall to wall. On we went northward through hills now purple
like

with the blossom of the potato, past the Lake Urcos which lay
an emerald at the bottom of cultivated hills.

Not

far

from

this

we came

so to speak, of Cuzco.

one of

its sides

to ancient stone quarries at the gates,

Here was an enormous passageway, with

faced with carefully fitted red stone, the

the Inca stonemason. It was once, so

we

or sort of toll gate, and the entrance to the road

79

mark

of

believed, a control station

from the south

Highway of
which

Sun

led through a large pre-Inca city into the immediate valley

of Cuzco.

comes

the

From

modern

here northward this old Inca road

more or

be-

less

road.

On

our

way

Incas,

we

passed multitudes of people in holiday attire,

along

this,

which was once the Appian

Way

of the

many

of

them driving gaily decorated llamas ahead of them, all going toward the Sacred City. Many wore their distinctive regional headthe women of Ayaviri their large flat hats trimmed with
gear
beautiful upending brocade; those from Sicuani woolen wimples
which encased the head nunlike and fell across the shoulders.
Groups of Indians trotted along hugging musical instruments, as
they would protect them from the dust of the fast-traveling cars.

if

which they stroked

which
others
had
on
reed
walked;
they
pipes
they softly fluted.
The crowd increased as it converged on Cuzco. We made our

Some
as

carried harps shaped like ancient rebecs,

way down

the road and entered the square called

Rimac-Pampa.

This, once the exit place of the great road to the south, was the

Speaking Pampa where the people gathered to

listen to the

ha-

rangues of the Inca's officials. It was still the gathering place,

crowded now with auto buses and jostling people, noisy with the

sound of raucous radios and loud-speakers.

We had arrived over the Royal Road at Cuzco, the capital of
the Incas.

80

Cuzco

the Four Quarters of the World

HERNANDO DE

SOTO, so the chronicler said, came

first

upon Cuzco

at sunset.

The

sun's great rundle sinking

dened glory lighted up the city

with an enormous burst of red-

so that

even the poorer buildings

took on a burnished golden look. As the retreating sun's rays

touched the beaten gold plates that adorned its walls, the pyramided Sun Temple, towering over the lower buildings around it,

gleamed

as if it

were cased in metal.

Cuzco lay in a protected hollow at the northern end of the valley.

The hills were bare of sward; no trees except the stunted molle
grew here. On the northern higher slope of the city stood an enormous stone fortress, a structure so immense that at first sight
de Soto and his companion doubted that any army could breach it.
Narrow and long "like a puma's tail," Cuzco was made up of nar-

row

streets, its smaller

buildings painted yellow and red, the larger

buildings constructed of enormous, beautifully laid stonework. In

the center was a great square, larger than the Plaza of Saint Mark's
in Venice, which, because of the luminous atmosphere, seemed so

near that a bolt from a crossbow could have been shot into the
center.

Captain Hernando de Soto, from

his position

Karmenka, had good reason to study Cuzco

81

on the

intently.

hill

of

For he, along

Highway

of the Sun

with two hundred Spaniards in this fateful year of 1533, was engaged in the conquest of an empire five times the size of Europe.
et
De Soto was, according to his chronicler, a handsome man, dark in
complexion, with full beard and dark restless eyes, of cheerful
countenance, an endurer of hardships and very valiant." At thirtyfive,

he was

still

watery grave in the turgid waters

At

and space, from his

Guachoya on the Mississippi

a considerable distance, in time

at

conquistador of Peru, de Soto was in

the full tide of his glory. Rather above middle height, graceful on
foot and horseback, he rode in the Moorish style and looked well
River.

this

moment,

as a

accoutered in buckler and helmet with a straight sword by his side.

after his four-hundred-and-fifty-mile ride over the Royal
Road from Cajamarca to the south where the Inca King was being

Now

held for ransom by two hundred Spaniards, de Soto looked down

on Cuzco in intent contemplation. He had consented to be escorted
to the capital of the Incas

by

a retinue of Indians with only one

other soldier companion, Pedro de Barco, in order to speed the paythe gold and silver ransom and to make sure of the captured Inca's promise "that he would fill an immense room, once

ment of

with gold, twice with silver" so

captors. Knowledge was needed,

dom, of

its

roads and

its

himself from his Spanish

too, of the size of this strange kingas to free

defenses, for the Spaniards

had come not

only to siphon off a winnowing of Inca gold but to make conquest

of the source of all of it.
Earlier three

common

soldiers

had been sent to Cuzco for the

purpose of spying out the secrets of the Incas, but they had grown
so overbearing what with being carried about in gold-encrusted

Cuzco as gods, that the native officials,

hurriedly getting together six hundred llama-loads of gold and
silver, quickly ended their excuse for being in Cuzco at all. So that
litters

and

their reception in

mission ended without their obtaining vital information. Next,

Francisco Pizarro, the Spaniard's Captain General, chose the hi-

82

Cuzco
dalgo de Soto,

nor Moor and

tc

the Fovir Quarters of the

gentleman on

all

four

sides

World

who was

neither

Jew

who had

the purity of blood required to enter the

of
the Knights of Santiago." So little did de Soto possess of
order

worldly goods that when he landed in Yucatan in 1519, he had

only his sword and his buckler. With these, for the next ten years
or so he fought his

way throughout

Central America and in 1532

he was in Nicaragua nursing wounds when the clarion call came

from the Pizarros, who sorely needed men to help in this conquest
of Peru.

With

the rank of Captain,

Hernando de Soto

arrived in

Peru in May, 1532.

Hernando de

Soto's first sight of

Cuzco

filled

him with amaze-

ment:
Cuzco, grand and
great intelligence.

stately,

The

must have been

built

by people of

certainly the richest of which

.
the Indies .
Neither gold nor

city

is

we

silhave any knowledge in all

ver, they tell me, can be taken out of here on the pain of death
and there are many goldsmiths here and workers in silver.
.

De Soto was

received as a god. Carried through the city in a gold-

by a curious throng of women and

saw the storehouses for wool tunics and cotton cloth,

plated litter and followed always

children, he

strange chambers

filled

with arms and accouterments of war such

as quilted-cotton
jberds,

while

seaweed

still

all

armour, sharp-edged swords, star-shaped hal-\

more rooms were filled with corn and shellfish and

in the

form of tax

tribute.

He was

careful to note,

for he was primarily an

making an "estimate of the situation," the fact that out of the great square went "four roads which
officer

led to

all

parts of the empire."

Actually these were the principal highways to the four divisions,

the suyus, of the empire: the Chinchay-suyu road over which de
83

Highway of

the

Sun

Soto had arrived, went northwest to Quito 500 leagues distant;

the Cuntu-suyu road to the coast, stretched off to the southwest;
the Colla-suyu which, "so the Indians sayeth,"

went

to a great lake,

while the road to the jungles began

from the northwest, at a small plaza called the "Salt Window," and
was called the Anti-suyu road. The sum of these four divisions, the

began

at the southeast corner;

Inca Empire, was known as the Tawantin-suyu, the "Four Quarters of the World."

The

people, so de Soto learned,

had originated

as

wanderers and

food gatherers around Lake Titicaca. Eventually they migrated

since "blood and cruelty is the
northward. By the year 1000
they had disposed of the original
good things"
inhabitants of this valley and taken possession of the treeless glebe

foundation of

all

about Cuzco. Their food, their llama husbandry, their architecture,

were Andean in pattern. Yet as these people were
exposed to dearth and hunger and seasonal droughts, they began to

their ceramics,

oppose the titanic force of Nature and to attempt to alter

it

for

their benefit.

The centuries passed like the moving arm of a weaver's shuttle.

The Incas made repeated conquests and organized the defeated.
They developed the formulae that made an Andean empire possible.

They became

their

mountain

the expense of

itself.

glebe,
its

people and, within the frame of

they became

a unified empire. It

expanded

at

neighbors, absorbing the surrounding lands like

enveloped them, digested them and made them part

What the Incas could not absorb, they killed. About 1200

an amoeba.
of

a disciplined

It

A.D., the chieftains of the

their official descent

"Incas," and

Quechua-speaking peoples announced

from the Sun God. They

called themselves

such became the hereditary rulers of the Quechuas.

Under the aggressively active Inca policy of conquest and assim-

ilation, the

as

Inca realm expanded in

all

the four directions. Roads

were built and a chasqui courier system was organized.

A caste

of

Higbivay of the Sun

record-keepers, trained so that they could read the story of the past,
a series of colored and knotted strings by
invented the qnipn

means of which records could be kept of grazing lands, gold mines,

numbers of people and tribes, tributes and deposits.
Having grown great, the Incas had come to believe that it must
have always been thus, and therefore what did not conform to the
established idea of the Inca past was eliminated from human meman d so we ll that the impression left was that before the Inca
there had hovered a void over the Andes.

ory

The

Incas ruled their people with an iron but a just hand. Every

detail of their life, from womb to tomb, was prescribed. The state
was not for the people nor was equality the ideal. It was rather a
blending of tribal communism and theocracy, a perilously balanced

fusion of

two

antagonistic systems.

The common
board.

people were manipulated like figures on a chessbecame

part of the decimal system of classification
They

with division

all

territorial officials

along the social

was

The

set up.

Tuc-ri-cuo (He -who -sees -all)

people.

mon

And

so the categories

line.

An

elaborate hierarchy of

highest under the Inca was the

the ruler of a division of 10,000

went down the

line to the least

com-

multiple; for every 10,000 in population there were 1331 of-

ficials.

Everything was regulated in

this

welfare

state.

No one moved

on

the roads without permission; there was work-service for taxes;

there were contributions to state and religion; and each

automatically a

member

man was

of an agrarian militia. If a section of the

realm was underpopulated, a whole trite was moved into it. Loyal
subjects were settled in a newly conquered land, while the recently

conquered tribes were moved out and transferred to a "safe" community where they could be absorbed. Under this policy, most of

Andean America was conquered. From Chile to Colombia, a distance of 2320 linear miles, the land was unified, the jungle was in86

Cuzco

the

Four Quarters of the World

vaded, the desert coast pervaded. No tribe, no force, could resist

the pressure of this benevolent despotism.

Of this realm Cuzco was the capital. Thoroughly cosmopolitan,

the city was inhabited by symbolic groups from the four divisions
of empire. Each section of the city was given over to a particular
tribal group, each with its own attire, own headdress. If they were
yuncas of the coast, they went muffled like gypsies; the collas
(koyas) wore caps shaped like a wooden pump-box; the canas wore
another kind of cap of greater width; the canaris had crowns of inlathes; the hunancas had short ropes attached to

terwoven thick
their hair

of

its

which hung down to the

chin.

Cuzco was the microcosm

empire.

There was only one way by which this community of people

could have been held together and that was by the communicating
roads. All Indians were obliged to give one third of their time to

work

service.

While each

tribal unit

must build and maintain the

Royal Road running through its section, the direction and master
plan were laid down by technicians sent out from Cuzco. These master architects charted the direction the roads

would

take,

planned

the way-stops and figured out the distances that the cbasqui couriers

would run and where

their platforms

would be

set up.

With

these

communications completed, nothing could occur in any place in the

realm without the officials at Cuzco being made immediately aware
of

it.

All this and

much more

did

Hernando de Soto

see

and learn dur-

Cuzco. The summer of the dry season had come being

fore de Soto quit the city. In that time he gathered much gold,
his stay in

and prepared to move out. Cuzco was now gay

with arriving Indians, for it was the time of the Sun Festival, the
Inti-raymi, celebrating the time when, as the Indians believed, the
Sun God came down to live with them. From all sides Indians were
wrote

his report,

pouring into the city to prepare for the pageantry of the Sun God.

87

Highway of
What
on the

Sun

thoughts must Hernando de Soto have had when he turned

hill of Karmenka and looked back on Cuzco! He was the last

European to

see it in its

pagan

300,000 golden pesos of loot,

chase the twin phantoms,

with

the

sail

Soon he was to gather his

and eventually return to

state.

to Spain

Youth and Gold

and

lose

both along

his life in the turgid waters of the Mississippi.

But on that bright June twenty-first, 1533,

as this

man

of "good

impulses" rode beside his treasure-laden llamas along the high road
to Cajamarca, he moved out from this golden city through throngs
of Indians coming to Cuzco for the festival of the Sun God.

Four hundred and twenty-one years

de Soto quit

it,

empire which he
Cuzco.

The

to the

day that Hernando

we, searching for the remains of those roads of an

so effectively

had helped to destroy, arrived in

oldest continuously inhabited city in

all

the Americas

dates back to about the time that the Battle of Hastings

Cuzco shows

little

traces of

its

it

was fought

various epochs. There are the Inca

superbly fashioned of stone, laid with an instinctive feeling

for the beauty of pattern in stone which impart a feeling of the

walls

greatest antiquity. There too

lonial Spain

and in

close

is

the magnificent architecture of

Co-

proximity adobe houses which are without

either dignity or grandeur.

Between these contrasts

of growth. Cuzco is like a woman who

Hernando de Soto would have found
servance of the Sun Festival to remind

when born
little

are
is

no evidences

already old.

in this present-day ob-

him of

the city he saw before

rape, even though much of modern Cuzco is built upon the walls
and foundations of the Incaic city. What had once been the Curi-

its

cancha, the Shrine of the Garden of Gold, a structure whose walls

were covered with gold as finely beaten as onionskin paper, is now

the Santo Domingo Convent. The sanctuary of the Sun Virgins,

88

Cuzco

women were

where chosen
is,

the Four Quarters of the

World

reared to care for the ritual of the Sun,

ironically enough, the cloistered

nunnery of Santa Catalina; and

standing on the site of the Snake Temple, the palace of the last great
is the Church of the
Jesuits. Time, man and earthquake have

Inca,

not been kind to Cuzco. Yet the Sun Festival was once again bringing the Indians back into their city, and the streets were enlivened

by their
With
crowd

gauds.

we

difficulty

to the hotel.

eased our truck through the press of the

The Railroad Hotel,

over the station and therefore in the

so called because

it

was

yards, was the best stopping place for us that the city offered because, since it lay out of
the city, it gave us parking space for our trucks, which would soon
rail

be piling in from the Car ab ay a. So, in a dubious bedroom made less

dubious by a bath which offered a plentiful supply of hot water to

wash

off the

dust of three hundred miles of Inca road,

with an enlivening

Cuzco was,

we

relaxed

aperitif.

naturally, an important point for us.

The four roads

of the empire had gone off from the center of the city in the four
directions, and around it were the remains of its most imposing

make our study we would have to have a

It would have been ideal if we could have rented,

structures. In order to

base of operations.

we

did in Puno, some small place outside of the city, but the
earthquake of 1949 had leveled much of this area. I remembered,
as

then, that during a previous visit to

Cuzco

had seen

a place just

which was once an Inca palace. As we made the neccourtesy calls, it might be well to include the owner of the

outside the city

essary
place.

After

we had

called

upon

the Prefect and had been offered and

we

sought out the owner of the house I had remembered. "We found him in his offices in the richest commercial esreceived the city,

tablishment in Cuzco. The son of the founder of the firm, one

who

Highway of

Sun

the

had generously aided other explorers, he readily granted us the

loan of his house during our stay in Cuzco. And so, when the long

noonday quiet

settled

on the

city,

we made our way up

to his

place.

In Inca times Cuzco was divided into Upper and Lower.

Hanan, or upper Cuzco where Kolkam-pata

the narrow streets between Inca walls, past
to

marked with

the armorial escutcheon of

is,

To

get

you must climb

colonial

doorways

somebody now

forgotten,

on up to the Plaza and Church of

point lies below. We went along walls

past courtyards of squalor, and

San Cristobal. The city at this

spaced with Inca mural niches until
gate

and there rang the

bell.

we came

Through

to an

the trees

enormous iron

we could

see the

lower bastions of the great fortress of Sacsa-huaman. In front of us

lay a chalet of uncertain age and alongside of it was a fragment of
a

door and wall done in the

late

Inca

style.

The

best of Inca stone-

roughly square stones were skillfully keyed and put together without cement with a precision never equaled elsewhere. A
that and a fourteen- foot wall
single truncated door led nowhere

work,

its

what was once one of the finest structures

in Cuzco. Yet here was the same beauty with which Greek ruins
pridefully conjure up for the beholder some image of what they
were

all

that was left of

must once have

been.

Kolkam-pata had

a special significance for us, since it

had been

the residence of the last of the direct descendants of the one-time

all-powerful Inca. Paulla-Inca had been a willing collaborator of

the Spanish conquerors. Adopting the name Cristobal, he had built
the church which bears his name and had lived his last years there.

Now,

searching for the lost horizons of the empire he, also, had had
we were to live in the ruins of his palace.

a part in destroying,

The other two members

of the Expedition had arrived and were

already installed at the Railroad Hotel

90

when we

returned.

They

Cuzco
were

Four Quarters of the World

the

Dick Lawrence was worn and silent

for once
was
drained
from
his
looked
Charles
too
energy
slight figure.
pinched and drawn. To our inquiries as to the success of their vena sorry pair.

all

ture, Charles sighed.

."
"Well," he said wearily, "in the beginning
had
waited
for
the
condors
to
return.
Each time one
They
days
.

of the Indians had revealed their presence in the trap, the great
carrion birds took off. Food that I had arranged to be sent to them

had not been

sent; the Indians drank all the brandy; the cold had
been intense. Altogether it was an epic of disorganization.
"The condors came down often, but as the dead horse was lying

in a veritable refrigerator at 15,600 feet, the flesh did not

pose. Until

our

last day.

decom-

Yes, until," said Charles bitterly, "the third day

We were downwind and we had it all

the perfume of battlefield dead.

stench like

The condors came down, pulled

piece of flesh off the horse, danced about

it,

nodded

to each other as

they were saying 'After you, my dear carrion -pigeon.' Had our
Indians been less drunk, they could have seized them and we would
have had our pictures. Instead of which"
he stopped to take a
if

"instead of which it began to snow and snow and

long drink
snow. Within an hour we were snowbound, not able to see two

yards in front of

us.

We had

sans pictures, sans condor

lamb

as a gift

and

it

was

had enough
and so here we are,
." But they had been given a whole
.

at this

moment

sizzling in the hotel's

oven.

And

at this point a

new Expedition member

arrived at the

hotel.

Henrik Blohm, tall and blond, a Harvard undergraduate, had

been born in Venezuela of a German family. He was studying to be
a zoologist and so had jumped at the chance to come along on the
Expedition as a volunteer for the three months of his vacation. In
all the excitement we almost forgot the whole lamb roasting in the

QI

Highway of
oven. But soon

we were

all

the

Sun

talking, eating, shouting like a

uninhibited undergraduates.
The Inca Sun-God Inti was kind.

group of

The sun shone bright next

morning on the beginning of the Sun Festival and with it came still
more people. First came the opening parade of the various Indian

moved around

the plaza passing in front of the Cathedral, displaying a variety of costumes and music. There were Indians from the jungles; Indians from Titicaca; there were folklore

groups. It

groups dancing with masks, mimicking something long forgotten

from Pisac with upturned felt hats.

in history; there were Indians

All in noisy competition marched to music which was, at best, a

chaos of sound. Occasionally one group would hold up the march

by breaking

into a dance.

only one of many ancient ones. There had been

cults of the Moon and of the Stars, each month with its appropriate deity and its appropriate festival. There was the Song of the

This festival

is

Harvest, with the dances of the small ripening, the great ripening,
and of the young maize; the Festival of Water to welcome the com-

ing of rain. But of

all

these, the

most mystical was that of the Sun,

Sun God

Inti-raymi, for during that period the Indians believed the

briefly

As

came down and stayed among them.

the parade continued, the riot of color became overwhelming.

Indians in flaming red and pink ponchos danced with abandonment,

like children, out of rhythm yet with lively unrepressed artless gaiety.

At

last

they disappeared through the inclined streets which led

main festival- ground at the Sacsa-huaman fortress. As I

watched them go, dancing and playing their simple instruments, I
thought of a passage I had once read in which an essayist writing of
to the

natural

man

said:

<c

Oh,

let these last sons

of nature die out in their

mother's lap, do not interrupt with your master's dogmas their

childish games, their moonlight dances, their sweet and ephemeral
natures.

/'

92

Cuzco

the

Four Quarters of the World

we were swept

Fortunately

that poured through the city.

hill

and we were safely

along with the

Only

few

stress

steps

of humanity
the fortress

down

inside our retreat.

We began our further journey with the northern route, that same
Chinchay-suyu road which de Soto had taken when he quit Cuzco
and followed his loot-laden llamas.

Here the Inca road

with

their llamas.

At

is still

made

daily use of

the top of the hill at

by Indians

arriving

Karmenka, there once

stood Huaca-puncu, the "Holy Gate," the first shrine an Indian found on his journey northward. "One made sacrifices here,"
ct
wrote Cieza, so that the Inca road would not collapse or be
destroyed." "We found beautifully cut stones taken from this
shrine embedded in the Church of Santa Ana which now occupies
the former

of

site

this sacred place that

once guarded the Royal

Road.

We leisurely followed the road northward. Tracing its course was

putting an anagram together. Located on the west side
of the narrow valley, the old road crossed the modern highway at
a little like

times and lost

Then, where the highway curved to

make a gradient, the Inca road would emerge again and could be
followed, measured and studied, until it entered the environs of a

where

village,

we

followed

it

its

identity.

would again disappear. So with varying

until we came to the swamps.

it

Fifteen miles north of

Cuzco

lies

Incas in the fourteenth century

which

still is

used.

More than

a wide-spreading quagmire.

long causeway
meter above the flooded lowland

twenty- four feet wide and eight miles long,

triumphs of Inca engineering. Traversed by all

came from Cuzco,

scribed: "a great

The

across this,

built a

plains,

it

success

it

was one of the

who

entered or

has, through the centuries, often been de-

swamp which could only be crossed with

93

difficulty,

Highway
had the Inca not built
both

At

of the Sun

wide paved causeway

with walls on

firm that they will last a long time."

the northern end of all this, we came to Zurite. Here on the

sides so

of the mountain were the long parallel walls of agricultural

terraces ascending the sides of the Andes like a gigantic flight of
sides

and here we looked for Xaqui-Xahuana, the lost city of

which all the conquistadores spoke, that place which one of the
steps,

Inca Kings, referring to

his flight

from the penetrating cold of

Cuzco, had called

"my refuge."
Zurite
of
dated only from 1570, the site having been
village
given to one of the Spanish conquerors as his fief, and he had, as
was then the practice, torn down the ancient buildings and utilized
The

The modern market, used now by the Indians who still,

in ancient dress, come down from the hills, was located in front of
a large rnoldering church. Since we could see that the church was
constructed of the ancient stonework, we begged its sacristan to
open the place for us. As he fumbled with the enormous lock, we
the stone.

were surrounded by hordes of boys shouting for the Peruvian equivalent of baksheesh. Once inside the church, the light from our
torches revealed crumbling

mud

walls

hung with huge

canvases

of paintings which had come from the eighteenth-century Indian ateliers of Cuzco and were in marked contrast to the moldering walls broken by Nature's tremors and man's neglect. Nothing
here gave us a clue to the ancient city we sought until we reached
the richly wrought altar of chased silver fashioned in eighteenth-

century baroque
silver flowers

style.

The

date was 1770.

and cherubs we found

Hanging here among the

a likeness of the donor, El

Cacique D. Juan Quayna Sucnu, attired in flowing cape^ knee

At one side was his younger son

breeches and silver-buckled shoes.

wearing the long surcoat of the period. Facing him on the other
side was his wife at prayer. Behind her stood another son. The leg-

end above

this read:

DONA

ISABEL ESTRADA

94

CON su HIJO ANDRES

Cuzco

the Four Quarters of the

GUANA-SUCNU. The Quayna-Sucnu

World

family, according to the sac-

had been owners of the Zurite valley but time

and here
he spread out his crippled hands to suggest the cupidity of man
ristan,

had robbed them of

near by,

Learning that their descendants

wrinkled palm with a piece of

us in check until an old

man

it.

still

lived

we crossed his
silver and
him
out
church
of
the
and
across
fields
following
planted in corn
and wheat, we came to a small house of sun-baked adobe. Dogs held
appeared at the door. Shading his eyes
from the bright sun, he begged our business in a quavering voice.
and,
Hearing it, he said, "You stand on it
Xaqui-Xahuana"

somewhat puzzled as to why foreigners should come to ask about

that which time had entombed, he led us up a hill trail along which
we saw those characteristic stone walls, always the first evidence of
former Inca occupation. From the top we looked down, and there
before us were the ruins of the "Lost City/ built around a plaza
5

where once large buildings fanned out to form

mer pleasure resort of Inca nobles had been the

a lunette.
last stop

This for-

before the

wayfarer on the Royal Road had crossed the Ant a swamps over the
our
giant stone causeway on the way to Cuzco. "This valley,
chroniclers had written, "once contained sumptuous buildings for
3'

recreation to

which the

for their diversion," and

and many people from Cuzco came

now we were looking at all that was left

lords

of these same "sumptuous buildings." While Silvia made a sketch

map of the ruin, I found numerous pottery fragments, the finest
we had seen in the Cuzco area.

These plains had seen much history. Here, early in their existence
as a nation, the Incas were brought to the edge of defeat by the
Chincha Nation's tribe called the Chancas. Finally victorious, the
Incas had their enemies* bodies skinned and stuffed in such lifelike

human form was made to appear in many posiSome of them," averred a Spaniard who saw them, "had stom-

attitudes "that the

tions.

95

Highway of

Sun

the

achs formed like drums on which they appeared to be playing; othwere set up with flutes in their mouths." The Incas had built a

ers

houselike

tomb

in

which these horrid

There they remained for two hundred

entered Cuzco.

Our

battle trophies

were kept.

years, or until the Spaniards

old guide led us back to his house and there showed us some

"ancient things," Inca fragments of stone and vases, hand-wrought

nails, Spanish coins which dated from the times of Charles V, a
beautifully etched silver partisan, a cruel-tipped lance and a sword
handle, a rusty encrusted sword blade; and then, and most curious

of

all,

it,

which bore

a silver

ornament with

a unicorn's

head crudely stenciled on

a bit of sixteenth-century Spanish doggerel,

ending

."
"And this belongs to Francisco de Carbajal
Those who have read the Conquest of Peru will recall that witty
cutthroat, Francisco de Carbajal, who, when close to eighty years of

with:

age,

had come to Peru to become Gonzalo

Pizarro's Captain

Gen-

during his bid for the empire of Peru. Our old man had found
memento while plowing the same battlefield on which, in 1 548,
Carbajal had met his death. Never was Marius or any Roman general

this

for "in every phase ... he

the
trees wherefrom he hung his vicshowed himself a past master;
tims, from Quito to Potosi, bear witness to it," wrote Cieza.
eral

Carbajal's equal in

cruelty,

was during the civil war which was fought all over the Andes
from Potosi to Quito that Carbajal peopled the trees with the bodIt

of his enemies and so earned the sobriquet, "Demon of the Andes." At the end, Carbajal led his men out to Xaquixaguana to do
battle with the King's. Before the battle was joined Carbajal's men
ies

began to

desert,

captured by his
their peace

and before he himself could take to

own

troops,

with the

who

victors.

his heels,

he was

hoped, with such a prize, to make

roundly abused as he was

He was

taken back to the Viceroy's camp; the soldiers would have had his
head had another not stayed their hands.

Cuzco
"To whom,"
this

the

Four Quarters of the World

said Carbajal in

haughty

jest,

"am

indebted for

protection?"

"Do you not know me?" asked his would-be protector. "You have
pursued me for five thousand leagues through the Andes all these
years."

"I crave your pardon," retorted Carbajal. "It is so long since I

have seen anything but your fleeting ass that I have fully forgotten

your face."

On

his

eighty-fourth birthday Carbajal was led out to

be beheaded. His executioner, a

"Treat me, dear

would do the other."

ter his body.

tailor

had been instructed to quarbrother," Carbajal said, "as one

tailor,

little

Shortly the four pieces of the body that had been Carbajal were
hung in chains at the four entrances of the Royal Roads into Cuzco.

97

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

C/UR SEARCH

which

for the ancient road

led to the Anti-suyu sec-

tion, the eastern part of the Inca

sac.

The

Incas, as I

have

Empire, began in the ruins of Pistressed, called each of their four great

roads after the region or suyu that

was

a vast

it

traversed.

*e

The Anti" quarter

and variegated section of their world which included the

and the high forested mountains east of Cuzco. I

limitless jungle

had one day walked along that

that part of the city once

delight found, in talking to

Cuzco beginning at
Window," and to my

east road out of

known

the "Salt

as

some of the natives living in the shadow

of San Bias church, that they had actual knowledge of the road and
that the one still used by the natives coming from the valley to the
east

was in fact the ancient one. With an elderly

man

as

my

guide,

followed a llama caravan out over the stone-laid highway. The

road, beaten hollow by llama treads, led over the hills above Cuzco,
I

passed through

By

many

little villages

and made

the time I returned a few days later

way toward Pisac.

from my trek, I had mapped
its

out the program for our first assault on one of the "directions" of
the Empire. We were to go in full force and would begin with the
eastern route. For here, somewhere along these little-known roads,

lay the lost fortress of Vilcabamba.

The

way

valley of the Vilcanota

circles

down from

is

the high

a delight.
hills

into a

The

vehicular dirt high-

warm

fertile area

where

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

held to an even course by stone embankments raised
The greensward of the planted valley lies between a
double array of mountains which rise to such heights that they are
snow-draped the year around. The village of Pisac lies on the east
bank of the river under the shadow of the ruin-studded mountain

the river

is still

centuries ago.

of the same name. Agricultural terraces,

rise to a

hung on

thousand feet high over the valley.

the edge of

From

its

cliffs,

situation

it

seemed apparent that Pisac 's ancient fortress must have guarded the
valley that led to the jungles perched atop of the oval-shaped
tain.

Moreover

realm. It

and

is

is

an indication of

its size is

five times larger in extent

an amazing complex of

its

moun-

importance in the Inca

than any other ruin in Peru

forts, tunnels, walls, roads, agricul-

tural terraces.

We

our vehicles in the

put our gear upon the

backs of sturdy-legged Indians hired for the purpose and then in
force started up the mountain. In the hot sun we climbed up terleft

little village,

races like a gigantic flight of steps which, following the contours of

the precipices, led us on to the heights through long parallel walls

of undressed stone.
fenders, a

Had

these been determinedly held

by the

de-

few Indians well placed here might well have stayed

whole army.
That Pisac had been

built as a sanctuary for the inhabitants of

the valley was substantiated by the evidences of its many terraces

once planted with potatoes, corn, peppers, quinua, in ample supply
to sustain the besieged.

On the

crest of the hill,

crowning the sum-

mit of the pucara and approached by a magnificent flight of steps

and stone road, is a gigantic gnomon carved out of the living rock.
It

is

was

or better, was

"shaped something like a dial. In

a projection designed to

throw

its

center

shadow on the rounded red-

dish-gray rock. This was Inti-huatana, or Hitching-Place-of-theSun. Roughly circular, eighteen feet in diameter, the living rock

was further cut out

to hold the fitted stones

99

which had been used

Highway of

the

Sun

The entrance to it was through a single stone door

and encircling the sacred rock curved marvelously wrought walls
of stones fitted in perfect succession. The whole site was actually
in the sanctuary.

an outcropping of granite into which the Inca masons anchored

the base of the fortress itself, a fine example of that principle of
which Frank Lloyd Wright says: "It is the nature of an organic
building to grow from its site, come out of the ground into the
light."

We stayed here a week, sleeping among the ruins at night and in

We found the main

the day tracing out the patterns of the roads.

road that led through the valley, and we took time to study the engineering methods used in tunneling through the living rock. For
a detailed inspection of the three-mile long escarpment,

crowded

with the remains of redoubts, fortresses, control gateways and

hanging gardens, we could with advantage have lengthened our
stay into months.

As

it

was we went on down into the Urubamba

valley, the

"Plain of the Spider," following the traces of our Anti road. This

again was a

warm and

gentle valley, almost desert in

its

summer

with the Scotch broom's yellow flowers, filling the

with a penetrating mimos alike perfume. Two thousand feet

heat, brilliant
air

lower than Cuzco, the valley is framed by abruptly rising rock

walls which climb until they become glaciers sixteen thousand feet

from snowy
heights through every color gradation, through every clime from
glacier to pnna, from puna to bare rock, and on down the various
high, eternally

crowned in snow. Here the eye

travels

climatic grades to the gentle flower-filled valley.

At Yucay we came

to a spot

which was

little

of ruined terraces, Inca works which time and

more than

mass

man with equal vigor

have destroyed. Alongside the road were rows of adobe houses,

built one on top of another in tenement style. The rude-limbed
cbolos

who

frequent this gentle land had only the poorest mar-

IOO

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

kets

and were

afflicted

with

all

of rheums.

sorts

It

seemed

hardly possible that so beautiful a valley could have suffered such

deterioration.

From

the plaza

we were

directed to the edge of the green

stood a two-storied house of sun-dried brick which

without distinction had

Inca architecture.

As we

it

not been for

sat

its

down in front

where

would have been

beautiful stone door of

of

it

to eat our luncheon,

remembered that it was here in 1548 that one of the last Incas
was poisoned by one of his own clan because it was feared that he
I

might reveal to the Spaniards the whereabouts of Vilcabamba, the

legendary city hidden somewhere in the vast emptiness of moun-

One of
we could

tains close by.

to locate if

the primary reasons for our presence here was

the skein of roads which would lead, so our

pre-Expedition research had indicated, to this mysterious sanctuary. At this point we could do no more than follow the advice the

King of Hearts gave Alice: "Begin

come to the end, and then stop."

at the beginning,

go until you

In 1535, save for unorganized resistance, the whole of the Inca

Empire had fallen to the Spaniards. It was then that Francisco Pizarro decided to select a puppet Inca and so rule the defeated realm
through him. For this purpose he chose a young noble, a direct de-

scendant of the

last great Inca,

who

Manco Capac II.

Indian resistance. The

called himself

For some time there were no active signs of

people, stunned by the suddenness of events, had not yet been able
to

comprehend the

disaster that

the uprooting: Indians were

had befallen the empire. Then came

marched

dray animals to carry

the impedimenta of conquest; the Spaniards took over the communal lands, sending the men in droves to the mines; women were
off as

taken from their homes and from the Sun Temples. The conquerors were setting off in all directions with the captive Indians as

IOI

Highway of
cargo-bearers, to explore

mand
many

more

the

lands.

Sun

One army under

the

com-

of Almagro the Blinkard set off for far-distant Chile taking

of the able-bodied troops with him; others went into the for-

ests to the east leaving

young Inca by

Guzco

ill-defended. It

a clever ruse eluded the

watch

was then that the

set

on him and

dis-

appeared.
On the morning of April 10, 1536, four huge and well-disciplined native armies converged on Cuzco from the four directions.

Within

a day, the city

was

sealed off

and put under tight

siege.

The

Indians had learned quickly. They dug pits with sharpened stakes
to prevent the Spaniards' use of their cavalry, they burned the

houses on the outskirts and slowly forced the Spaniards and their
Indian mercenaries into the center of the city. By the seventh day,
the position of the Spaniards looked hopeless. There remained only
one hundred and thirty-six of them alive, many of whom were

wounded. There were

dians.

The

revolt

fifty horses left

and two thousand Cafiari In-

even Lima on the coast was be-

was general

sieged.

The

siege of

Cuzco went on month upon month. Manco Capac

forced captured Spaniards into making powder for his forces; the
Indians learned to fire guns; they captured horses; they made repeated mass attacks. Then the Spaniards found a fatal flaw in the
Indians* war-techniques: the great attacks were launched only at

the appearance of the new moon or once every twenty days. After
that the attacks ceased and the Spaniards could move with impunity. Also the Indian warriors were actually little more than an
agrarian militia, farmers

who must

to harvest. So the Spanish horse

constantly disband to plant and

occasional forays out of

made

Cuzco, burning the crops, killing off the women who were essential
as food preparers. Those Indians caught in battle had their hands
cut off. It was a devastating strategy and suddenly, on the morning
of the sixteenth of February, 1537, the sixteen-month-old siege was
I

O2

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

lifted

and the

Many

flight.

besiegers

melted away. Manco Capac was

of the Indian nobles fled with him.

now

in

holding

action was fought at Ollantay-tambo, a great fortress down the

Urubamba River, but in spite of it the Spaniards broke the resistance, capturing

Yet the main

and

many

of the nobles including the Inca's small son.

King with thousands of his followers

prize, the Inca

large herds of llamas loaded

with ancestral mummies and gold

the whole variegated paraphernalia of empire

slipped
take refuge in the fortress-city of distant Vilcabamba.

away

to

No matter how desperately

they tried in the years that followed,

the Spaniards never located precisely the whereabouts of this sanctuary.

The

cordillera of

eastern Andes.

which

Vilcabamba

Many

the culminating range of the

snow-covered peaks rise out of this massif
is

dominated by the twenty-thousand-foot-high Salcantay,

cc
the Savage Mountain/* the mightiest of all the great peaks that
jut out of the range lying almost in the geological shadow of the
is

western border of the Amazon.

The whole

marked by towering mountains, by plains and

cascading streams heading for the Amazon. Precipitous cliffs of
granite and limestone mark a land noted for its uninhabitableness.

To

area

is

the northwest are high plateaus lying between the

Apurimac

River and the jungle-bound Pampaconas River, high areas where

corn and potatoes can be grown and where there is forage for

At

llamas.

the edge of the

Amazon were

bringing forest products to balance, as

heights.

And

here, not

more than three

the friendly jungle-allies,

were, the things of the

it

days' distant

from Cuzco, was Vilcabamba where Manco Capac

which was to endure for fifty years.
Inca state

by
set

secret

ways

his

neo-

up

began in 1537. Spaniards on the King's business were

waylaid, their cargo stolen; those captured were carried alive into

The

raids

103

Highway of
the fastnesses and put to

work

the

Snn

for the Inca. These included a bar-

all of whom were forced

powdermaker,
to turn out war material for the Inca's growing army. The attacks
increased with such intensity that Francisco Pizarro, now a Mar-

a blacksmith,

ber-surgeon, a

quis and Captain General, was eventually forced to build a garrison

near to the point of attack. This he did at Huamanga, better known
as Avacucho. Then, according to an ancient account, "Pizarro nom-

inated a captain to defeat the Inca and make the roads safe/* This
captain, seduced by the fiction that one Spaniard was worth one

hundred Indians, set

men and shield men"

The

with "five arquebusers, seven cross-bowto surprise and capture the Inca.
off

with

and

was

rugged that the

soldiers by the time they had come upon the Indians were tired and
worn. The Inca Lord himself, mounted "on one of the four horses
terrible land

its rise

fall

so

he possessed" with lance in hand, headed the surprise attack. Only

six Spaniards escaped alive. That night, the severed heads were

thrown into the garrison village of Huamanga.

The Indians, safe in an inviolable stronghold, attacked the Spaniards at will. Now even those Indian nobles who had at first collaborated with the Spaniards were deserting to the new "kingdom."
In 1542 six renegade Spaniards whose lives were forfeit sought sanctuary in the fortress. In 1544 the Viceroy, seeking to end the grow-

ing power of Manco Capac, published the "New Laws" abolishing

the slavery of the Indians and promising the return of their lands.

At

the same time he offered the six Spaniards a full pardon if they
could persuade the Inca to accept the King's pleasure, come out of

and put an end to the revolt. The peace overtures did not get much beyond an exchange of notes. One evening
in a game of bowls an argument grew out of the play, and one
his

mountain

fastness

Spanish hothead crowned the Inca with a bowling ball, killing him
instantly. That ended not only the Inca but the peace overtures
and, naturally, the lives of the six Spaniards.

104

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

The Peruvians were determined

to

resist.

When Manco

Capac's

was poisoned and so another

of the royal blood,Tupac Amaru, became the Inca and with him the
new empire grew in power. All attempts by the enemy to reach this
mysterious Vilcabamba had failed, all military expeditions were
defeated and so, in a desperate move on the twentieth of July,
successor suggested a compromise, he

1571, the "most puissant Lord, Don Francisco de Toledo, Viceroy

of these kingdoms of Peru" did send for the Friar Gabriel de Oviedo
of Cuzco to consult with him as to how to carry out the King's wish
that the Inca, now retired in the province of Vilcabamba, be per-

suaded to come out in peace

Now, pursuing
tions

and

treaties

his mission,

and

armed with

a guidance for negotia-

a Bull of Dispensation, Friar Gabriel

went

north from Cuzco to the Abancay River, crossed over the suspension bridge, and so came to the rest house of Cocha-Cajas and "arrived at the station of

Huampu

two days journey from the

province of Vilcabamba."

The

drift of

Vilcabamba

my

now

speculations about the existence of this fabled

we

could approximate the region

where this mysterious last capital of the Incas lay, we could follow
the Inca roads into it. Vilcabamba was not as much our concern as
is

apparent. If

the network of roads leading into it. The question of where Vilcabamba lay, then, might be resolved by a close study of the itin-

erary of Friar Gabriel.

Apurimac River sixty miles

northeast of Cuzco, was the sallyport of the Inca raids on the Royal
Road. A suspension bridge had hung there, but the Friar found that

Huampu,

it

a small village near to the

had been cut and the rope strands of the bridge lay in the water.
was no way of his crossing the swift current to the

Since there

other side where he could resume his journey

he returned to Cuzco to

by the nearest route,

approach the region by the only other
105

Highway of
route known,

were

now

the

Snn

by way of the Urubamba, the same route which we

taking. So journeying, the Friar soon

came to the

fortress

of Ollantay-tambo, lying a few miles downstream from Yucay,

and there gained the pass of Panti-calla. He crossed the great suspension bridge that hung across the Urubamba River and, after
about three days' march into the Vilcabamba Range, he came to the

headwaters of the Pampaconas River where he made contact with

Yet, although we do know that Friar Gabriel was met at

.the Inca.

-some point near the fortress by the Inca and his mountain warriors,
neither he nor any white man after him ever visited or described

Vilcabamba, the

last capital

of the Incas.

Hiram Bingham, the American historian and one-time Senator

from Connecticut who discovered Machu Picchu in 1911, did not
we know now, find this Vilcabamba, as he believed. He was, it is
y

and in the course of his explorations in the

of
the
periphery
region he did find numerous ruined sites including
those of Machu Picchu. It is not to be wondered at that the sight of
true, searching for it

this

unknown

stone-built city lying in an almost perfect state of

preservation atop the verdure-crowned mountains above the Urubamba led him to believe that he had indeed stumbled onto Vil-

cabamba.

While ferreting out the known parts of the Inca road which led
this valley of the Urubamba, our program for research in
this section of the Anti had gradually taken on form. Now we were

down

ready for action. Thus far we had found and traced the Anti-road,
the main Inca highway to the jungles. We had stopped when we

approached the tangled montafia that lay east of Cuzco past the
fortress of Pisac. From now on we would concern ourselves with
the vast area of roads and ruins that lay in the escarpment of the

massif of Vilcabamba*

106

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

The Urubamba River

Cuzco, one of the myriad headwaters of the Amazon, over the centuries has cut through the heartland of this Vilcabamba Range. In the lower courses of the river,
east of

rise abruptly and the warm jungle-air currents

the river have so modified the harsh climate that trees,

the canyon walls

wafting up

wood

plants and even, at times, lush verdure cap the sharply in-

clined rock walls.

On

the edge of this gorge and for sixty miles in

the direction of the jungle, the Inca built his hanging cities. The
deep gorge was terraced here as at Pisac with long parallel walls of

undressed stones following the contours of the mountains. On

these, dwellings were built to house the inhabitants. Machu Picchu
is

cities, but each year others are being

of these must have been bound together

the greatest of these stone

found.

by

We knew

roads

that

all

perhaps a single road. This

we proposed

There was no vehicular road beyond

to find.

a certain point

and

so

we

decided to load our trucks onto a flatcar belonging to the CuzcoSanta Railway which operated to the end of the Urubamba Gorge.

The Expedition was

to separate into

two

sections.

Three of us

would seek out the roads which bound

Silvia, Charles and myself
the "hanging cities" together and arrive, we hoped, by this passage
overland at Machu Picchu. The other contingent
Lawrence,
were to
Cuzceno named Pepe de Pancorvo
the
of
at
the
Uruthe
rail
terminus
end
to
Wagon
bamba Gorge and from that point seek to penetrate the mountain
fastness to see if they could find traces of Inca roads that might
lead to Vilcabamba. Later, after we had visited Machu Picchu, we
would cut behind the valley and seek to find if it was joined by

Henrik Blohm and

take the Power

road to the region of Vilcabamba. Such was our program.

To Henrik's question as to whether I thought we could one day
find the roads that led to the sanctuary I answered that given time

thought we could. Certainly if the place were found, there would

be ample evidence of its identity. Thousands of Indians had once
I

107

Highway of
lived there

the

and with them into

mummies

this

of their ancestors.

the

Sun

sanctuary had gone gold and

Much,

was

certain,

still

survived.

However, the main object of our search was not Vilcabamba itbut the skein of roads that had been built into this region. We

self

had

quaint eighteenth-century

map

that gave us detailed direc-

tions, and other maps which showed a network of roads and the
remains of an Inca bridge that led into Vilcabamba. The time had

now come

for testing our research.

After the fourth day of travel Silvia, Charles and I had

mules, since there was no footing for them, to fight our

our

left

way on

foot along a road overhanging the gorge of Urubamba. "We had

passed through the ruins of several spectacularly located sites and
always there was the road, a great folkway six feet wide that moved

along the edge of the canyon. This superb example of engineering

with its stone paving blocks and its retaining walls of dry masonry
literally

hung on

the edge of a shifting and a terrifying abyss.

As

clung to an overhanging branch to swing around a tumbled mass

blocking the free-flowing road and bent back to lend Silvia a hand,
I wondered just why the Incas had bothered to build these hanging
I

cities.

The

labor of constructing

them must have involved thou-

sands of Indians for an extended length of time.

these ruins perched

How

then explain

midway between the jungle and the clouds?

On

the fifth day out we came upon Ccuri-huayrachina ("the

where
the gold is blown") a small ruin so covered with trees
place
,

that the outlines of the buildings could hardly be discerned.

spot, the road curved to follow the contour of the massif.

end, gleaming whitely and

Machu

little

more than

five miles

At

And

this

at its

away, was

Picchu.

a dangerous operation. A landslide, started

an
earth-tremor centuries ago, had loosened the upper
perhaps by

Walking was now

108

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

part of the mountain and in its falling had dragged away a mile or
more of the stone roadway, forcing us to crawl in places from one
stone to the other, holding on to some rough-barked plant until a

Our Indian

foothold was secured.

the loose stones with

guides walked carelessly across

what I felt was

them there was

a too reckless

confidence in

drop of two thousand feet.

Swinging their machetes, they cleared the first of the entangling
bush. Ahead of us, the sheer cliff on which the road had been once
the Deity

fixed

for below

was destroyed and the intervening space yawned out wildly

a narrow line of remaining stone which had marked the

and only

road could be seen. Where the road

itself

once ran was a

pile

of dis-

arranged rock.

Three hours
stretch of the

later,

the bad section crossed,

highway

stairway, entered the formal gateway to

The
lie

ruins of

we

gained a beautiful

and, after descending a long

Machu Picchu

in a topographical saddle

Huayna Picchu (new). In

Machu

no one knows

monumental

Picchu.

its

original

name

between the peaks of Machu (old) and

complex of terraces, gabled stone houses, temples, sacred plazas and residence compounds,
and the famous Inti-huatana sundials. In its magnificent position,
this saddle

is

Machu Picchu is the climax of a series of the terraced cities along

the Urubamba Gorge. Essentially a fortified city, its strongly
constructed houses were most probably defense units. There was

but one gate into the city, which, like most pucaras, was a selfsustaining unit whose terraces, following the contours of the mounwere planted to sustain its peoThere were buildings of polished and well-fitted granite ashlars

tains like a gigantic flight of steps,

ple.

presumably designed for

chieftains, a large place for the

Sun Vir-

gins, cruder clan-houses for the common people, barracks for soldiers, and even a prison. All the buildings had once been thatched

109

Highway of

the

Sun

with straw while the interiors were Spartan in their severity. The
Indian slept on the ground on a woolen poncho; and with the usual
tapestry hung over the door to keep out the night breezes, the
three-legged pots placed over the fire for cooking, a brazier for

warming
lived in

the house, and a few decorations, the house of one

Machu Picchu was

who

complete.

The Vilcabamba contingent of the Expedition was already on

the scene. Exhausted and tired from the long climb, we arrived to
discover them comfortably installed in large huts, a bequest from a
film company which some months before had been here to film a
story as fantastic as it was improbable. The huts, however, were
wonderfully useful. Machu Picchu has been so often visited and so
completely described by others that we had no great reason for
wanting to cover again what was now familiar ground. Although
it was of no mystical import
But we did hope to find if there had been, as was
stated by Hiram Bingham, a direct connection between Machu
Picchu and the vast geographical unknown to the north, where
Vilcabamba was reported to lie.

fantastically situated in the mountains,

to the Incas.

We

climbed the one-thousand-foot peak of

Huayna Picchu on

our third day at the ruins. However, the steps which the Inca engineers had carved into the living rock have now been completely
cleared, so that any real alpinist would regard it as no more than a
mild exercise. Within an hour we were sitting on its top, looking
down on the ruins
and then on to the horizon ringed with snow-

covered peaks. Below us was a fearful gorge and in the opposite direction was the terrifying range the Spaniard called "El Senorio de

Vilcabamba." Somewhere beyond or perhaps in that mass of mountain and foliage and clouds was lost Vilcabamba.

was obvious, from this height, that Machu Picchu could not
have been an inaccessible fortress. Indeed a determined enemy would
It

no

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

have found

its conquest no
great problem. Charles had elected to
follow the lone conduit pipe which conducted the water to the city
up the precipitous slopes to its source. "With a flume only three

would not have carried, in the dry season,

supply more than a hundred people. A hostile army

inches in diameter, this

enough water

to

could have easily disrupted the water supply, which would have necessitated a two-thousand-foot descent from the fortress to the
river for water. This could

not, as

mean only one

Hiram Bingham would have

where thousands of

fierce warriors

it,

thing.

Machu Picchu was

the fortress of Vilcabamba

had for years eluded the Span-

and had organized a new empire.

Carefully we made our plans. Henrik with Lawrence would leave

iard

on the morrow

to drive the Power Wagon with all the needed equipment for the search down the roadway to Huadquina. There they
would be met by Pepe de Pancorvo, our Cuzceno friend. A de-

scendant of one of the founders of Cuzco, Pepe lived in a large hacienda on the Bio Vilcabamba which had its origin in that mysterious region where lay the last city of the Incas. His belief in the
existence of Vilcabamba was unshakable. The rest of us would wait
their return at
off

Machu Picchu and explore

it

the while, before riding

on our own phase of the exploration.

Three weeks later, in the crisp night air we heard, above the vibrant music of the night cicadas, the high whine of the Dodge
Power Wagon toiling up the hills of the Huadquina hacienda. Even
before the light showed along the last stretch of the road we were
out to meet them, after first securing the fierce dogs that guarded
had had no certain
the place. Our associates were long overdue.

We

and, having finished our own survey of the regions

about Machu Picchu, we had been invited to stay at the old eighteenth-century sugar hacienda which lies at the edge of the Uru-

word of them

III

Highway of

the

Sun

bamba Gorge close to Machu Picchu and in direct line with

valley that we intended to follow when we left to explore

the
the

regions between our present stopping place and the Vilcabamba

Range.

The Power Wagon was caked with mud, its bright red paint
by the tropical sun, the canvas caravan top cut into shreds.
Richmond Lawrence, always frail, had thinned to a mere wisp and
bleached

who had

reached his majority on this trek, had lost all his

youthful bounce. All we could get from them, as they shuffled off
toward the beds we had prepared for them, was that they had

Henrik,

found "something." In the next days we learned what that '"something" was:

HUADQUINA, PERU, SEPTEMBER 19: THE DISCOVERY BY THE

AN INCA STONE ROAD LEADING THROUGH THE
JUNGLES OF VILCABAMBA, AND OF AN UNREPORTED RUINED
INCA VILLAGE, HAS REOPENED THE OLD MYSTERY OF MACHU
PICCHU. AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS OF EXPLORATION IN THE
HIGHLAND JUNGLES BORDERING THE VILCABAMBA RIVER,
HENRIK BLOHM, HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE, AND RICHMOND
LAWRENCE, THE CINEMATOGRAPHER OF THE EXPEDITION,
ALONG WITH UNITED STATES-EDUCATED PEPE DE PANCORVO,
RETURNED TO REPORT THE DISCOVERY OF THE RUINS OF PUNCUYOC AND A SIXTEEN-FOOT- WIDE INCA ROAD THAT RAN INTO
THE JUNGLES IN WHAT MAY WELL BE THE DIRECTION TO THE
LOST CITY OF VILCABAMBA.
EXPEDITION OF

Our

ancient

map which showed

charted rivers and mountains

with curious jangling Quechua names could now be given credence.

We felt certain that, locked within this montana and accessible, if
one could give the time to find

it,

was Vilcabamba,

last capital

of

the Incas.

Henrik and Lawrence, following the trail Bingham had taken in

1912, had found, as we had hoped, that Inca roads ran all through

112

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

the region. There was no doubting their Inca origin. Lack of time

had prevented them from following a large one running due west
which would have taken them, so they learned later, to the ruin
of Choque-quirao. The one they had followed northeast led to
Choque-safra and from there
to the mountains.

fragments told
guide book.

as

Along

much

these,

as if

network of roads had spread over

stone retaining walls and pottery

the departed Incas had left behind a

It was after they had worked their way back to the Vilcabamba
River and picked up an old Indian as a guide that they discovered
Puncuyoc. All day they had climbed up and up. At night they slept
on a narrow ledge. The next day they went through large trees

covered with gray-green moss which gave the foliage a bearded and
venerable look. In the afternoon they came across the first traces of
a stone road, the continuing flight of

meters wide.
the

On the

third day,

13

an Inca staircase road eight

,000 feet high in hills terraced to

very top where worked-limestone ruins

appeared ghostly
thick
of
the
ruins
found
verdure, they
Puncuyoc in a sadthrough
dle at the crest.

Henrik made showed an unusual type of Inca

Built upon a raised platform perforated with large

The drawing
structure.

that

niches and stone roof -pegs, there was a thirty-two-foot-long building of two stories, a great rarity in Andean construction. It had a

gabled roof and a doorway with two windows on each side. Although the techniques were Inca, the handling of the architecture
a
was Spanish-inspired. The discovery of some Spanish artifacts
of
iron
inbutton, broken horseshoes and nails and other pieces

Inca artifacts indicated that at one time Spaniards had lived there, probably Spanish soldiers who willingly or

termixed with

late

unwillingly had been part of the secret Inca resistance groups.

These ruins could only be the ramparts of the main fortress-city of
Vilcabamba. Pepe de Pancorvo would not turn back at this point,

113

Highway of

the

Sun

and since Dick and Henrik could not go on with him because of our
time schedule, Pepe was given the necessary equipment and was last
seen making off on muleback in search of the lost city.

The next morning, with

oning to

us, Silvia,

the snow-clad beacon of Salcantay beck-

Charles and

I said

our farewells to the two just-

returned members of the Expedition. We were going on by mule to

cut behind the range, hoping to discover the passage of the Inca

and would

rejoin the others at the

Apurimac Canyon. They

were to gather up the trucks, go back to Cuzco, gather up the Expedition gear and meet us at this river. That arranged, we mounted,
crossed a dubious suspension bridge, found the mule path and were

roads,

soon swallowed up in an ocean of sugar cane.

Within three hours of upward riding through hills covered with
ground orchids and wild strawberries we reached the bridge of
Charqui-sactayoc, We were now directly back of Machu Picchu
and so, keeping the river to our left, we went forward.

The valley later in the day became a deep V at the bottom of

which ran the river. Along its banks we saw the thin ribbon of the
road. The "air-temper" had become so tropical that, instead of
pressing along to the night station which we had set as a goal, we
went slowly, drinking in the scene. We had spent a long time in
the treeless

puna without seeing flowering

plants.

Now, without

dis-

mounting and with only a stretch of arm, I could pluck the wild
strawberries that grew in profusion on the road. Silvia gathered
pink-white begonias and blue-flowered lupines which grew on the
shaded banks and, putting them in the halter of her mule, she soon
transformed that recalcitrant beast into a walking flower garden.
Ground orchids soon appeared and above us bamboo climbed in a
delicate lacy pattern.

That night we camped

at the

edge of the gorge close to the cas-

cades of the Salcantay River. Sharing the light of a single gasoline

lamp,

we

read ourselves to sleep

114

Silvia

with

Madame Bovary

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

while

I,

trying to find some similarity between Roman and Inca

and fall and Charles was lost some-

roads, read Gibbon's Decline

where in Prescott's Conquest of Peru. In the moonlight the hoary

head of Salcantay was austerely beautiful.
By the next noontime we had reached an altitude of over two
miles on the highroad junction of Ccolpa-chaca. Below, far below,

we

could

see a rustic

four-logged bridge covered with rock and

earth.

from view on the fourth day. For

a bare and
we rode among inhospitable crags
until we reached another junction
sandstone desolation

Salcantay's peak disappeared

that entire day

horrible

point on the Huay-rac-machay River. On our side, the sun-splashed

side of the canyon, it was all jungle; the other side was bare and as

an old bone. Although we were now twelve thousand feet

high we were still among the flora of the lowland jungles, and imas

dry

mense liana-festooned

we

trees

hung perilously on

the inclined

hills

and

saw the orchids and an occasional begonia. Sudden noise

still

echoed through the thick foliage and we were set on by a raging

torrent of cattle which stampeded by, crashing into the bush, tearing down the thick lianas and loosening a shower of branches. Silvia's

on

mule leaped forward

terrified

and

as

the rampaging steers

came

turned to join the stampede. Somehow I managed to grab

reins and haul her out of the path of the frenzied cattle.

us, it

Silvia's

Then

just as suddenly as it came, it

which comes out of nothing and

of destruction in

its

path.

We

was over,

like a tropical

storm

goes into nothing, leaving a train

stopped briefly to repair the slight

damage. Then we once more began to climb.

Now the tropic influence seemed to give way. Almost instantly at
another rise of ground, we were among alpine flowers, tough-leafed,
brilliantly flowered shrubs

and more of the yellow-flowered brooms

blue lupines. Then another five hundred

again mixed with solitary

feet altitude, and these too abruptly disappeared and

we were

en-

Highway of

the

Sun

veloped by the cold mist and the voids of the naked uplands.

were again on the puna.

There was nothing here but mist and rock

and

cold. It

seemed

hardly possible that people could have lived here. Yet just off the
trail we came on a brilliant swatch of green and a house of sorts, its
thatch covered with green mold out of which rose a plant scorning
the" need for earth.

Dogs

set

up an awful

din.

peered into the house. Several people, hardly distinguishable in

the dark, wandered about in the

scurried about the
sniffed

and

mud

floor.

smoke -haze and small guinea pigs

Charles leaned over

my

shoulder,

said: "Fll sleep outside/'

The late afternoon was already frigid. Our guide brought us

wood and Charles made a fire against a rock. Somewhere hidden in
the mist were the mountains which had loomed up so high on my
map.

looked at

my

would make

altimeter

it

read 13,900 feet. Sleeping in

one of our coldest nights in Peru.

For dinner we had chicken a la Salcantay, and shortly after that,
overcome with an aching weariness, we took to our sleeping bags.
the open

Soon

after, the mist

this

blew away to reveal the

full

moon. Just ahead

of us was Salcantay
seemingly so near that we could touch it. I
could plainly see the solidly packed snow at its top. With the moonlight playing on it, the great peak had a molten sheen and looked, as
te

Then the mist came up like a theatrical

more
snow-mountains, brilliant in their dazdrop-curtain forming
zling white nudity. It was breath-taking. Wrapped snug in my
it

was named,

savage."

double sleeping bag, I watched the unearthly spectacle until the

mist reclaimed the night and the curtain dropped on the magnificent performance.
It was a troubled sleep. All night we were wakened by the noise
of glaciers; a sharp report, like the concussion of heavy artillery,

then the rumbling and crackling of tons of snow; and the ground
would shake as in an earth-tremor. It was a transfigured night.

116

Somewhere, Lost Vilcabamba

The morning sun was

life-giving.

The

cold that had been so in-

dawn had

modified by eight o'clock as the sun charged the

with
earth
promised warmth. It grew even warmer as, mounting
tense at

we moved into the sun's path following icy rills toward the
of
Soiro-cocha. Salcantay was dazzling, reflecting rays of such
pass
fierce intensity that I found that I could not look at it for any

higher,

length without becoming blinded.

for in this rapturous

blood

was

vessels.

Even the mules could

At

then

as

The

blood to get through the

scarcely put one hoof in front

a great effort for the

last

we

by rocks and snow

cheta. Like

effort.

was labor; even one's brain seemed slowed

as if it

of the other.

spoke to each other rarely,

morning every movement was an

very act of breathing

down

We

reached the top

a flat

sward surrounded

and, at the very pinnacle, an enormous apa-

automatons we

one man, we sank

slid off

down on

our mules,

them

set

to graze;

the sparse grass. I took out the

altimeter.

"This
all

managed to gasp
which
in
itself showed the
morning
is official," I

"We are now at

"Which

is,"

up

first

thing

strain induced

had

said

altitude.

by

5200 meters."

calculated Charles with his eyes closed, "seventeen

thousand, one hundred and sixty

Silvia sat

the

at that.

"Why!

feet."

In Europe I'd be perched on top of

Mont Blanc!"
Later,

endowed with new

vigor, I planted the flag of the

can Geographical Society on the highest apacheta in Peru.

B I Q u E spread out in the wind.
flag with the familiar

Ameri-

The blue

We

and
had now,
still there was no evidence of any Inca road that might connect
Machu Picchu with Vilcabamba. We turned toward the Apurimac
so to speak, cut the Salcantay Valley in half

River.

An

old

man, seemingly

met on the road days

as old as

before,

the earth

itself,

whom we

had told us how not to

lose

had

our way.

Highway
"Thou

first will

come

to the Soray.

right. It will lead

Thou

"little

From

he had

child"

it

issues a stream.

Keep it althee into the Hacienda La Estrella."

This stream flows into an aqueduct.

ways on thy

Sun

he called Silvia

Using the familiar them

said,

of the

will see this.

the glacier-topped
giddy from altitude sickness, we neared
it
looked like snow.
milk-white
so
a
stream
Soray. From it flowed
As we rode downward, we saw that it disappeared into an aqueduct.
Still

Had we

not known that

this

had been built in

would have thought it Inca, so well laid was

miles it traveled on through the flume until

this century,

we

its

stonework. For fifty

it

reached the hacienda

which we were bound.

The prospect before us did not look too bright. The village of
our guide, had lost
Soray was still some miles distant and Osvaldo,
for

our food hamper during the encounter with the stampeding cattle.
At the time I had upbraided him for its loss, quite unjustly, I felt
he had
afterwards, for it could have happened to anyone. After that

been unnaturally silent. Until then he had livened up the difficult

way with his merrymaking and, although his humor was often riall gloom. I thought we
bald, it was easy and diverting. Now he was
should press on more quickly, for the shadows that told of cold and
was darkened.
night were already oa us and even now the valley

Many times

on
during that afternoon I cut back and urged Osvaldo

with the mules.

We were now in a valley bound

by high

palisades which,

though

still caught the light of

they threw cold shadows across the road,
the departing sun. I dismounted to adjust my spurs. Silvia and

Charles had ridden ahead; the cargo mules were,

as usual,

behind.

I looked up to see Osvaldo slinking toward me, my rifle in his

hands. I was unarmed
my pistol was in my knapsack, I could
scramble nowhere. As instinctively I put the mule between us, Os-

valdo put a finger to his lips and pointed to the top of the palisade.
number of deer peered down at us. I counted nineteen. Os-

118

Somewhere, Lost "Vilcabamba

valdo handed

ward. Even

me

so,

aimed for the

the

threw

rifle. I

off the safety

and wiggled for-

movement had been enough to set them off. I

one. The bullet caught him in full leap. For an

the

last

instant he hung in mid-air, then as he rolled over and down, Osvaldo was off up the cliff as if 14,000 feet altitude were ground
level.

It

snowed that night but we dined ravenously on

roast venison

and fire-baked potatoes.

was the longest. The land was

and the last
day
caked and dry and the only water we found was the thin trickle
that here and there came down from that aqueduct. Following the
advice of our old man, we had kept always on the right. We were

The

sixth

of snow-covered
unprepared for this dryness. Even in the shadow
where water seemed as- rare as
peaks, we were in a parched region
on the desert coast. The day went on endlessly. We spoke only of
food and water and what we would do about both when we arrived
at

La

Estrella.

Late in the afternoon

we came

to the first

town we had

seen

since we left Huadquina, a small village with a large plaza, and

what at first glance looked like neatly roofed houses. It was the same

the AmerMollepata that was visited eighty-nine years before by

ican explorer, Squier. At the time he was on his way, as were we

that
now, to the Apurimac River and the famous suspension bridge
some days.
hung across the gorge. Like us, he too had ridden for
at nightfall to the village of Mollepata," he wrote. "It is
a collection of wretched huts on a high shelf of the mountain, with

"We came

tumbled-down church,

drunkard governor who

as
post-house, and a priest

keeper of the hovel called a

the governor." The church, at

We inquired here

the

way

least,

to

La
119

is

not

is

also

the

dissolute as

now "tumbled down."

Estrella.

No

one seemed able to

Highway of
help us.
and,

By good luck we

still

keeping

it

the

Sun

again found the aqueduct high in the hills

right, we found that presently waterway

on our

and roadway were running

parallel. Since the

former,

we

suspected,

carried the water supply that ran the mills of the hacienda,

could not,

if

we kept

to

it,

miss our goal. In the distance

brief look at the gorge of the

Apurimac. Across

it,

we

we had

in this vicinity,

had once hung a great Inca bridge, known now to the world as the
"Bridge of San Luis Rey" which up until the middle of the last century was one of the world's longest suspension bridges. In the dark
followed the plunging watercourses downward, short-cutting

we

through the fields toward a spot where lights twinkled among the
trees. We were almost there when out of the dark came the dogs,
but, of one

mind

to get to those large hacienda gates,

we

paid

little

attention to the beasts.

We

pushed open the huge wooden gates and the mules clattered
noisily over the cobblestone courtyard. In the center was a founcherub clasping a swan from whose mouth gushed a
clear stream of cold water. We were drinking deeply, unmindful of
tain, a life-size

our mules

me

who shared the water with us, when

heard a step behind

and, turning, we saw David Samenez, owner of the hacienda, an
I

from Cuzco who had invited us here to see and photograph what was left of the great bridge.
So, convoyed by our host and the great gray mastiffs that guarded
the hacienda, we wearily climbed the steps and entered a charming
old friend

patio planted with orange trees

hung with

ripe fruit.

Too stiff to sit, we took the proffered orange juice standing, and
soon came alive to talk about our coming trip to the nearby ruins
of the bridge now known to millions, the "Bridge of San Luis Rey."

20

VIII
Apurimact the Bridge of the
Great Speaker
1 HE RIVER below looked like a writhing serpent, twisting between
the chasm that was spotted with stands of cactus and blossom-cov-

ered spined trees. Its dull roar, the

well-known sound of the Apuri-

mac, the "Great Speaker/' could be heard even where

thousand feet above

we

stood

two

it.

We were out that day to take the measure of the giant which has
etched out a grand canyon through Peru's heartland and, with David,

had ridden out from the hacienda to the

river's edge.

From

this

perilous position,
peered over the sandstone abutments down
into the vortex of the dreaded river. Water here is everything. If
the rainfall is too little, the whole valley even at this high altitude is

we

burned

crisp

from the heat of the sun; and

surface of the river

and

rises as

high

as

if

too

much

falls,

forty feet within a single

in minutes the raging torrent washes away, as

it

the

day

did in the au-

tumn of 19^3, that which man has spent a lifetime building.

The Apurimac had been the Rubicon of the Incas. For centuries
it held their northward movement in check; but once their technology advanced to the point where they could bridge

hung

a suspension bridge, the greatest in all Peru, across

they pushed their empire northward at a fearful pace.

121

it.

it,

they

At once

Highway of
It
it

was known

as **the

the

Sun

Bridge," and in the minds of the Spaniards

itself. For the early Spaniards, the

was coextensive with Peru

crossing of
are filled

it filled

with

them with

their plaints of

fright and terror. Records and letters

how

the bridge

swung

in the

heavy

deep was the dark abyss, how terrifying the thunder of

the roar of the water as the sounds ricocheted against the vertical

wind,

how

how

grew dim, their hearts

made a traverse of it.
the
and
onto
rope-cables
hung
<c
said one, no small terror that is caused by seeing what men

rock-walls;

their pulses raced, their eyes

faint as they

"It

is,"

must

pass through in these indies."

The longest continuously used bridge in the Americas, millions

of people crossed over it during the six hundred years of its existence. Inca armies of conquest flowed over it; gold for the ransom of
Artahualpa made its one-way passage across it; the Spanish fought
their civil wars over and around it; and for three centuries colo-

moving on the King's business used it. Even in the days of the
South American republics this bridge was the only way of crossing
<e
the Great Speaker." Yet it would have been forever forgotten had
it not been for two Americans. In 1864 George Squier stopped long
nists

journey through the region to give it, by means of

the only authentic illustration ever made of it, a detailed and accurate description; and in 1927 another American, Thornton Wil-

enough in

his

immortalized it in The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

David Samenez had insisted on accompanying us out to the
bridge site. He was after all, he reminded us with much jesting, the
der,

owner of the Bridge of San Luis Rey. Moreover, he had been born
at the hacienda of Bellavista, close to where the ancient road made
its

descent to the bridge.

This hacienda, which drew

its

water from the weeping

on

glaciers of

overlooking the
gorge of the river. It had been developed by David's father, a man
who did not allow his gentle birth to prevent him from working

Soray thirty miles distant, lay

a flat tableland

122

Apurimac: the Bridge of the Great Speaker

with

his hands,

an eccentricity which in the

considered a social crime.

He had

built

up

last

century in Peru was

his hacienda,

had fought

against a dictator, holding off a large contingent of troops near to

site of the old bridge and, in 1935, had served his country

the

we learned as, mounted on our

we made our way over the highway.

briefly as President of Peru. All this

borrowed

horses,

The mountains were beautiful that day

Salcantay, its hoary
head unbelievably high in the cobalt blue of the sky, accompanied
as it were in the heavens by Mount Huamantay with its 5000 feet
of glistening snow.

An undulating greensward planted with lucerne

lined the ancient highway,

by

whose roadbed here had been destroyed

the passing caravans of five centuries.

We moved on beyond to where the earth yawned out widely

and there began the ride downward. It took us some hours to get
to La Blanca, once a way stop on the descent of the Inca road toward the canyon which

led to the great bridge.

But from La Blanca

we could go no

farther. The landslides caused by the rampaging

had
Apurimac
destroyed the rock walls of the canyon. The careful

stone terracing of the Incas, erected as long ago as 1390,

in sections over the abyss, yet there

still

hung

was no longer any way of get-

ting down. Far below our binoculars, following David's pointing

finger, picked out the stone steps that led to the bridge ramparts.

All else was obscured.

To

we would have

reach the bridge,

to cross

and approach it from its northern side.

On our way back we watched the setting sun painting the snowcapped mountains with radiant rainbow colors, and David pointed
to the other side of the river

out to us the snow-covered Yanacocha fifteen miles away. Even as

he pointed it out, my powerful binoculars picked up another river

plunging down the precipitant slopes to join the Apurimac. About

midway between the glacier and the river were the ruins of Choquequirao, the only extensive Inca ruins

known

cabamba Range. They could be reached, he

in this part of the Vil-

said, in a

two

days'

walk

High-way of the Sun

from the

village of Inca-huasi.

Did David know

if

the road led to

Vilcabamba?
<c

My great uncle was one of the first to visit the ruins of Choque-

quirao.

He kept

a journal

which

have in the house.

He

once trav-

beyond these ruins and he insisted that those roads led to Vilcabamba, in just the region which you pointed out to me on the

eled

map/

We knew
way

this to

be true, for

to the ruins in 1912, he

when Hiram Bingham found

his

had seen written on the walls the

name of JOSE BENIGNO SAMENEZ

1861.

One

day, I knew,

should have another try at this fabulous Vilcabamba, but to go

we

now

would be to upset our carefully planned schedule. I felt' at this moment like an earthy Pangloss, always interrupting our wishful
thinking with "Let us cultivate our garden." But if we could not
now go to Vilcabamba, we could at least visit and inspect all that
was left of the Bridge of San Luis Rey.

We

began early in the day, so as to avoid the excessive heat. Before the peaks were lighted by the ascending sun, we gathered our
gear and Indians together and were driven to the left bank on the
northwest side of the Apurimac. Here we began the fifteen-hun-

dred-foot descent into the gorge. Encumbered as we were with cameras and guide-ropes, our descent between the stands of fiercely
spined cactus over loose gravel-sand was a little like the performance of a slow-paced slalom. The heat at the bottom, even in the
morning, was furnace-hot, and the cactus and sharp-spined acacia

accented the desertlike look of the place.

As we walked

along, heat

waves danced before our eyes like St. Elmo's fire, and to add to our
discomfort the flies gave us no rest. They flew in gyrating circles
about our eyes and our

ears,

and the prick of

like a needle's stab.

124

their proboscises

was

Apurimac: the Bridge of the Great Speaker

In this September month we found the Apurimac at its dryest,
the land slashed with canyons like the wadis of Africa. The dryness
was only a temporary state, for the shallow rivulets could rise with
callous ease and within a fierce day of rain be raging torrents. The
of the gorge were a horrible sandstone desolation cloven down
in giant cuts, while below was a wide waste landscape. The gorge
itself rose abruptly to the puna and higher above us, almost as a
sides

mirage, were snow-covered mountains.

"We were not alone in feeling the heat.

Our

Indians felt

it too.

tc
some history how the lnca took the IndiI remembered
ans from the coastal desert of Nasca to transfer them to the river
from
Apurimac; because that river, where the royal highway goes

reading in

to Lima, passes through a region so hot that the upland Incannot live in its heat. So the Inca, bearing this in
dians . .
took Indians from the coastal regions to settle in these hot re-

Cuzco

mind,
has only a small place to setgions even though the River Apurimac
it has very little, for, passing through high and rugged mountains,
tle useful land, and yet the Inca would not have this little bit go to
waste but wished

to be used for gardens so as to be able to

it

enjoy

at least the abundant good fruit which is raised on the banks of

that famous river." But whatever orchards had been here had long

by time, and by the high bourne of this river,

Amazon, which had its source a hundred miles

since been destroyed

a

headwater of the

southwest in the barren mountains of Chumbivilca.

The small biting flies were at their worst when late in the after-

noon we came

to the rock walls that once sustained the bridge.

At

this point the Apurimac cuts into a gorge of solid rock walls which
rise straight

and sheer to considerable height. Confined to

channel, the river roared

its

narrow

tones
disapproval in such deafening

communicate by hand signals.

A tunnel through which the road ran lay above us some one
thousand feet on the sides of the limestone cliff. Henrik notched up
that

we had

to

125

Highway of
his rucksack, played out the rope

the

Sun

and started the climb.

He

found

narrow ledge and secured himself. Dick Lawrence followed, holding

fast to his camera. Next went David and Charles, then Silvia and
last, myself. The Indians found their own way. I could see Henrik
up edging toward an overhanging rock

far

that jutted out above

the river. It was a slow process. Perspiration pouring

attracted the insects and the

flies

which, since

my

down my

face

hands were well

occupied, had their suctorial delight. By the time I reached a spot

where I could rest and wipe my face, blood freely mingled with
the sweat.

One

of the most dangerous aspects of the operation was the

projection which we supposed strong enough

to use as a belay turned out under the pull of our ropes to be virtually as shifty as beach sand. Dick Lawrence, who had taken the

crumbling stone.

greater punishment since he would not relinquish either his tripod

or camera to anyone, was having trouble overhead. There had been
a steady rain of sandstone and now and again a sharp curse, but as
I could see little, I

was unaware until

moments had

those

been.

later

how dangerous some

of

Henrik

to the section of the precipice

led us very expertly up and over

from which the bridge once hung

suspended.

We

now

standing on what had once been one of the most

important of the Inca roads. The celebrated tunnels were ahead of
us and from this vantage place we could see now, and for the first

were

time, the place of the bridge.

The Inca road coming out of Molle-

pata, the last tampu station on the Cuzco side, had been run over
the high-placed pampa to Bellavista near to the edge of the gorge.

From

had zigzagged down the artificially terraced

canyon to the valley fifteen hundred feet below. It had then followed the valley to the gorge, where mounting steps had been cut
that point

it

into the walls of an obelisk-shaped pinnacle. This had been reached

by

narrow inclined path, once ingeniously

126

built

with retaining

Apurimac: the Bridge of the Great Speaker

and from there the road mounted to

walls;

platform cut into

The

thick suspension cables of the bridge on the Cuzco side

had been fastened deep down in the floor of the platform. The cables, suspended from two stone towers, were then carried to the
rock.

other side where,

From

we were

to find later, there was a similar natural

on our

the platform

platform.
twisted upward until

side

of the river, the road

it came to the cliffs which, because they were

of extremely friable sandstone, could not be surmounted. Faced
with this geological fact, the Inca engineers tunneled through them.

The tunnel near which we were now standing was about two hundred yards long and inclined upward as it turned with the cliff.

From here the road climbed

tain"

and then, adapting

went north

to the next

to the heights of the

itself

tampu

naked

ct

idol

moun-

to the topography of the land,

it

station.

Lawrence, having taken up a position on an edge overhanging

the abyss of the river, set up his camera to film us filing into the
blackened mouth of the tunnel. As

it

was impossible to hear over

the reverberations of the ''Great Speaker,

signal,

poured into
ings.

we moved by him and

then

Then

its

darkened throat.

35

we waited

for his

arm

entered the tunnel. Sunlight

first window openLawrence had not followed us.

stopped at the

suddenly realized that

turned back in panic, and not seeing him, flung myself on my

stomach to look down below into the churning river. He was nowhere to be seen and I was about to rise and go for the others
I

At

Apurimac, so wrote one of the conquistamuch-painted hut and set up on a thick beam,
thicker than a very fat man, and this had many pieces hacked out of it.
It had a girdle of gold bound around it and soldered so as to resemble lace
and on the front of it two large golden teats, like a woman's
Along
this thick beam there were other idols, in a line, from one side to another,
and they occupied the entire length of the room. These were likewise
bathed in blood and clothed in golden robes like the large one. Through
dores,

this point the idol of

was lodged

in a

this largest idol, they say it was, the demon of the river used to speak to
them. (Pedro Sancho, in his Relation.)

127

Highway of
when

the

Sun

saw him struggling just below me within hand-reach in

He had fallen and had been caught in a tree

the branches of a tree.

growing out of the ledge. There he hung, suspended between heaven

and hell. Somehow he had managed to hang on to his camera. This
he handed up to me, then he climbed up, terribly shaken, to the
tunnel-ledge. There was not much more camera work the rest of
that afternoon.

The

walls of the tunnel,

which was two hundred and

fifty yards
long by actual measurement, were pierced with openings to allow

in the light and

climbed,

could

air.

see the

Through

these ''windows," into

which

snow-topped peaks of Mt. Marcani beyond

The tunnel had been fashioned by the Incas much as the Romans mined rock. After a fierce fire had been built against it, water
was thrown on the hot rock splitting the friable lime and sandus.

stone. After that the Incas with their knowledge of working stone
with stone were presented with no problem. Their daring techniques in engineering were something else. At the end of the tunnel, which had once been connected with a stone stairway cut and

built into the living rock,

we

eased across that dangerous cleft

we went very

gaining the circular stairway,

slowly

down

and

the step-

Leon back in 1543 had had trouble with these same

when they were in good repair: "Here the road is so
even
stairways,
rugged and dangerous, that some horses laden with gold and silver
road. Cieza de

had

fallen in

and been

without any chance of saving them/'

below, we came to what had been the platlost

hundred feet
on
which we found the remains of the two enormous stone
form,
towers or pillars supporting the cables of the bridge. Two hundred
Several

feet directly in front of us, across the stygian gap of the river,

we

.
could clearly see the other side of this "bridge of the
Apurithat
it
"was
the
had
written
mac-chaca." Cieza
largest bridge enwith the road well built along the
countered from Cajamarca
.

128

Apurimac: the
sides

of the mountains.

"Bridge of the
.

Great Speaker

The Indians who

built

it

must have

/'
performed herculean labor.
No precise data can be given for the bridge's construction. After
the year 1300 the Incas expanded their realm to the edge of the
Apurimac and about this time, according to their chronicles, Inca
.

Roca, then chieftain, finished the bridge. This would have been
circa A.D. 1350. The detailed description of its structure is given by
the Cuzco-born historian Garcilaso de la Vega, surnamed "The Inca":

The Apurimac

bridge which

lies

on the royal road from

support [he called it stirrup] made

of
natural
the
rock
on
the Cuzco side; on the other side
up
we
were
now
[where
standing trying to figure it all out] was
the stone tower, made of masonry. Under the platform that
held this tower, five or six large wooden-beams were inserted
as thick as oxen
they stretched from one side to another.
were
one
They
placed
higher than the other like steps. Around
each of these beams, each of the suspension cables is twisted
once so that the bridge will remain taut and not slacken with

Cuzco

its

to

own

Lima has

its pillar

weight, which

is

very great.

Until nineteenth-century technology ushered in the use of iron

chains for suspension cables, this Bridge of San Luis Rey, hanging
by enormous rope-cables across the Apurimac, was one of the larg-

type known. The Incas had no knowledge of the

arch, nor did any of the preliterate peoples in America, Depending
as it does upon the principles of gravity, pressure and weight, the

est bridges of its

yet earthbound and passive and therefore could not have

been used here even had the Incas been familiar with it. Instead,

arch

is

they perfected the principles of the suspension bridge by reversing

the arch-curve and giving it wings.
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, as were all suspension bridges on the

Royal Road, hung from rope cables hand twisted from the

129

fibers

Highway

of the Sun

of the maguey plant. Those of this bridge of "the thickness of a

man's body/' were just laid over the high stone towers for their
"suspending" and then buried in the thick masonry on the platform
of the towers. From the suspended cables, supports hung down, and
to these the bridge platform made of wood planking was attached.
Cables attached to the main bridge served as wind bracing.

Although the materials were primitive, the essential nature of

the technology of the Inca suspension bridge is, in principle, the
same

as

the best constructed suspension bridges of today.

Rope

bridges have been built since immemorial times, but few other cultures before the advent of recent times built so well as the Inca.

This particular bridge indeed was so well made that it lasted for
five hundred years, the cables, of course, being renewed every two
years as a part of their work-service by Indians living at the tampu
of Cura-huasi. This system of maintenance, so efficacious that the

Spanish conquerors maintained it throughout the colonial period,

disappeared only after the "wheel" conquered the Andes, and the
bridge which had served as a highway for foot and mule traffic for
a period of six hundred years was allowed to fall into slow decay.

The

Incas built for eternity. Permanence was to them,

with the Romans, the base of

road system
system,

it is

all

as it

was

their construction. If the Inca

here occasionally compared with the Roman road

because, until very recent time, there have been no

is

other communication systems that can be compared with either.

Other

highways, but until the adnone maintained a road system. 2

civilizations had, of course, their

vent of the Romans

However, structurally an Inca road

man

road.

differed greatly

The Romans employed heavy-wheeled

from

carts

Ro-

with rigid

In the times of Diocletian, thirty roads issued from, the gates of

three hundred and seventy distinct roads,
the entire Roman Road system is believed to have totaled 53,568 miles.

Rome; maintaining more than

130

Apurimac: the Bridge of the Great Speaker

front axles which necessitated a deep roadbed. The Incas, since their
roads were traveled only by those on foot and by llama herds, had
no need for the roadbed. But aside from this the two engineering
concepts,

Roman and

Inca, are amazingly similar.

no denying Rome's place

While there

in civilization's sun, the Incas living

a neolithic cultural horizon tied to stone tools

still

conceived a

is

on

com-

munication system that stands extremely high in comparison with

Roman.
The Romans had three thousand years of experience to draw on.
The facets of Old World thought and techniques regarding the
building of roads are a vast web stretching from the first wagon
ruts of ancient India to the stoneways of the Persians. As remote as
certain of these areas were, as removed from each other by time
and space, the Romans had all these centuries of cultural heritage
on which to draw. The Inca had none of these, yet an Inca road is.
in many aspects superior to a Roman road. Every feature of a Rothe

man road is paralleled in an

Inca road except that, for the most

part,,

The Apurimac Bridge,,

literally
for example, was part of a highway which came from heights the
like of which no Roman had ever seen. The passes the Roman conthe Incas built

quered were

as

in the clouds.

nothing compared to these in the Andes;

Blanc, the highest peak in Europe,

Peru we have walked

Roman roads which crossed

is

Mont

15,800 feet high; yet here

over Inca roads built at this height.

in.

The old

promontory of
of Cuzco, which is

the spine of the Italian

the Apennines were no higher than the city

Again we turn to our Cieza. As a boy

in Spain, he knew the Roman Road. He had walked between Tarragona and Cadiz over the Via Augusta, built in the first century
B.C. and rebuilt every quarter of the century by the Caesars. He
drove his mules over the Via Argenya, which ran between Merida
10,200 feet above the

and Salamanca

by Nero and

sea.

a road

which was

fully repaired

started

by Caracalla
131

by

Tiberius, continued

in A.D. 214, so he

and oth-

Highway of
ers like

the

Sun

him knew what they were saying when they wrote

roads that there

is

of Inca

"nothing in Christendom that equals the

mag-

nificence of the Inca roads."

The remarkable thing

is

the similarity in approach to the "idea"

of roads between the Inca and the Roman. Both civilizations were

of the land. Both had land armies, and land armies need roads; and
since a road is only a road if one can go back over it, both believed
that the road must be well built and well maintained.

The Romans,

true, ruled the straight line into civilization's thinking, whereas

the Inca's xo&d, surmounted obstacles rather than avoided them, and
it is

employed what we call "directional straightness"

between two given points their road ran unerringly straight.

their engineers

that

is,

Caius Caesar personally laid down vast stretches of road and the
Claudian family, when public funds were not available, defrayed
expenses for road building out of

its

own

privy purse. In Peru the

road-building program was also identified with the rulers and the
roads were called after the Inca who built them. For example, one

25Oo-mile long road that ran to Chile was

known

Huayna Capac
Nan, or the Road of Huayna Capac. Often an Inca would order a
road to be built for himself wider and larger than that of his predecessor. The Romans put up milestones as markers while the Incas
built their topus "with the distance

between them

as

a Castilian league

Romans placed night quarters or

Along
mansiones; in Peru, the Incas erected and maintained tampus every
four to eight miles along the entire route of their roads. Roman
couriers had a change of horse-mounts at mutationes to hurry up
and

a half.'*

their road, the

messages along the Imperial

had

Way;

the Incas, depending

their chasqni stations every two-and-a-half miles as

tions for the trained runners

who

on

foot,

way

carried messages over the

sta-

most

terrifying terrain in the world.

The

bridge, "the

little

brother of the road," was ever an im-

portant link in the great Inca road system.

132

How many

of

them

Apunmac:

the Bridge of the Great Speaker

there were along the length and breadth of the Andes, we cannot
be sure. But of them all, the Apxirimac-chaca, the Bridge of San
Luis Rey, was the greatest. Few who passed over it did so without

pausing to wonder at this miracle of engineering. As to its length,

the Inca historian, Garcilaso de la Vega, guessed it to be 200 paces
long
"although I have not measured it, I have asked many in

who

Spain

was

did." Cieza, that

most accurate of observers, thought

it

"fifty estados" or about 85 meters (250 feet) in length. Sir

Clements Markham,

mac-chaca

at

90
Lardner Gibbon,

who

feet

and

crossed
its

who made

it

in 1855, estimated the

Apuri-

elevation 300 feet, while Lieutenant

survey of the

Amazon

for the United

Government in 1857, estimated its length at 324 feet.

When Squier came to the bridge in the summer of 1864, he and
his companions lost no time extracting the measuring tapes and
sounding lines. They found that the bridge was 148 feet long from
end to end and that it was suspended 1 1 8 feet above the surging
river. That was the first and last time this famous bridge was exactly measured, for although it was still hanging in 1890 it was no
longer used and the cables, unreplaced, curved dangerously downward into the gorge and were slowly decaying with time. The explorer Squier also made several daguerreotypes of it, which he used
in a somewhat dramatized and heightened version as a woodcut
illustration in his book Peru, Land of the Incas. Of the bridge, he
States

wrote

Between the precipices on either side, looking wonderfully

and gossamer -like, was the famed bridge of the Apurimac.
A steep, narrow path following some distance a natural shelf,
formed by the stratification of the rock, for the rest of the way
hewn in its face, led up for a hundred feet to a little platform
also cut in the rock where were fastened the cables supporting
the bridge. On the opposite bank was another and rather larger
platform roofed by rock where was the windlass [a feature
added by the Spaniards] for making the cables taut and where,
frail

133

Highway of

the

Sun

like goats on some mountain shelf, lived the custodians of the bridge. ... It was a memorable incident in my
that crossing of the great swinging
traveling experiences

perched

bridge of the Apurimac;

I shall

never forget

it.

Later, in the beginning of the present century,

Hiram Bingham

in speaking of the origins of his interest in Peru said that this illustration of the bridge "was one of the reasons why I decided to go
to Peru."
It

is

known

that this dramatic picture of the bridge inspired

Prosper Merimee to use it as a literary device in a fictional piece on

Peru, and that Thornton Wilder, later inspired both by the suggestions of the French writer and the great span that crossed the

Apurimac, and fascinated by

now

what

is

With

this

its

a literary masterpiece,

book

in

hand

now

picturesque remoteness, wrote

The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

stood looking

down on

the hiatus

between the walls where the bridge once hung. Later I wrote
Thornton Wilder from La Estrella hacienda where we stayed during our assault on the bridge's factual and legendary history. I
knew that he regarded the bridge as a literary device, but so well
had he described this bridge on the high road between Lima and

Cuzco that I felt that he must have seen, perhaps in some old issue
of Harper's Magazine, a reproduction of Squier's stirring woodcut
of this ancient bridge which was in fact the actual hero of his
is best, von
Hagen," he answered me, "that 1 make
no comment or point of it ... I wish I were with you and could
see the great river and the gorge."

novelette. "It

The afternoon wind came up loud and

shrill as

we were

on the platform that once held the great suspension

standing

cables of the

We

bridge to set the foliage that clung to the rock walls rustling.
knew now that an old adage about the wind and the bridge was

134

Apurimac: the Bridge of the Great Speaker

when

true and that

the afternoon winds blew, even the wind-braced

cables could not hold the bridge steady

and

it

would swing

like a

hammock.
It

was

late

afternoon by the time

shores of the river.

The

we

regained the boulder-strewn

sun was lighting the snow peaks while the

long shadow
falling across the vertical cliffs gave a curious illusion of a hanging
bridge. At that moment I must have been very close to the spot

shadows of the mountains

fell across

the canyon.

where the good Fra Juniper had stood looking upward at the bridge
when a "twanging noise filled the air ... and he saw the bridge
divide and fling the five people into the river below."

"Why did this happen to

"if there

those five?" the good Fra asked himself,

were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pathuman life, surely it could be discovered mysteriously

tern in a

latent in those lives so suddenly cut off. Either

and

die

by accident or

we

live

by

plan or die

soliloquy Wilder began his story. It

is

we

live

by accident

by plan/' With that

an ironic truth that

if this

tragic story had not been written, this wondrous bridge built in
1350 by the Inca Roca which was to endure for five centuries as

one of the greatest tributes to man's domination of wild nature,

would have been lost to memory.

With

the dying sun

now

playing fully on the glaciers, the river

were full day. The shadows were

canyon became
gone and, with them, the illusion of the hanging bridge. When I
next looked back, there was again only emptiness between the two
as

bright as if it

vertical walls.

135

The Sanctuary of the Hawk

I

HE VERDANT LAND

that surrounded Andahuaylas

was wonder-

blank and naked misery of soil that we had

endured for the past weeks. For the hundred miles that separated
the Bridge of San Luis Rey from this town we had driven over a
fully inviting after the

desolate void
less

and our search

across the deep valleys

ridges had been through country

so bleak that

it

and high treealmost robbed

At last from the highest point in the

we saw in the distance a shaft of sunlight

us of our sense of beauty.

winding vehicular road

warming an immense green

plateau. In the center of this

on

high

ridge was Andahuaylas.

quick glance at the town told us that it offered us only the

night quarters, so we doubled back to a farm which we

sorriest of

had seen
tives

earlier to seek a place to stay.

working on the

dirt road.

They

On

the

way we

passed na-

doffed their wide-brimmed,

llama- felt hats in a cringing and timorous manner, and like so

many harvester ants, they went on shoveling the movable earth
into their woolen tunics; then, folding over the ends of their

ponchos, they hauled

it off

to the edge of the abyss

and dumped

it.

The same garment was their coat and, at night, their blanket.
The hacienda was of ancient vintage with a grass thatch covered
with a mold three fingers deep out of which grew many small

The Sanctuary of
plants. It was, like

the

Hawk

most adobe structures, without grandeur or dig-

nity, moldering and old.

Near the main house were

men in shaggy clothing who could

have stepped out of a Brueghel canvas. Their pants were of baggy
blue homespun, split so deep in front that their genitals had to be
held by a sort of cod-piece.
their

woolen ponchos were

all

jackets

were

short.

And

these

with

they possessed with which to cover

wore sodden, shapeless

All were addicted to the coca-leaf habit and the corners

their shivering bodies.

felt hats.

On

The

their heads they

of their mouths were flecked with green spittle. Each carried a goatskin in his hand and each moved in an obedient line toward a copper tank where the sharp-eyed hacendado stood periodically opening the tap to stive the alcohol in the barrel-skins. Each time he

noted

down

the

amount

dispensed. This scene, so characteristic of

the region, was like a tableau out of the sixteenth century.

The great Inca road through the town long since disappeared

under the modern road which has been

Yet

in Inca times

laid over the old roadbed.

Andahuaylas had been an important stop on the

road, a royal tampu, "In the center of the province of

Anda-

huaylas, there were large lodgings and storehouses of the Incas,"

wrote one Spanish scrivener. There was now, however, nothing left
of this tampw, no ruined structures, no remains of the road or even
it among those we questioned. And so we would have
it not been that here we found ourselves absorbed in
on
had
gone
the history and the legends of the Chancas. "We were to come across
their traces for some hundreds of miles until we entered the jungles.
Today the Chancas are only a legend, but to the Incas they were

memories of

the hierarchy of their enemies. They had once had the audacity to
attack sacred Cuzco and had almost succeeded in taking it. So
feared were these people that, as has been said in a previous chapter,
the Incas, in conquering them, did not treat them with their usual
policy of "absorption with honors" into the empire, but slaught-

137

Highway of
ered, flayed

up

in

tombs

of Inca

the

Sun

and stuffed the skins of Chanca warriors and

in a ridiculous

mimicry of

life as a

set

them

perpetual reminder

justice.

When

I entered this province of Andahuaylas [in r 548

so goes the notation in the record kept by our good friend
Cieza] its chief was an Indian named Huasco and its natives

were called Chancas. They go around dressed in woolen shirts

and mantles; they all wear their hair long, arranged into many
small plaits, tied up with some woolen cords. In former times
they were so valiant that they not only conquered other lordThe
ships but extended their dominions near to Cuzco.
chief Hanco-Huallu, so famous in these parts for his great
.

bravery, was a native of this land. They relate that he could

live under the yoke of the Incas and so ...
he penetrated with 8000 of his warriors into the depths of the

not endure to
forest of

Moyobamba

[in the

Amazon].

In the late fourteenth century, this tribe had stood in the way
of the Inca's northern expansion, blocking passage across the Apuri-

mac River and

fighting so fiercely that Inca engineers found

it

im-

possible to go ahead with bridging the river. At last the Chancas

were repulsed by the sixth Lord Inca, who completed the bridge
and set about absorbing the Chancas into his empire. However,

under the benevolent despotism of the Inattacked

Cuzco
and burned part of the city. They were finally
cas,
defeated on the "Plain of Blood.'* It was sometime after this event
these warriors, chafing

that

Hanco-Huallu and

cluding

women,

army of eight thousand Chancas, inescaped to the forests of the upper Maranon. For
his

permitting this to happen, the Inca general, Capca Yupanqui, was

executed on his return to Cuzco.

The

Incas never forgot the Chancas. In time they conquered all

the tribes far down into southern Chile and absorbed others in the

upper Amazon. They claimed the mountains to the north up to the

138

The Sanctuary of

the

Hawk

what is now Colombia. Yet, masters of all this terrain,

never
they
stopped fearing the Chancas hidden somewhere in the
forests of Chachapoyas. Their pursuit of this hated foe plays an
borders of

important role in the history of the Inca roads, and for more than
a year we were to follow its course through the Andes and into the
jungle.

We would have liked at this point to walk northward as they

must once have walked over the fragments of the Inca road
across the wild sandstone uplands which lay northwest of Andaand so within a few days arrive in the once great Inca
huaylas
center of Vilcas-huaman. We decided instead to make a great arc
around the area to be explored, find a place for headquarters and
double back to this "geographical center of the Inca Empire." In
so doing, we came to Ayacucho.

This venerable colonial city

with its moss-covered sagging
churches
and
the remains of what were
moldering

roofs, its old

once great baronial mansions dropping into slow decay

made us
feel as if we were looking at the models for some of Piranesi's heroic copper -plates. It

was

weeks of desolation through which we

self-contained city.
sions
five

which
it

the third city of Peru, with opulent

rivaled those of Lima,

thousand

than to

Once

change for us, after the

had passed, to come to this

a delightful

man-

Ayacucho has now but twentyaway from it rather

inhabitants. Traffic has flowed

and only once weekly does an airplane put down on

airfield. Its

its

small electric plant, wonderfully uncertain, gives only

enough power for

a pallid light while its

water supply

is

scarce

and

highly questionable. But the heavens are always blue; the climate, at
its Sjoo-foot altitude, is benign and soft, with the most gentle ^air-

tempers" of

all

Peru; and the people, a high percentage of

139

whom

are

Highway of

the

Sun

of pure Spanish blood, reflect the ease of the climate. Without pretense and still preserving their native wonder at the outside world,
ce

they are, to use an archaic term, full of incorruption."

For us, now somewhat worn by our efforts to trace the Inca
roads, Ayacucho was a haven. In the last week none of us had esanoxic atmosphere of the high
altitudes from which both machine and man had taken an awful

caped the debilitating

beating.

And

so

effects of the

our arrival in

this

sun-enveloped Ayacucho

brought us a temporary surcease.

There were changes too within our organization. Charles had
now to return to the States on urgent private matters and it was
time for Henrik Blohm to go back to Harvard. So until our
archaeologists arrived, our number was reduced to three.

two

We

would have liked to set up a large rambling headquarters as

Puno and Cuzco, but doing that here would mean having
to find servants, to worry about food supplies and the care of a
house. Instead we moved into an ancient hotel that faced the main
plaza. Here, for the time being, we rested and on a large balcony
that overlooked the plaza, we prepared the reports on our progress.

we

did at

Geographically we were in an important area. Although the

Inca road did not run immediately through Ayacucho, which was
founded as a Spanish colony in 1 540 and so was not an ancient Indian

site as

were most of the other famous

cities in

Peru,

it

did pass

few miles to the east. From that point it

level pampas south toward little-known Vil-

through the dry valleys a

went on over

a high,

the "Sanctuary of the Hawk"

the center of the dominions of the Incas.

cas-huaman, sometimes spoken of

and, so the natives assert,

ec

as

For from Quito in Ecuador to Vilcas is the same distance as from

Vilcas to Chile, these being the extreme points on the Inca Empire/'

We lazed
day we

for some time in the subtle

sat or

walked in the sun,

charm of Ayacucho. Each

listening at midday to the cries of

the street vendors; each evening watching religious processions pass

140

The Sanctuary of
along streets which were a

little like

the

Hawk

an Augean stable in their un-

On every square was

an ancient church and every other

house, it seemed, boasted the carved doorway of a once beautiful
mansion still offering proud escutcheons to an indifferent world.
cleanliness.

is
Spanish and its people, while they still have some Indian blood and speak the lisping Quechua, are primarily Spanish in
character and in dress. The women wear long sweeping crinolines

Ayacucho

and broad-brimmed hats which

are decorated almost as if in per-

mourning with broad, black silk bands. Near Ayacucho the

of the war between the Spaniards in South America, the
Battle of the Chupas, was fought in 1532. During our stay we
found many records dating back to 1545 which had to do with the
colonial life of this town, but of Inca roads and Inca ruins and of

petual

first battle

records immediately pertinent to our search

The road we sought

nothing.

lay northeast along the I3,ooo-foot-high

escarpment of the "Sanctuary of the Hawk/'

Our

pick up the main route of this road, and follow

reached fabulous Vilcas-huaman.

it

now was

task

to

back south until

we

This was not a vehicular route.

way by

car; the rest

would have

the food and gear that were to

small tents and warm clothes
the puna

Silvia

and

We

to be

last us a

could go only a
by mule. As we

little

of the

made ready

few weeks and arranged our

we would again be journeying

that
we should be making the
found

over
trek

our tough little Lawrence, had succumbed to

dysentery. "We could not wait for we were hoping to escape the
great rains and our itinerary was set. So after I had had my final inalone. Lawrence,

structions regarding the operation of the

and

Silvia

had made sure that we had

all

motion picture camera

our provisions,

we two

set

off alone to find that "geographical center of the Inca Empire."

The

ride

had taken the whole of the day and was going into the

night and the horses had been changed for the third time before
we began to climb the last of the hills that lowered between us and

141

the

Highway of

Vilcas-huaman. The sky became ominously dark and our guide set
up a sort of litany to the effect that that which we sought was
"far, far away." I had no sooner ordered him to cover the equip-

ment than

the rain began to

fall.

Nature created South America on

erate.

There

or there

wet.

is

The

is

no sunset

scarcity;

it is

it is

light

very dry or

grand scale. Nothing is modand it is dark; there is a glut

very wet. Now it was very
as one sees it in certain

it is

rain fell in strings, looking

much

Japanese wood-block prints. We adjusted our rubber ponchos and

for as long as we did not lift our heads we were snugly dry. The
road, as hard as

macadam, was soon transformed into

a slithering

horses, nervous over the flashes of lightning, found

their footing unsure. To add to the unpleasantness it began to hail,
ice-stones the size of hazel nuts played a drum beat on my taut

path and the

rubber poncho.

showed

Silvia just

flash brilliant

enough

ahead of me.

At

vanished. I flung myself off

my

to light

up the whole sky

the next flash she was gone

horse, ran to the side of the road

and looked into the ink-black darkness. Another

and to

ning

down

my

the hillside.

utter horror I

They stopped

the horse struggled to

saw

when

its feet. Silvia

Silvia

flash

of light-

and her horse rolling

the horse struck a thicket;

lay unmoving.

catastrophe that had come our way. Our

medicines were adequate for minor injuries but for one of major
dimensions .
This thought went through my mind as I stum-

This was the

bled

down

first real

the hillside to her. In a matter of minutes consciousness

returned; she was bruised and scratched but otherwise unhurt.

Thoroughly soaked, our hands and faces dripping globules of blood

from the cactus spines we had plunged through, we remounted and

we reached the unlighted

the geographical center of the

rode on and up for two more hours until

village

which was

supposedly

world.
All the houses were tightly boarded up.

142

We stopped

at one house

The Sanctuary of

the

where a candle burned feebly and asked

Hawk
if

was

there

a place to

spend the night.

^Manan-cancba" was the answer in the

At door
isn't

an

after door

any"; until at

oil

tered

we heard

last a

darkness.

Quechuan

door was unbarred and

to light the night.

lamp
and wet, with

the same

At

phrase,

woman

"There
held up

the sight of Silvia, mud-splat-

a thin trickle of blood

running down from a

cut above her eye, she uttered a compassionate cry and drew us
had come to the house of the head man of Vilcas-huaman.

The high

Vilcas plateau

is

horseshoe-shaped.

in.

The Vischongo

River, far below, cuts around the high massif and as far as the eye

can

see; Vilcas,

more than n,ooo

feet above sea level,

is

master of

the heights. This center of the Inca world was in every respect well
Vilcas-hitaman, "Sanctuary of the Hawk." Here as at Cuzco

named

present-day houses are set within ancient ruins

entranceway

to the

are fashioned

Vilcas differed

Sun Temple, others

some

at

the

built into its walls; all

from stones once used in the palaces of the Incas.

from the other villages we had seen in having all its

houses of stone. There

is

lyptus. In

its

now

sculptures

which

center

is

a local

a small plaza

rimmed with towering euca-

group of cement pedestals supporting

artist has made of Peru's great men. Near
a

the plaza, rising above the whole city, is the only still intact Sun
Temple in all Peru. All about it are walls of that superbly laid
stone, the

mark

of the Inca craftsman.

was the temple that drew us first. "We crossed a stinking open
sewer which flowed in the middle of a cobblestone street and arrived
It

at the base of a truncated

which

pyramid 150

feet square at the base

rose in five tiers to a small terrace reached

by a flight of cywhich
faced the plaza
doorway
clopean steps. The
was still standing, and we went through it and slowly mounted the
massive stone

143

Highway of
steps which,

ascent.

Sun

the

with their high treads, made a stately and dignified

The immense

plaza,

still

outlined

by the foundations of the

ancient buildings, had been large enough, so it is said, to hold

twenty thousand Indians. The ruined palace with its many wall

man's height
was the size of a square city block. We
could readily understand the statement made by one of the newly
arrived conquistadores that thousands of Indians had been in at-

niches

women alone were

Of this great temple

tendance on the Inca and that five hundred

housed here to do the Lord Inca's weaving.

at Vilcas, Cieza wrote: "The Sun Temple, made of very fine fitting
stones, had two large doorways with two stairways leading to them

with approximately thirty steps each [there were by actual count

thirty-two]. Within the temple were the lodgings for the priest

and guards for the Sun Virgins.

Much

treasure

was contained

here, including a very valuable figure of the

Sun God." The golden

down

in the crucibles of the

sun-image had long

since been melted

conquistadores, but the seat of large stone

Inca sat to view the dances and festivals,"

out of a single piece of stone,

its

weight alone defies

it rests

movement.

It

is still

where
was on

it

was

"where the Lordto

be seen.

first

this seat

Hewn

placed, since

"covered with

gold plate" that the Inca held court.

The Sun Temple was

diorama of the

area.

vantage place from which to view the

the strong outlines of the ancient walls,

a fine

From

it

despite the sprinkling of houses, gave an excellent idea of the

of the plaza. Out from the two southern

extremes of the plaza went the roads. At our backs, rising like the
crest of Gibraltar, was the rock of Pillucho where we saw the
original shape

and

ruins of the seven

size

hundred houses where the Inca had once kept

the supplies for his armed forces.

Since the roads of the Inca Empire

met

in this plaza,

we

set

about in the days that followed making an accurate plan of the

ancient town. As often happened, the present-day houses had in

144

The Sanctuary of the

places been built over the Inca walls. In one of these

many

we encountered
had

Hawk

called uta,

woman who

suffered

from

a disease

homes

the Incas

which had eaten away her upper lip and her nose.
on vases taken from graves on the

Similar disfigured faces appear

desert coast of Peru. This

woman

with the cruel aching years of

I am still
begged piteously for medicines
haunted by the thought that we could do nothing for her. In another dwelling, adjoining the Sun Temple, we found several dark-

pain on her

ened rooms.

face,

On the beaten mud floor of one were three large stones;

under them a
kitchen.

Tin

fire;

plates

on

top, blackened earthen jars. This

was

and battered cutlery were placed on boxes; food

leather thongs and scraps of food thrown on

hung suspended from

the bare earth were being fought over

by ravenous

dogs. Pigs,

chickens, children and bright-eyed guinea pigs came and went. In a

corner a woman with surprisingly delicate features sat in the dirt

and, near her, a dog. Mother and bitch, equally

human and

equally

animal, suckled their young.

We

were amazed to discover so

many comely women and

blue-

eyed people in the village, indicating the almost complete dilution

of Indian blood. Most of the native population had been killed off
in the earlier days of the conquest, and those Spaniards who, sur-

viving the slaughter of the Battle of Chupas in 1542, had come to

the remote hills about Vilcas to escape the King's justice, had mated

with the natives and

today.

much

so

gave them the genes which have survived

Yet the language spoken is Quechua, and the people

bonded peasants lived in the time of Don Quixote.

live

as

Once

photographed a particularly interesting stone niche

formed by an ingenious arrangement of cut stone, I looked up to
see a man and a cow staring at me in vacant curiosity. The cow,
ruminating on its cud, seemed considerably more intelligent than
the

man

we

did,

as I

ruminating on his coca cud. Wherever we went, whatever

we were followed by a horde of boys and men. If, after I

145

had opened

mad

new

film, I tossed

Sun

the

Highway of

away the empty box,

there

was

we were

followed day
after day, through the ruins, into houses, over walls, while we studied and measured and drew the ruins of Vilcas.
scramble for the possession of

We

So

it.

found and mapped the massive wall on the south

ee

plaza, the same once described as being in

ple" and "5 stades high."

We

later

side of the

front of the Sun

Tem-

came upon the buildings for

where lived five hun-

the keepers of the Sun God, "the place

dred virgins dedicated to the Sun." Where the village church now
must once have been the site of the palace of the Inca for

stands

around

it

we found

ten-foot high niches, those false doors where

golden-plated effigies of Inca gods were once displayed. Everything

the sculptured stones, many with snakes and totemic anihere

masonry and the uniformity of the architecture, suggested that Vilcas -huaman had been built late in the
empire by master-masons sent from Cuzco to trace the plans and to
mals, the precision of the

teach the Indians the method of the laying of stones in the edifices*
Vilcas-huarnan dates from around 1440, the time and reign of
the Inca Pachacutic, the "Earth-Shaker."

conquered the Tanquiha,

who were

He

came, he saw and he

the original inhabitants. Then,

having depopulated the region by war, he transplanted a whole

population of approximately two hundred thousand people. With

new

he formed the area into a large province which

in time became one of the most important centers outside of Cuzco,
these

settlers

and, as the conquests of the Incas continued to extend over the vast
regions of South America as far north as Quito and as far south as
Chile, the geographical center of their dominions.

As

such, Vilcas -huaman took

much

on

attention was lavished

a mystical character.

Accord-

on Vilcas and

its surrounding
and Incas vied with each other in building roads leading to
the city and from it, each road bearing the name of the ruling

ingly,
areas,

Inca, as did the

Roman

roads those of the Caesars.

146

The

first

was

The Sanctuary of

known as that of the Inca Yupanqui;

Inca, who reigned 1471-1493; while

Hawk

the
a

second

as

Road of Topa

the

Royal Road, was

then the Road of the Huayna'Capac Inca (1527). "This last, reaching to the River Ancasmayu in the north and to the south beyond
a third, the

what we now
distance

is

call Chile, is so long that, one end to the other, the

over one thousand, two hundred leagues."

Vilcas attained

its

greatest opulence during the reign of

Capac, the last great Inca,

who

Huayna

ruled about the time that Christo-

pher Columbus was coasting along the Americas. He was "not of

great scature, but well built, good features and much gravity; he

was

man

of few words but

many

deeds; a severe judge, he

would

punish without mercy. Huayna Capac wished to be so feared that

/'
the people would dream of him at night
This man of "few words but many deeds" in that fateful year of
.

1498 was making ready to visit the kingdoms to the north and so
gathered an army of two hundred thousand soldiers to accompany
him.

consulted the oracles, offered up sacrifices

Sun God, brought out the great chain of gold to encircle the
plaza and held therein drinking bouts and dances. Then the capFirst, his soothsayers

to the

tains received their

appointments near to the "Stone of

War"

and that being accomplished, "the Inca set out from Cuzco with
his whole army and journeyed along a road as grand and as wide
as

we now

behold

it."

This same Lord Inca "ordered that there should be made a road

more
all

royal,

the

way

more grand and wider than

his father's

to Quito, whither he intended to go.

and to extend
.

."

All the

storehouses and the tampus were by order filled with food for the
royal trek, and so he marched north "until he arrived at Vilcashuaman, where he rested ... in the buildings which had been

erected for
for

more

him near

to those of his father."

Capac rejoiced to

see

Under construction

were about completed. Huayna

the Sun Temple was finished, and giving gold

than a half century, these

147

Highway

of the Sun

silver ingots to the governor, he ascended the high steps to the

beautiful terrace which had been especially prepared for him. Then,
greatly pleased with what he saw, he took part in the sacrifices to

and

propitiate the gods. This being

army

done he

set

out from Vilcas with his

."

Once our work

in Vilcas

was done, we

set off

southward to find

up with the parts we had missed when we had

roundabout trip by way of the vehicular road. We took the

the road and link

it

made a
Cuzco road which left from the southeast side of the square. Once
the Lord Incas had come this way in panoplied processions of power
and magnificence. The scene was now quite different. Villagers
coming in heavily laden from the fields doffed their grayish mushroom-shaped hats as we went by. But we were intent on the road,

now in an appalling state of disrepair, seeking to avoid the

loosened stones.

On

the highest knoll of the

now naked

many

land lay the remains of

an ancient control gate and ruins of the garrison guard

stations that had once been placed on either side of the road. The
Pillau-ccasi,

common

Indian of those days had a limited geographical orbit. His

needs were few and the Inca rulers saw to it that he moved on this

Royal Road only with permission. These control gates were the
check-points to see that the general prohibition was obeyed.

From

this point, too,

we could make out

the course taken

by

another road, the coast-bound highway which had left from the
southwest side of the plaza in Vilcas. Like the Royal Road, it was

twenty-four feet wide and marked with a low wall of stones and it,
too, had at the same distance from Vilcas a control point and a
small garrison house to control travel over the road.

The way continued empty and

its earlier

cold.

The halcyon sky had kept

down from

promise of a clear day but the wind, rushing

148

The Sanctuary of

the

Hawk

some eternally glaciered peak, was as biting as a wintry north wind.

as we rested we were joined by two condors. One of

At high noon

our Indians, stretched out on the roadside trying to catch something of the

warmth

us, the great birds

horses, startling

of the sun,

drew

first

came down with

one of them almost

their attention.

a rush of sound, passed

off the road,

Ignoring
over the

and made

full for

Whether or not they would have attacked is

at
but
sound of the swishing pinions, the intended
the
questionable
victim came to life. Vigorously he waved his hat and the condors,

the reclining figure.

with only the

the

wind

movement

of their wings, soared up, riding

currents at an astounding speed. They followed us hopeslightest

fully through a good part of that day.

As our visible road continued to march across the barren puna

we never ceased to marvel at the audacity of Inca engineering. The
section we were now on is no longer used by the muleteers. The dangerous passages over the stone steps, no hazard for foot-traveling
Indians and the nimble-footed llamas, is not for horses or mules,

whose iron shoes can find no purchase on the stone steps. From here
forward was the most perilous part of the road-journey, one we
thought best to negotiate during the day.

At

the

little village

of Contay

The mounts were unsaddled,

spare greensward

we

fettered

and the Indians

halted and set up our camp.

and turned out to graze in the

rolled themselves

up

in their

ponchos and nestled between odoriferous horse blankets. Nearby

we set up our tent. With our air mattresses and arctic sleeping bags,

we made ready

for the arrival at midnight of ice-laden winds blow-

high velocity. From our supplies we made a tomato bisque

from dehydrated tomato flakes and dried milk, then charqui, a dish
made of sun-dried llama meat diced into rice which we seasoned

ing at a

highly.

To

top this

off,

we had

rum and we were

we had brought from Vilcas.

a hot buttered

ready for the night tales of the guide

149

Highway of

the

He had ridden these ancient trails since

Sun

boyhood, had followed them

1

throughout in the frigid area of the province of Soras, and, being

of perspicacious curiosity, he had climbed every crag which might
and
hold Inca ruins. He had been, he confessed, a rifler of tombs
he told of the

many

ancient pieces he had

dug out and

the gold that

he had found, some of which was now, so he said proudly, in museums outside the country. That is how he knew of the Capac-Nan
road and

as

he thought back to his wandering through the Soras

country, he enumerated for us the villages through which the

Road

passed.

So he too joined the ranks of those whose travels added greatly to

our knowledge of the ancient highway.

In 1533 Pedro Sancho, the official scrivener to the Spanish conquest, in describing the descent that we were now undertaking,
made what we considered an understatement of considerable enor-

and although the journey [between

mity when he wrote: ".
Vilcas and Uran-marca] was short, it was laborious since we had to
.

descend a mountain

all

the way, the road consisting almost entirely

of stone steps."
I counted close to a thousand of these descending arpeggios of
stone steps before, forced to concentrate on my footing, I lost
count. Yet judging each tread to be over a foot in height, our zigzag way went down a drop of two thousand feet. There must have

been at
was, as
1

least three

Don

About

thousand consecutive stone

Pedro had

said, "short,"

but

it

was

steps.

The

distance

a truly astonishing

de Leon said that "the river Vilcas rises in the

is very fertile and inhabited by a warlike race.
They [Soras] and the people of Lucanas speak one language and go about
dressed in woolen cloaks. They possessed large flocks of llamas and in their
country are rich mines of gold and silver. The Incas esteemed the Soras
and Lucanas so highly that their lands were favored and the sons of their
chieftains resided at the court in Cuzco."

province

this Soras

.of Soras

which

IJO

The Sanctuary of

the

Hawk

piece of engineering. Being

all dry masonry, this necessitated elabowith retaining walls for which the rock had to be
carried some distance before it could be faced and worked. It was

rate terracing

in this realm of astonishments

these

one of the most extraordinary of

roads.

amazing

Francisco Pizarro and his small army, bent on the conquest of

Cuzco, took this road in 1533, but long before his advent un-

counted thousands of Indians had swept back and forth over

to be seen are the turn-outs
their chieftains

would

rest

it. Still

where the palanquin-bearers carrying

on the upward or downward

inclines of

the step-road.

As we

circled

down

into the valley, the heat rising out of the

chasm grew furnace-hot and Silvia began to peel off sweater after
The land was desertlike with tall organo-cactus growing out

sweater.

of rock and coarse gravel and thorny mimosalike plants making the
air fragrant with their scent. The hot wind came up like a sirocco.

Again we experienced the extremes of this extreme land. Wakening

in arctic cold and snow, long before high noon we were broiling in
the sun.

mals

as

us we heard our Indians crying out to their anidown the royal stairway to the floor of the valley.

Ahead of

they

slid

In late September at the height of the dry season the Pampas

River, now only a stream, meandered all over the wide sandbed,

but sheer

cliffs

and high dark

above the riverbed

stains fifty feet

gave concrete evidence that the Pampas was showing us only one
aspect of its character.

At Pucara
claimed

it

near to the chasm there was a fortress.

and only a few stones mark

a bridge once

hung

it.

Below

suspended, the largest in

one of San Luis Rey.

On our side toward Vilcas

we found no

all

Time

Peru after the great

sign of this bridge,

river has long since destroyed.

has

at the river's edge,

But

at

which

Pariabamba

the rampaging
where we forded the Pampas, we came to the remains of the im-

151

Highway of
mense towers from which the

the

Sun

cables of the bridge

had been

sus-

pended. "Here/' stated Cieza, "the great river called Vilcas [the

Pampas]

is

crossed.

stone pillars

From

On

each side of the river there are very large

made very strong and with very deep foundations.

these pillars a bridge of cables

These cables are

so strong,

...

and the bridge

is
is

slung across the river.

so strong, that horses

may pass over with loosened rein as if they were crossing the bridge
of Cordova in Spain. The bridge was one hundred and sixty-six
paces long when I passed over it/'
who had not perhaps the
when the Spaniards passed it,

The conquistador-scrivener Sancho

same eye for accuracy

wrote that
in 1534, it was 360 Spanish feet long and wide enough for two
horses to pass abreast on it. There was no doubt that these towers
were the remains of that bridge,
site.

all

that

now

is

left to

mark

the

Uran-marca, the Inca post-stop on the Royal Road which furnished the Indian laborers to maintain the bridge, lay ahead and

was but four miles away, up about 3000 feet, a climb

as perpendicular as the one we had just descended. Through my
binoculars the rustic stonework of the ruins was plainly visible.
above

The

us. It

place was, according to our chroniclers, a village of trans-

planted people, the result of the Incas' policy of population transWherever there was need for a large labor group to service

ference.

the road,

its

tampns and

its

suspension bridges, whose rope cables

The bridge must have survived for at least a century after the conquest in 1599, for Poma de Ayala noted in his record: "Oran-marca; village: royal post, and the largest bridge in all these kingdoms called the
litter of cables,' built by the Inca Yahuar Huacac."
If this statement is true and the bridge was built by the sixth Inca, it
would have been there in the year 1290. This Inca "was very quiet and
very cautious and very peaceful," so the legends say. "He always had bad
eyes and they were so red that, by exaggeration, his people said that he
wept blood, and for this reason they called him Yahuar Huacac, the
Bloody Weeper/*

IJ2

The Sanctuary of

the

Hawk

were renewed every two years, the Inca simply moved people into
the hiatus. So the Inca had said, "Let there be a city/ and on a high
plateau, devoid of man and plants, there was a city.
5

was eager

Uran-marca but when

to visit

direction I encountered open rebellion.

made

move

in that

The animals would not

would not

the Indians said flatly they

stir;

go; one guide said equally

firmly that he would await our return; and

Silvia,

who had

cheer-

fully climbed every mountain crag for six months, announced that
she would "sit this one out." I looked at the heights, briefly con-

templated doing
It

would take

it

on

all

and then

foot,

too surrendered.

our energy to go back over the step-road to

Vile as.

Once more back

in

cessation of the broad

into a plunging torrent.

rill

every

last trek,

Vilcas-huaman village we waited for the

rains which had transformed

loom of the

occupied ourselves

Meanwhile we rested from our

by excavating

Temple and planning our next

the walls about the

Sun

project, the search for the forgotten

ruins of Pomacocha.

On

the

first clear

day

as

we

glasses in hand, the rays of the

which

in the distance lay in

stood on the Temple of the Sun,

morning sun fell full on a small tarn

what seemed

to be the

bottom of a vol-

When I pointed

the lake out to our guide, he shook his head;

there was only one Pomacocha, a colonial hacienda which, until
their expulsion, was operated by the Jesuits. As for there being an
cano.

who had ridden everywhere

known it. We would be wasting

Inca ruin at Pomacocha, he

in these

mountains would have

precious

time were

Our
I
i

we

to look for one out there.

records were extremely vague at this point. It was only that

remembered reading somewhere that during the

542,

when

civil

wars in

the conquistadores fought over the golden swag of the

153

Highway of

the

Sun

group had "marched to Pomacocha, a

strong position." At that time the Spaniards had little time for
building and so when they "took over a stronghold," it could only
have been an Inca-built redoubt. I looked at Silvia. Having been
fallen Inca Empire, one

through the treadmill of these travels, she had earned the right to
say whether we should take on additional burdens at the moment.
She nodded:

"On

to

Pomacocha."

On our way back down the eroded hill which we had

ascended in

rainy darkness, we had a look at the country that we had not seen
then. Although the hills were bare, the hollows and small valleys
had once been well settled. Ruins of chapels scattered about suggested the opulent power of the Jesuits who had once held so much

of Peru that they had become, in

effect,

bankers to the State.

Now

these chapels, built in the eighteenth-century baroque style, had

wandering burros and cows. Presently we

horseman coming toward us who
so we discovered after

become

met

nightstalls for

an exchange of irrelevancies
was the manager of the hacienda
of Pomacocha. On hearing of our mission, he shook his head dolefully.

"There

women

nothing, gringo, but horrible Indians, horrible

and horrible weather," The hacienda, he said, had been
is

1737 and had only ruins of their buildings

built

by the

on

There was nothing Inca

it.

Jesuits in

we parted company.

there.

On

that negative interchange

A bit farther on, we pushed through a flock of

sheep to cross a small colonial bridge spanning the river and entered

The approach, arched over by

shadowed the entrance to an old mill. Within, pow-

the one-time hacienda of the Jesuits.

immense

trees,

by water flume, ancient millstones turned ceaselessly grinding

the wheat which Indian women poured into the timeworn funnels.
Above the door was the legend ANO 1750."
The hacienda was eighteenth century, and the buildings reered

154

The Sanctuary of
fleeted the

squat, massive

century

courtyard was impressive and around

Haiuk

the

and thatched with

it

grass.

The

the buildings preserved that

of authority which had made the Jesuit well regarded as a coloOn the verge of admitting defeat, I bent over an aqueduct
which conveyed a rushing stream of water to the well. There I saw
air

nist.

the

work of

the Inca

only the Indian

found a lintel fashioned

granite stone, shaped

as

masons shaped it, lined the flume. Next we

of the same stone, and then a stairway. Similar stones were em-

bedded in the houses, in the courtyard.

We stayed at the hacienda no longer than decorum allowed and
soon

we were

from

Vilcas.

and

riding off in the direction of the lake

We

left the

path and took

off

on

so soon left the small houses of the hacienda

we had

seen

a little-used trail

behind

us.

Within

minutes we found ourselves going up what was left of an ancient

road which, unlike any other road we had seen, was at least fortyfive feet wide. Impressive

even in

its

ruined

state, it

seemed to sweep

down toward the river in a direct line with the Jesuit hacienda,
which we could still see buried under the gloom of trees.

We

rode up the broken lip of an upthrust mountain which had

evidently once been a volcano, and from the top we looked down
on the lake in its hollow. At one end was a dam, the workmanship
of which was eighteenth century

probably erected by the Jesuit

engineers to provide the water which turned the millstones. Near to
the lagoon we set up our camp and then we were off to learn what

we could of Pomacocha.
The tarn, a roughly formed
were wading in

ming

its

center,

figure eight,

munching

the

about, completely indifferent to us,

was quite shallow; cows

tall tot ora grass.

Swim-

were ducks and mud-hens

and white herons, while crimson-winged flamingos walked with

dignity in the short grasses. At the first sight, there was nothing.

Only squat

trees covered the shore.

155

Then

as

we

slowly and meticu-

Highway of
lously

moved our

That

this

first

Sun

binoculars over the terrain,

ancient buildings.

that

the

we saw

the remains of

We had found the ruins of Pomacocha!

had been

a sacred

day, for here

lagoon

we

felt certain

by

the end of

was a sanctuary on which the Inca Kings

had evidently lavished much care. Nowhere outside of the Cuzco

area had we seen such magnificent stonework nor such precision in
fitting together irregularly shaped stones in accordance with their
natural contours. Smaller stones combined with large ones were so
interlocked that the walls were actually a stone mosaic, a lasting
testimonial to the builders' extraordinary feeling for the aesthetic

quality of the texture of stone. The amazingly compact palace projecting slightly into the edge of the lake rested on a solid stone base

extending below it into the water. Back toward the high cliffs was
a series of formal squares. We kept climbing over enormous twoton ashlars cut in the form of

isosceles triangles

over six feet in

length. These monoliths must indeed have been a part of some unusual structure, for we had not before met with this peculiar type

of cut stone. Unfortunately there was nothing left now except an

desolation of fallen masonry. As we mapped the ruins for

immense
the

first

time

Pomacocha has never been

listed in archaeological

we found

another well-preserved wall complete with

mural niches and doorways. Our Indians who had followed us curirecords

ously from rock to rock were

sinking test

now put

to

work excavating and

pits.

That Pomacocha had been sacrosanct was further confirmed by

our discovery of a twenty-foot high, free-standing rock of equal
diameter. The sides, hewn and cut, were formed of stones carefully

chamfered into the rock mass and so

skillfully that

we

could not

which were man -laid and which living stones.

stone stairway Silvia found that she was standing on

at first distinguish

Mounting

another of those ancient Inti-huatanas sacred

as

c<

Hitching-Placesof-the-Sun." The top had been flattened and in the center was the

The Sanctuary of the

Hawk

remains of a meter-high gnomon, much like the one we had seen

These were used by the Inca necromancers to deter-

earlier at Pisac.

mine "which days were long and which were short and when the
sun departed and returned/' There are several o these sun clocks

Cuzco area.
Pomacocha no
"talking stones" such as are found among the Maya ruins where
hieroglyphs have been found on stone stela, on walls, on steps, on
lintels, on pieces of shell, on jade and in folder books. Nor was
in Peru but only this one

The

lies

outside of the immediate

ruins themselves were voiceless.

We

found

at

there here anything to suggest the rebus writing of the Aztec nor

even the pictographs used so effectively by the North American

No form of writing, no matter how much scholars

Plains Indians.

have strained their imaginations, has ever come to light in the

Andean area. We have only a verbal history of the Inca, transmitted

by

professional "rememberers" with the aid of the knotted quipit,

cords and these, however, ingenious, were only aids for the memory.
The history of the ancient people of Peru is dependent on chronicles

written by the early Spaniards, on the priest-chroniclers who manipulated the things they heard and saw in the last days of the Inca

Empire to

fit

ruins. In Vile as

us
so

own theology, and on the story told by the

we had found pottery in many places which

their

Inca
told

what tribes had passed that way and

many things
on. But at Pomacocha we found not a shard.
At the end of the lagoon where the water formed one of the

rounded

the styles,

circles of the figure eight lay

an outjutting of the moun-

up which the stone -laid terraces climbed like gigantic steppingstones. At its pinnacle was another structure which, like those in
the plaza, was made of the finest stonework. Below, where the cantain

yons formed a gully,

we came

across the ruins of a stone aqueduct

which led us to a stiperbly laid fountain or bath. This structure

which could have held fifteen people at a single time and was, we
had been
judged, the place where the Inca made his ablutions

157

Highway of

Sun

the

which had been hewn until squared. The

into the living rock and in the nature of organic

built around a large rock

stones had been set

architecture the whole reached

upward out

of the foundation into

the light. It was a delight to see.

When we crossed to the other side of the lake at the waist of the
figure eight

tampu or

we found

the remains of

the temporary night-stop for

what must have been the

those making the mecca to

Pomacocha.

What was Pomacocha? And why had

so beautiful a ruin

not

here to
previously been visited or mentioned? There was nothing
the
broken
buildings.
point the way to us, only the mute tale of

Not one

of the historical companions of our long journey

mentioned

it

say that Pomacocha had

except to

had ever

a "strong position."

about being dragged out betimes into the Andean

the rising sun could have been heard across the quiet

Silvia's protests

cold just to see

we

picked our
sonry of Pomacocha, The night had been
tarn. It

was

still

dark

as

way

across the fallen

ma-

winter night,
fog hung over the lagoon
world at the moment was

frigid, a real

and the dawning day still held the chill;

and gave the sky a leaden look. This little
almost empty of sound and the sudden baleful chirping of some
protesting nestlings hidden in the lake-rushes sounded as startling
in the silence as

would

a clarion voice. Silvia's

remarks were both

loud and pointed. She had worked late on drafting the plans of
Pomacocha, she had climbed, measured, carried gear about for days;

why, just to prove a theory, she should have to

ee
we were not Siamese twins"; and so she
rise in the arctic dawn;
went on, her outraged words flailing at me until we stood again atop
she saw no reason

the great rock.

And then the sun

autumnal equinox, and

as

We

were approaching the time of the

the light of the rising sun fell across the

158

The

^ancillary of the

Hawk

Hitching Place of the Sun the lagoon was bathed in a brilliant

or more
golden metallic sheen. This then was what Pomacocha

Puman-chochan, Lake of the Lion

really was: a sacred
lake which received the sun. As we stood there we felt something
correctly

of the orphic feeling that all this must have evoked in the Incas.
For a brief moment the place seemed to echo to the sound of the
Inca walking in measured tread behind his Amauta, his Keepers of
the Sun, while they, carrying the earth-mysteries in the garments of
their ritual, slowly approached the rock.

There was a poignant beauty in these overturned stones and enduring fragments of walls. Was it the symmetry of the stone and
its

patterns, or

could not say

was

why

it

it

made it so beautiful? We
only knew that it did. I have

the balance that

stirred us.

We

only moderate confidence in metaphysical formulae. I believe that

we shall never know exactly why a thing is beautiful. But these
a

ruins

had

people

who

Who

beauty apart from their connection with the vanished

built them.

beauty? These immense stones did

not fall alone by the weight of years. The fact that the Jesuits used
some of them in the construction of their own "kingdom of God"

then had destroyed

this

pointed the finger of suspicion at them. Many sacred Inca places,

such as Pomacocha, survived the conquest, and the native religion
it went
which had been worshipped in such shrines did not die
underground. The Indians worshipped the hills, the springs, the

lakes, the rocks.

The

failure to Christianize the Indians

the seventeenth century to a great witch hunt

who found some six hundred important idols

when

had led in
the padres,

still

being worshipped,
destroyed them and burned more than six thousand Indians at the
stake.

"Whatever can be burned,"

said the priests

ct

who

directed this

extirpation of idolatry, is burned, and what cannot be burned is

broken." It was wantonly effective and complete. By 1660 the

159

High-way of the Snn

Catholicization of the Inca's people had been achieved. But in respots the pagan rites lingered, and in such inaccessible places

mote

Pomacocha, the step road built by the Incas in this region was too
and so the King's Highway was
put elsewhere and the Indians were left long undisturbed to woras

severe a test for Spanish horses

ship the Sun.

Today we know no more than that the Jesuits with their clericomilitary organization came here early in the eighteenth century,
probably destroyed the sacred city around the Lake of the Lion and
then used the tumbled stone for their own buildings. The rest, since
there are

no records,

is

silence.

was the dark of another dawn when we mounted the old Inca
road and put out toward Ayacucho. We zigzagged up an immense
It

on the rim of the crater that held the sacred lake and by the
time the sun had again taken command of the earth we were on its

hill

very top. The lake seemed now like burnished copper, broken only
by the flight of the egrets and flamingos over its surface. As we

turned our mounts back onto the Inca road, the ruins were suddenly aflame, and our last look at Pomacocha showed us the sun's
rays were again falling across

its

Hitching

60

Place.

X
The Highway of the Sun
HE Mantaro

shaped something like a fishhook. Unlike

other rivers which slowly emerge from out o inoffensive trickling
1

River

is

and in descending becomes a fury of rushing waters, this one

leaps into being fullborn where it comes out of the ice-fringed
rills

Chinchay [ Junin]

lake.

Drawing

the run-off of rain

from the plen-

teous punas through which

it flows, the Mantaro becomes, within

than a gargantuan earth-moving force which
has gouged out a canyon so deep that it does not allow man to harness it for his benefit. It is useless alike to nature and man. So the

fifty miles, less a river

Mantaro must,

like

unreasonable weather, be endured. Yet the In-

they avoided it. Since they did not have

the wheel and their means of travel were not those of the modern
cas refused to endure

it

world, they laid their communication system above

harm's way.

We however could not escape

were

alas

it

and out of

our journey, we
bound to the modern highway which here has been
it.

At

this point in

cut alongside of the canyon-edge of the Mantaro, making

it

the

most dangerous in all Peru. One hundred and fifty miles out of
Chinchay Lake the river makes a fishhook turn to race east to
join with another turbulent river

zon. Just at the point

so

form the upper Ama-

pinions nature and man, there were

quite literally for a few dreadful moments on the edge

the sharpened barb on

we, hung

and

where the hook makes the twist and becomes

which

it

161

Highway

of the

Sun

of Mantaro. Suspended between safety and disaster, one half of the

Power Wagon dangled over the canyon while the other half still
rested

on the

so-called road.

we had was

Almost everything

in the

way

of Ex-

in the truck. Charts, maps, notes, plans,

pedition gear
and our hopes; all the months of climbphotographs, equipment
all this now
in our written reports
recorded
and
searching
ing

hung there on the edge of the abyss.

The mind performs strangely in times of

stress.

To

escape ten-

up the most ironical elements of the human

I would act when the truck finally
temporary moorings and crashed two hundred

sions, it ofttimes digs

Now

wondered how

comedy.
broke away from
feet

down

its

into the canyon, carrying to irrevocable destruction

Would
Diamond
dog

our work.

his

upset a candlestick

his years

smile at

of work? "Would

I say,

when

Thomas

life's foibles, as

did Isaac

Newton when

and reduced in

"Well,

let us

all

minute

make another

all

start,"

Carlyle
manuscript of The French Revolution was mistakenly thrown in the fire? I did not know. As the
as

did

his

drowning man is thought to parade all the events of his life before
him, with devilish insistence on alternatives and an excoriating
examination of the

*c

if's,"

my

mind quickly reviewed

my

most

re-

cent decision regarding the Expedition's route.

Back at the Bridge of Mayoc, for example, should I have taken a

mule and followed one of the branches of the forkway where it divided, one part to go

up the 3Ooo-foot-high east bank and the other

Did I do right by allowing that Lilliputian -

along the west bank?

new addition to our party, to undertake and alone,

the survey of the east road? Should I not have heeded Silvia's warn-

sized Peruvian, a

ing that we should delay at Mayoc until the threat of rain had abated
over the Mantaro? We had managed to follow the Inca roads to the
banks. It would have been foolish for us to try to cover both
of
the diverging roads, since to do so would have meant muleparts
river's

The Highway of
train travel for at least

two months

the

Sun

and

why

not

let

our young

it would
there
from
be best to set up headquarters in distant Huancayo and
work backwards. Yet the Devil is also a logician. The others

Peruvian win his

explorer's spurs?

alone had believed that

break up
thought we should not defy the Mantaro, that we should
our equipment and place some of it in hired trucks rather than risk
we
it all in our own Power Wagon. This I had opposed, believing
should advance intact, like a complete military caravan entering
into the country of the enemy*

At first there had been no portent in the sky other than the sun.
But we had scarcely passed the guard check-point, where because
of the narrow road traffic is regulated, when the sky darkened and
heavy was the downpour
that we traveled a road streaming water. Above us were sheer walls*
of mud and stone rising two thousand feet; below us, two hundred

it

began to

feet

rain.

Within two hours,

so

down, was the rampaging Mantaro.

Had

an Inca engineer pro-

his life would have been forfeit.

posed the building of such a road,
Inca roads were built so as to exclude all water. Water was the dethat a road
termining factor in their every move and knowing

not be maintained, the

along the canyon edge of the Mantaro could
once
hung a suspended
Incas had split their road at Mayoc, where
road up the opposite sides to the
bridge, and had flung their step
it across the rolling
high puna. From that point they had built
mountains.
Any idea of drainage on the part of those who cut this modern
"Water poured down from the
vehicular road was
totally lacking.

of it into the river,

towering cliffs onto it, washing immense chunks
while wooden bridges that spanned the larger rills were left hang-

ing on hope and air. It was a diurnal nightmare.

In the smaller car ahead, Silvia swung deftly around a fallen
avalanche of earth and stone. I, not seeing it in time, threw the

truck into low double transmission and plowed

163

like a

tank through

the obstruction.

Ahead

Sun

the

Highway of

heard a dull roar,

like the

sound a great

makes when the ax bites into its heartwood: a splintering,

when an
rasping sound. Silvia had just cleared another danger spot
earth-mass fell into the road and I, torn between taking the brunt
of it and avoiding it, turned the wheels quickly toward the embankment. The car lurched to a stop. Lawrence, who rode with me,
tree

Enmeshed in
the gears, I did not find it so easy to free myself. Once we were
both out, we quickly lashed the front axle, knowing it would avail
little if the weighted truck moved downward. Then we unwound
the steel cable of the winch and secured it to an enormous freewas out of the Power

Wagon with

standing rock.
Three wheels of the truck were

incredible speed.

still

on the

road.

The

left rear

wheel and a good part of the body hung over the cliff. Since the
winch was to do the work rather than the wheels, that meant that

one of us would have to get back in the truck to start the engine
and shift the gears to the winch motor. Lawrence elected to bell the

He was

and small enough to free himself, so he said,

should the truck begin its death-fall. But even the motor concat.

lithe

spired against us:

it

would not

kept falling away in chunks. At

the gear into place and, as he did

start
last

and the roadbed meanwhile

Lawrence managed

to

throw

he leaped to safety. The truck

lurched dangerously but the cable held and now it was slowly
whole lifetime passed in that
inched forward. I did not breathe.
so,

five minutes as slowly the truck was pulled forward until all four
wheels rested on firm ground. As soon as I was breathing again, I
reached into the forward chamber of the truck and took out a

bottle of

We

rum.

nc

Splice the

main brace,"

ordered.

arrived, days later, at Izcu-chaca, having traveled a distance

of but forty-five miles. Where a graceful colonial Spanish bridge

164

The Highway of

the

Sun

curves over the Mantaro gorge, a second river, the Angoyaco, joins
it; and here, over a writhing, twisting torrent just below the Spanish bridge, the

too

we found

Inca had once

ourselves at last

hung another suspension bridge. Here

on the Highway of the Sun, the main

road of the Inca system.

So

we

modern
then

on day

traveled

dirt road until

after day, our caravan keeping to the

we could

we would double back by

again. It

was

find a place to leave the trucks,

foot until

a laborious business

we found

the Inca road

this incessant climbing, this

following of and photographing the road.

The wear and tear of these passing months had had

each of

us. Silvia

had become

its effect

on

a seasoned explorer with a sound

knowledge of the geography and a firm grasp of the problems of

the road that were real factors in our success* She asked as a

woman no

special consideration; she

went everywhere, and her

drawings of the architectural features of the road were invaluable.

Lawrence made no compromise with geography or altitude; he
never allowed
frequently

by

his

hand and though he angered us

on thoroughness and was a martinet in

camera out of

his insistence

his

grew handsomely with the passing

the time we traveled through one of the most terriin this world, he never lost a roll of film nor was

his lens-world, his film footage

months. In

all

fying terrains

one spoiled by injudicious delay.

We were a team now, often working with

irritation,

but -work-

Every evening when we were not climbing or measuring roads

and ruins I was at my reports, and once monthly I sent off my dispatch to the New York Times. Often there were the newsletters
written to acquaint our colleagues and friends with accounts of

ing.

our daily progress; and there were always other letters to be answered, reports to be made on each new-found ruin, and the constant irritation of putting

down our mounting

expenses.

The days

Highway of
were so exhaustingly

commanded

filled

the heavens

the

Sun

that often before the stars completely

we were

asleep.

Farther along, the high marching cliffs of the Mantaro dissolved

we came to the little village of Marcavalle. This

into a valley and

was the

the Jauja-Huancayo valley area, and it was

two Inca roads which had split one hundred miles
Mayoc, to take to the puna above the Mantaro Can-

first village in

here that the

southward

at

yon, joined and became the wide Highway of the Sun.

We stopped at a wayside inn where Indians came to slake their

with chicha, a grayish fermented-corn drink. I had hoped

that about this time we should have some word of our young
thirst

Peruvian

who was

wing of the Inca

still

somewhere in the

tracing out the east

was no sign of him.

road, but there

leaving instructions with an old Indian

showed us her

hills

woman who

So, after

smilingly

we again took to the road and

we bore down upon Huancayo.

single tooth,

enveloping gray dust

That night, too exhausted to eat,

I fell asleep

in an

betimes under the

portrait of Andrew Carnegie which hangs in the rooms of the old

Vi *
Carnegie Research Station.
/

one of the largest cities in Peru, Every Sunday the

largest and most colorful markets in all the Andes are held there,
strung along the Inca road which here stretches to three times its

Huancayo

is

original width. In this present-day

they had in other

earth are sold.

Andean market the

Indians, as

where the things of their

times, put up
We followed the Indians to the market early one
their stalls

Sunday morning shortly after our arrival, walking along the

modern highway which rests on the King's Highway, which in
1 66

The Highway of

the

turn stands on the road of the Incas. There

come

Sun
is

no

telling

how many

Huancayo on fair days but at such times the Royal Road

of the Incas literally swarms with people.
to

Ifhe

Jauja-Huancayo Valley,

fifty miles long,

the geographical center of Peru. It

is

now and

is

approximately
always has been an

important self-contained valley and a strategic one. On a direct

line with Jauja, and scarcely one hundred miles away, lies Pacha-

camac on the shore of the Pacific. The mecca for most of ancient
Peru and the site of the oracle of the creator-god Pacha-camac, it
was one hour's journey from the valley as the condor flies, three
the Indian walked.

as

days

To

montana
Huanca tribes, was

the east of the valley and relatively close were the

and the

jungles.

The

once defended on

valley, controlled

by the

topped with fortresses.

"Even now," wrote Cieza in 1 548, "they appear, to one seeing them

from a

all sides

by towering

hills

distance, like towers of Spain."

We

reached Jauja within an hour's dusty ride from Huancayo,

traveling over the route of the Inca road. Where the Mantaro

River leaves the valley to begin its passage through its gorge, there,
surrounded by hills covered with moldering ruins, lies old Jauja.
The ancient fortresses had once belonged to the Wankas, a fierce
people whose houses, built as "rounded fortresses of stone,
were like small castles/'
little

was

guardians" the Incas called them, that

for a time effectively blocked the Incas' northern conquest. Although the Inca sought through his ambassadors to induce them to
It

"embrace

this tribe, "field

his friendship

without

his

having to get

it

by mak-

ing war," the Wankas, faced with an offer of absorption or extinction, chose extinction. And in the great battle which followed, the
Incas conquered and forthwith adopted the survivors into their

kingdom, imposing upon them Inca

religion

and techniques but

Highway of

the

Sun

permitting them to keep their own customs and language. And so

Jauja became the Inca capital of Chinchay-suyu, one of the quarters
of the Inca world.

modern highway runs through the town

station on the outskirts, the outlines of the

Even though today

and there
original

is

a railroad

town

are still visible.

In the rubble

is

part of an Inca wall

site of the Sun Temple, once a

worked stone with stairways and thick

and the old church stands on the

structure three tiers high of

straw roofs. Near to

We

it

was the Temple of the Virgins.

walls, gathering potsherds and trying to

walked among the

reconstruct the ancient city

Nowhere was
first capital

of Peru. All

cisco Pizarro's

from the

piles of

stones.

amorphous

there any sign of the onetime grandeur of this, the

we know

march southward

of

to

it is

in the records.

Cuzco

in

November

On

Fran-

we
Hatun

1534,

found the following notation: "In the city of Santa de

Jauja, this twentieth and ninth day of November, 1534, the very
noble lords found the city
.**
.

In the valley north of Jauja where the eroded limestone hills

command the view, we again found the Royal Road. Built across

bound by crumbling
time in five hundred miles

the flat puna,, twenty-four feet wide and

walls, it

was

a joy to follow.

we were

able to

treads

it

make

For the

first

tour of the highway without being subjected to an exhausting scaling of the heights. It was only
when the road mounted an obstructing hill in broad low-stepped
a leisurely

was always the Incas* way to mount obstacles rather

that we had to make a detour in the trucks

than avoid them

over the vehicular dirt road until

we could

take to the ancient road

again.

Since the

modern road turned and twisted

to provide the

same

gradient which the Inca provided by steps, when we came upon it

next we were on a higher pampa. My first sight of it from a little
distance

away showed that the

direction
1 68

had changed

radically

The Highway of
the road

we had

now

the

Sun

ran northeast rather than northwest

as it

had when

This puzzled us for, generally speaking, the Incas

built their roads with directional straightness. It was Silvia who
left

gave us the

we found

it.

indication of the truth.

first

When we

reached the road,

going over a rise in a series of large steps. There was

unusual
about this section of the road.
something
it

"Look/' said
"this road

is

Silvia,

who was

pacing the width in long

strides,

forty-five feet wide."

"But how

."

"Either the Royal Road became much wider after we last were
on it or this is another road. Do you suppose we have found their
military road?"

From the top of a hill we had full view of the valley stretched
out northward. At the base of the hill was one road and this, since
it

was the regulation twenty-four feet in width, was without doubt

it through our binoculars, we saw that

the Royal Road. Following

went along the

valley floor frequently passing over bare stone,

rock-balustrades fully marked, its plainly visible steps conforming to the rise and fall of the escarpment until it appeared on the
it

its

continuing pampa. There we could see the remains of a building

and there the road divided. Forming a
junction, the Royal Road

kept to

its

directional straightness while the second road veered a

full fifteen degrees to the east.

as

wide

this be
I

as
.

the other.
.

We

this distance it

stared fascinated at

seemed twice

what we saw. Could

thumbed through

found

From

copy

The Ordering of

we had along until I

the Inca roads, dated 1543, entitled

the sheath of notes

of a report

on

the Halting Stations

[Tampus]

one to the othery the methods of the native carriers

The
and

distance of

the obliga-

tion of the respective Spanish overlords of said tambos: done in

Cuzco the ^ist of May, 1543* Tins was the first Spanish report on

the Inca

highway and the

first

road regulations ever made in

169

all

the

Highway of
Americas. "Due,"

it

Sun

the

read, "to the serious depopulation of natives

at said halting -stations called tambos,

and the empty untraveled

roads both in the mountains and the plains and the excessive cargos
the Indians are forced to carry and the large journeys that are
forced on them and the bad state of repair into which the highway

had

fallen

sometime

."

earlier

and

so

on for some

fifty pages.

had been formed to look into the

commission

state of the

road

and this, its official report, described the direction of the road and
mentioned many of the halting places. Then we read: "Now make
note that from the tambo of Jauja, there are two roads the one
parting here for Huanuco and the city of the frontier, Chachapoyas

."

American Geographical Society were unfolded. We traced the Inca road to Huanuco, a hundred miles to the
north, then on to the right bank of the Rio Marafion, one of the

The

large

maps of

the

longest tributaries of the

mountains on

Amazon.

Far, far beyond, in the high

very edge of the deep green of

the Upper Amazon jungle and more than four hundred miles away,
lay Chachapoyas. Was that where this road led? There was nothing
its right bank, at the

in our records about this radial or

why

the Incas had built a road

into this region, "What mystery lay here?

if that Spanish report written in 1 543 was true, ran
the Royal Road for a distance of some four hundred miles.
so great a road?
knew from history that when the Lord

This road,
east o

Why

We

Inca was bent on conquest he would hurry as many as one hundred

thousand troops over his roads in a single movement and that ac-

companying the troops were burden-bearers and thousands of

llamas serving as dray animals. This army was primarily a land

army which moved only over roads, and with the rise of this Andean Empire, new formulae were injected into warfare. The Inca
wars were no

promenades nor elaborate panoplies

to overawe an enemy; they had but a single object
victory! Their
ritualistic military

170

The Highway of
roads were built to enable

them

to

the

Sun

overwhelm an enemy with the

shock of great force.

conquest of new territory was begun in

ernors of

was

to pass

this wise: the

the territories through which the

all

were

notified.

communications, build

up

They were
a supply of

army

gov-

of conquest

to prepare the road, set

weapons and

set

up

up and serv-

of the tampus that appeared every four leagues [12 miles]

the
road. The roads came first. "I will explain," said Cieza,
along
tc
the ease with which they were constructed by the Indians with-

ice all

out increasing the death rate or causing excessive labor. When

the Inca decided to have one of these famous roads constructed,

much

preparation was unnecessary; it remained but for the Inca to

give orders. For then, the overseers went over the ground, made the
trace of the road, and the Indians received instructions to construct
the road using local labor.

the road within

boundary,

worked

it

at the

When

its

own

Each province completed the section of

when it reached the end of their

limits;

was taken up by others; when

same time."

it

was urgent,

all

the road was completed, the Lord Inca in

Cuzco gathered

and took

his place before

his people in the great square of his city

the Stone of

War

"in the shape of a sugarloaf , well enclosed with

gold" and dedicated the conquest to the gods. The functional aristocracy planned the campaign and led it. Battle leaders were

chosen and each, carrying his own heraldic device, took his place at
the head of his warriors armed with lances, sling-throwers and war-

headed clubs. All the great storehouses along the road were made
ready and the tribes along the route of the road alerted so that the
road and the bridges were in the best condition. "All necessary
things having been done, the Lord Inca now set out from Cuzco
his whole army and journeyed
,"
we now behold it

with
as

along a road

as

grand and wide

The Inca himself was conveyed along the road

171

in a golden-plated

Highway of

the

Sun

by sturdy Rucana tribesmen clad

litter carried

in pale blue livery.

more elaborately.
He wore the breechclout, a split -neck poncho made of silklike vicuna wool; his hair was cut in bangs; enormous golden earplugs
studded with diadems were plugged into punctured ear lobes; and

The Inca Sun God

dressed as did the others, only

he wore the royal "fringe," a multi-colored braid four inches wide

from which dangled red tassels hanging from little gold tubes. In
medieval knight he carried a mace. Thus arrayed and
cc
preceded by his entire army, all of them brown and noisy/' they
proceeded along the Royal Road until they reached Jauja "where

his

the

hand

like a

Wanka

tribes

prepared a solemn reception." The Lord Inca

had the various reports on the road which led

rested here while he

toward Chachapoyas.

Was

we were now looking

very road over

which these great Inca armies had passed on their campaign of conquest? Northward lay our route. At the top of a high pass, close to
it

possible that

14,000 feet, at a spot referred to

by a little old man whose house
road,

we

reached the wide road.

as

at the

Inka-Katana

of the Inca]

[seat

we came upon at the side of

Ahead of us it stretched out

the
for

naked

plain, while to the south there was a cascade

of stone-tread steps. We calculated that we were seeing at least
thirty miles of continuous, wonderfully preserved road, precisely

miles across the

what we had been hoping

to find: a stretch of road long

enough to

permit us to study techniques of road construction, determine the

Inca concept of topography, and details, if such could be found, of
their extraordinary system of communications, and .
.

That night we put up the large command tent in a raging snowstorm. Silvia had insisted that the place I chose for the campsite was
in too exposed a position, but I wanted it to be right at the edge of
the Inca road.

As we

struggled in the night

172

wind with the

tent, I

The Highway of

the

Sun

remembered that old Arabian saw, "A woman's opinion is of small

value, but a man would be a fool to disregard it." At long last the
tent was up and Lawrence, after long struggle, started the generator. Before

long

we had bedded down

At dawn, with
by

in our sleeping bags.

the temperature at freezing,

the arrival of our Indian-laborers.

we were awakened

had arranged for

their

com-

ing the day before by offering double the sum they generally received and as an added incentive, a generous portion of coca leaf.

They were

were pulled down over

a sorry lot. Shapeless felt hats

their heads;

blood; their

some had scraggly beards, an indication of Spanish

rainbow-patched trousers and the ponchos which hung

over their shoulders were

all

from

that clothed their nakedness

this

reason enough for the rheums that racked their bodWhile our meager breakfast was being prepared, I lined up the
men and passed out the portions of coca leaves. This they at once
bitter cold

ies.

proceeded to

munch into compact balls which,

coca did not

exist, neither

lodged inside of their

mouths, made their cheeks look very like a lemming's food pouch.
What a Spaniard said of coca in 1550 was equally true today: "If
All

work

in the

Andes

would Peru/

is

workmen

possible to obtain

Millions of people

geared to the coca

quite im-

leaf. It is

unless they are given their daily rations.

Indians, cbolos, even whites

are addicted to

the habit throughout not only Peru but Bolivia, Chile, Argentina

and

as far

north

as

Columbia. For centuries coca chewing has been

the subject of prolonged controversy.

Among

the Incas, the use of the coca leaf was limited to the

priestly hierarchy, to those

old.

who worked in

the mines and to the very

But with the conquest the habit became

general. "So pleasant

coca to the Indians," said a Spaniard, "that they prefer it to gold

or silver or precious stones." As to the effect of it, "they merely sa.
and the Indians that
vor the fragrance and swallow the juice .

is

chew it show themselves

stronger and

173

more apt for labor

they

Highway of
work

the

Sun

the whole day without eating." That, however, is part of the

it does not take the place of food. If an

folklore of coca. Actually

and he does
he
Indian consumes fifty grams of coca leaf daily
an
amount
which
is
of
about
cocaine,
forty centigrams
getting

is

certainly enough to narcotize the misery of the present. If it cannot be said to give a "lift" to his daily life, it at least does blunt the
edge of the cold and allays the effect of thirst and hunger.

The coca leaf ceremony over, our men shouldered their mattocks
and moved to appointed tasks. What I wanted to see was just how
these roads were built, and when the turf was removed and the dislodged stones replaced I would then have a chance to examine the
equivalent of an original section of the mountain highway. The day
was only a thin solution of the fog-bound night. In this voiceless region without a tree or a bush to break the monotony of the flatness,
it

seemed

as if

we were on another

planet.

We

had dressed

as

we

winds were sharp and snow still covered the puna. Yet by the time the men had started their task of
cleaning the turf and the sun commanded the temperature, it was

would for the

warm enough

arctic, for the

to melt the snow.

A cleansed section of the

It

was not,

as

ancient road revealed the

first surprise.

we had

natural surface

supposed, paved. The hard puna had offered a

for such wayfarers who had only to worry about the

scuff of the foot

and the tread of llamas. While there were,

we

found, many sections of paved roads in the ancient system, they

were not all stone -laid. Construction changed with the terrain and
circumstances. If the road passed over a marsh, it was raised on a
causeway; if it traversed a region of constant rainfall, it was paved.

But generally on the hard puna

and we were to find this true
also on the coastal pampa
the road surface was the earth. But no
matter what material the surface, the mark of the Inca road was
always to be found in the stone boundary walls. Here the wall of

dry masonry stood two and a half feet high,

174

its

purpose to

mark

the

The Highway of the Sun

boundaries of the road, to contain
to a defined path.
laid

with stone

it,

and to keep

Wherever the road ascended

steps at intervals of

twenty

feet,

soldiers

and llamas

a gradient, it

was

and between each

ran a stone-laid drainage which effectively drained water off the

earth-surfaced roads. That it had served its purpose could be easily
seen, for

with

where the stones had been dislodged the road was cicatrized

a small

eroded gully.

having grown used to our various systems of communication, to pass over their significance and, in our
preoccupation with the here and now, to forget Man's long tortuous
It

is all

very well for

us,

road of cultural growth. Democritus worried over atoms and atomic

structure as early as

450

B.C.,

and

flight

by Man was envisioned long

made

his fatal plunge into the Aegean. Man's technibeen slow; he has progressed only by the pressure of
his needs. But to get back to the Inca roads. In lifting the turf off

before Icarus

cal progress has

more than

hundred years ago in this inhospitable

land, where in four days we had been subjected to hail, snow and
freezing winds at an altitude higher than that of most European
peaks, and in examining the revealed techniques of road construca road built

tion,

five

we found an index

ilization before it

to the marvels

wrought by the Inca

civ-

was destroyed centuries ago.

While the work of excavation went on, Silvia and I decided to

walk out over the highway to see what we could discover of its

We started off down the

great road early one mornthe

puna, armed with cameras,
ing while the fog still hung over
compass and measuring tape. For a while we shared the wide highway with a herd of llamas being driven out by two small girls to

other features.

graze in the distant hills.

In the weeks past we had not had

much

time for leisurely talk together of the death of kings and ruins of empire. As often as not in
our search for the road, we had had to climb breathlessly to a road-

bed which was most accurately described in

175

literal

terms

as

the

Highway of
"highway"

and on

arrival

the

we were

at

Sun
once too involved in mak-

ing measurements, or else in worrying about each step

we took on

the perilous hanging road, to be given the luxury of speculation.

Now it was different. Although we were thousands of feet high, we

were walking along a flat piina. This road, we had decided after
studying it and our too brief notes on its history, had been built
fairly late,
it

was

probably about the year 1470.

a military road, against

whom

or

Why had it been built? If

what was

directed?

it

At

that time the Inca was concerned with his conquest to the north

where he planned to overwhelm his rival, the fabulous Kingdom of

Chimor, on the coast. At the same time a second column of conquest pushed slowly on toward Quito.

The main highway,

Royal Road, swarmed with workers laboring

like

an endless stream

of ants to project that overwhelming road across the

Then why this road?

The Chancas

the

sterile land.

again! In the lives of people as well as in the lives of

often a single, a traditional, enemy. Time and the

alchemy of time changes that enemy, makes him less real; the physical threat is gone, the enmity has lost its potency, yet remembrance
nations there

is

of the hated one remains. The Incas had such a traditional

in the Chancas.

We had met the

ghosts of this tribe, of

enemy

which only

Cieza de Leon has written, many times along our way. At the site
of the Plain of Blood battlefield, we had seen where they had been
defeated and where the Inca erected his macabre museum of stuffed

Chanca warriors.
ditional tribal

We had met them again at Andahuaylas, their tra-

home

And now

before they were forced out of

along this road.

it

After the defeat

by

their con-

inflicted

querors.
upon
them by the Incas, the tribal survivors, under Hanco-huallu, the
Chanca leader, had successfully resisted the usual process of absorption into the new order and had escaped to the eastern Andes. This
the Incas never forgot. This road, so we now believed, had been
built to

make a final conquest of the hated

tribe.

The Highway of

the

Sun

Within an hour's walking time we came upon two chasqwi

sta-

tions.

It

was not the

tions,

way

first

time

we had

seen ruins of these courier sta-

stops for the native runners

who

but

sages throughout the Inca Empire,

this

carried the Inca's mes-

was the

time that

first

we found them

in succeeding order. These raised platforms lying

close to the road

on which were circular houses, each large enough

for

two

who

Indians, have often been described by the early Spaniards,

thought the chasqiu system one of the marvels of the "newe

founde worlde."

two such ruined stations we proceeded

our
carefully, setting
pedometers so as to have a relative idea
of the distance between the stations. On the top of a hill near Mesa-

With

the discovery of

more

pata

we found our

third cbasqtii station, an even

one with raised platforms on either

side of the road

more elaborate
and large night

That day we found seven such

than two miles apart. We decided

quarters for the runners.

stations at

intervals of a little less

to give

empirical twist to our explorations

between the

From

by

actually

making

test

an

runs

stations.

Man has sought

He has
in time

the beginning,

to establish some

form of

shouted, used fire, wigused

he
has
beaten
horses,
drums,
relay runners, carwagged flags;
the
Great perfected smoke sigrier pigeons and cannons. Alexander

inter-communication.

nals to high degree, but until the telegraph

"what hath God wrought,"

was invented

to consider

the Incas, a preliterate people,

tained the speediest system of communications.

main-

message sent by
a route of one
reach
Cuzco
over
relay runner from Quito could
thousand, two hundred and thirty miles in five days. From Cuzco
the same message could be sent to the far end of Lake Titicaca in
three days.

On

the coast, where altitude was not a delaying factor,

1/7

Highway of
relay runners carried messages

the

Sun

from Lima

thousand-foot-high altitudes, in three days.

Cuzco the Inca dined

coast, a distance of

to Quito, often over

And

off fresh fish delivered

in his palace at

from Chala on the

two hundred miles over the highest Andes,

in

two days.
The Spanish conquistadores, accustomed to a world where sixty
days was considered to be a normal lapse of time in which to secure
communication with nearby countries, were incredulous. Of this
system one later reported:

The Incas invented a system of posts which was the best that
and so well was this
could be thought of or imagined
that
in
a
short
time
they knew, at a disrunning performed,
tance of three hundred, five hundred, or even eight hundred
the roads passed over rugged
leagues, what had passed.
mountains, over snow-covered heights, over stony wildernesses
and it may be taken as certain that the news could
not have been conveyed with greater speed on swift horses.
.

Still

one thousand, two hundred and thirty miles in five days!

That would mean that the chasqni relay was run at an average of
246 miles a day over a terrain which averaged more than 10,000
and through passes which often were 15,000 feet.
Even the Romans were fortunate indeed if their mounted couriers
feet elevation

could cover a hundred miles a day. There are no figures on the transmission of news from Rome, but in the age of Cicero forty-seven
days was considered normal traveling time for a letter to be delivered one thousand miles
ile

from Rome, and when Cicero was

at Cybistra he spoke of receiving a letter in

in ex-

"good time," or fifty

days after it left Rome. So the idea of five hundred leagues

twelve hundred miles
being traveled in five days was understandably startling to the newly arrived Europeans.

We

made our

repaired

The road beyond

and cleaned of any obstruction for more than ten
preparations for the

test.

Jauja,
miles,

The Highway of
was more or

less as it

the

Sun

tad been in the times of the Lord Incas.

We

young cholo men used to the high altitudes and for

these Silvia made copies of the original Indian chasqui tunics* We
went through the final details of our test. The distance having been
selected six

measured between each chasqui station,

tails of the run as reported by Cieza:

we

carefully reread the de-

The chasqui stations were built from half league to half

league [Ours were on an average of a mile and a half to two
miles apart].
The roads were lined with these small
.

houses at regular intervals. In each house the order read that

there should be two Indians stationed there with provisions.
The ckasqui then ran with great speed, without stopping, each

one for

his half league.

Our young men were not

trained runners, while the ancient

cbasquis had been "chosen from among the most active and swiftest
of all their tribesmen," and their bodies had been taught to function

under such conditions

to 15,000 feet.

Due

as

they would encounter at heights of 10,000

to the rare atmospheres in

which they

live, all

Andean people have developed enormous lung

capacity. This and

this alone allows life at these great altitudes. So even though our
runners were not trained, we hoped at least by establishing an arbi-

make a fair test of the chasqui system. Dr. Roger

Bannister had not yet made his historical run of the four-minute
trary handicap to

mile.

We

down

his heart action

later learned that

he had trained deliberately, slowing

and building up his chest expansion to give

of
oxygen for conquering anoxemia or shortsupplies
ness of breath. Thus by artificial means he had induced a physical

him generous

condition which the Indians, inured to these high altitudes, had ac-

quired through environment.

Our cholos did at least look like the ancient chasq^iis and with
their knit caps pulled down over their ears, their tunic-like ponchos

extending to their knees and their feet shod in leather sandals, they"

179

Highway of

the

Sun

looked as if they really were about to run on the Inca's business. At

each of the seven stations strung along the Inca road we had assistants with stop watches, and at each we had an Indian chasqiii
poised to run.

The

starter of the relay held a quip^t,, the

pendant of cord by which figures and even concrete

knotted

ideas

were

transmitted to trained readers. This quipu was to be handed from

one runner to another, along with a simple oral message as each new

man started off toward the next station.

Lawrence stationed himself

at the start to film the various stages

of the run. At the signal, a short bow-legged runner started off

with a burst of speed. I watched him running smoothly down the
he looked incredibly small on that expanse of manwide road

made highway.
I saw him reach the next station and through my binoculars I
could see the two runners exchanging the quipu while still in motion. Then the new runner burst away to make his run to the next
two-mile station. As this figure disappeared over a knoll and I
walked down to join Silvia, I remembered a passage out of Cieza
it was like the quotation borrowed from the Greeks which adorns
the New York Post Office:

With such secrecy did the runners keep their messages . .

that neither entreaty or menace could ever extort it from
them. .
.
And it must be understood that neither storm nor
.

anything

else

wildest parts

prevented the due service of the posts in the

as soon as one started another arrived to wait

in his place.

It

snowed again that night. Our

by the

day's run, were

had gone the course

now wrapped

many

six chasquis, utterly

times so that

180

exhausted

snugly in their ponchos.

They

we might check our own

The Highway of

the

Sun

and so that Lawrence's Bolex might catch numerous angles

figures

of flying feet and the exchange of the quipu for the film docuwere
mentary. Now, after a hot meal, they had succumbed.

We

busy over the figures.

them

We had

to run between stations

mile relay run.

Our untrained

the exact time

computed
and the overall

it

took for

figure of the thirteen-

cbasqnts, performing at about 14,000

had run an average. six-and-a-half minute mile! On

or eleven
they had run the approximate six stations

feet altitude,
this basis

miles

in fifty-nine minutes. Therefore, the

have had to run in

Cuzco

246 miles they would

twenty-four-hour day to complete the Quito-

relay could have been accomplished.

We were now in a position to confirm Cieza's report and those of

other earlier chroniclers that the chasqui system could accomplish
the run between Cuzco and Quito in five days; that from Lima to

Cuzco
so the

in three days,

and from the coast to Cuzco in two days.

Lord Inca could have been served daily with fresh

fish

And
from

the sea.

That night
out-sized fish

dreamed of a chasqui running up the road with an

it seemed to be having trouble breathing in the

high altitude.

Late

November found

us traveling through the

snowbound an-

maintained she could no longer remember a time

she had been really warm. Only at rare moments did the sun

tiplano. Silvia

when

from the unrelenting cold and rain, hail and snow,

swept down in succession and with no pattern.
Through it all we followed that continuing road, stretching endgive respite

less miles across the flat snow-swept plains, climbing the rock mass
of mountains, crossing on stone causeways over some bottomless
bog. But all this was no longer a cause for wonder on our part.

We

had

reached a point

where the best

181

we

could do was to record the

Highway of
unusual,

make out our

feature, set

the

reports, film

Sun

some remarkable engineering

Silvia was sure she was

our compass and move on. Once

the surumpi (snow-blindness) or that she had the

of
hallucinations, for as she stood on the road stamping
beginnings
circulation into her frozen feet, she thought she saw a line of blacksuffering

from

winged flamingos walking in front of her. ... It was no illusion.

Flamingos bad walked by. We had come by way of the Inca road
to Lake Junin.

All the rest of that day we kept to the east side of what is Peru's
and deserted. The little
second largest lake. It was high and cold
villages at the edge of its thirty-six-mile shore lie at an altitude of

13,000 feet with no protecting hill to break the blast of the iceladen winds. Junin was once called Chinchay-cocha (Lake of the
Lynx). The original inhabitants, famed for their warlike spirit,

when
and

attacked would take to island-fortresses in the lake's center

to conquer

them the Lord Inca had

to send to the coast for

balsa-reed boats with which to assault their island strongholds.

Once they were subdued, however, they became loyal vassals of the
Inca, and the region of such importance that
directions of empire."

The northern route of

it

became "one of the

the

highway

itself

was

Chinchay Road.
Our caravan continued on along the Inca road stopping only
long enough to take compass bearings and mark the route down on
called the

an overlay of the Peruvian military map. At the northern end of

the lake, the land became an immense bog and we lost our way constantly in the thick fog and, to make matters more complicated, it

began to snow heavily. By the end of the second day's travel we

had no idea where we were. Mud dwellings had appeared here and
there but

when we approached them

to answer our questions.

We

the people were too frightened

were looking for Bonbon, where, acsite and where three roads

cording to our research, lay a large Inca

182

The Highway of

the

Sun

have met. By nightfall we could only inch along literour

way. About us was a horrid desolation. It was so
ally feeling

were

said to

cold

now

that

we had

which alone of our

Power Wagon
was impossible to

to take turns riding in the

cars

prepare food outside, so

had

a heating system. It

we munched on

the last of our chocolate

and found some consolation in drinking coffee. A primitive bridge

which we crossed in darkness indicated that we had gone over the
only river which drains this lake. "We were puzzled to see that this
flowed due north, while our maps showed that the river we sought
flowed south.

we

and make camp in the snow or empty out the

Power Wagon and sleep in it? Should we keep on searching for that
illusive Inca site or should we drive on? We were considering these
Should

alternatives

stop

when, above the throb of the motors, we heard the roar

It grew louder as we went slowly on, until it was

of falling water.

as the road turned, we saw the twinkling of elecwe

had pulled up in front of a wooden house. AlSoon
once we were around a pot-bellied iron stove which gave

deafening. Then,
tric lights.

most

at

wonderful glowing heat. After so many days and nights on

the antiplano, we were now to have heat and the comfort of a bed.
out a

Gratefully
fore

we

allowed ourselves to be provided with hot food be-

we dropped into

oblivion.

we

could hardly believe our eyes. The Inca site of

Bonbon, which for a century had thwarted historians' attempts to

In the morning

pin-point

it

on the map, lay before

rassing situation for an explorer!

hub

us.

This was a somewhat embar-

The whereabouts

of this

town

was reported by the early

chroniclers
was actually no mystery at all. Close by was a modern dam which held back the Mantaro River as it flowed out of Lake
the

site

of three radical roads, so

Junin. This had been built

by

it

the Cerro de Pasco

183

Mining Corpora-

Highway of
tion,

the

Sun

whose engineers had torn down much of the ancient village

dam. But there was no doubt about its

to get the stones for the

reorigin. On the banks in the backed-up waters we could see the

mains of an Inca suspension bridge. A causeway led from the bridge
up to a wide stone staircase and entered northwest along the walls

of what once were large stone buildings and extended toward the
immense plaza. We had seen nothing like it in size since we had extrapizoidal-shaped plaza proved, when
accurately measured, to be over a thousand feet long. In the center

plored Vilcas-huaman.

The

Sun Temple, and from its approximate sides went radial

roads
one to the coast which an Indian could reach in three days
of walking on the Inca road, another to the north which went over
stood a

the puna to the highways of the snow-capped mountains of the

white cordillera, and yet another, the Royal Road, which led to the
northeast and the stone city of Huanuco the Old. There must have

been five hundred stone structures within Bonbon and those which

had not been entirely denuded still revealed their original form.
Eager to learn something more of the history of this place, we
began to gather such potsherds as we came across. Silvia found a
large cache of broken pottery on the stone-terraced banks of the

and soon we were scrounging in the debris of centuries. In a

few hours we had a large collection of fragments of broken pottery,
river,

and ax clubheads. They

we could see by the design, shape and structure, all Inca
and the type of polychrornic ware used when the Incas

spindles, spindle whorls, pieces of figurines

were, as
artifacts

had reached

their peak. Therefore, since these fragments were many

and lay close to the surface of the earth, we felt we could safely assume that the Incas had built Bonbon. It is well known that the

history of preliterate people

There was

little

mainly written in such artifacts.

doubt that this was the same Bonbon to which Heris

nando Pizarro had come in March 1 1, 1533, "when he marched into

Pompo where he stayed for the day he arrived and one day more/*

184

The Highway of

the

Sun

The scrivener's description of it fits the place exactly; he wrote that

the river [the Mantaro] which originated in the lake flowed by Bonbon "very clear and deep" and that it "connected with the Royal
Road" as it did by means of the bridge. We found the remains of
three cable stone towers which by some miracle had survived time,
weather, and immersion in the Mantaro when its watercourse was
high. It

was

this

bridge or fragment of bridge which

Poma

de Ayala,

chronicler of Inca events, in his guide to the roads and tambos

the road, mentions cryptically:

bonbon tambo

Bonbon,
built

a royal

the Lord

way

station

Inca.

with

puente de

cris-

this indicated

that

rreal

nexas del inga topa ynga yupanqui. Translated

a suspension bridge,

That placed

to

had been

close to A.D. 1450.

by
Topa
was well that we had not delayed in our examination of the ruof Bonbon, for two days later, the sky grew dark, snow began
it

It
ins

on

fall,

and soon the ruins were blotted out of

185

sight.

The Road to Chachapoyas

IN A WIDE FLAT PLAIN lay Huanuco. The ground was strewn with
beautifully worked stone and we entered the plaza from the Inca
road by means of a formal entrance of steps and guardhouses. It
was immense. Ruins of dwellings, many and thickly placed, filled
the plain outside the plaza and a

low

center of the Gargantuan square was

Sun Temple. At
Here we found

hill

to the northwest. In the

what had

doubtless been the

the western end of the square stood the palace.

continuing stone gateways, the finest, I would

say, in all Peru, and over each portal crouching animal figures which
resembled lizards. Through these I entered a series of immense rooms
six

which led into an architectural complex where there was

sunken

bath fed by two water flumes, "one for cold water, the other for
hot," said our guide. He was unable to explain how the hot water

Huanuco from Banos some ten miles distant.

Huanuco is so gigantic
the whole of Incaic Cuzco would have
that we found it difficult to grasp the immensity of
fitted into it
the human effort expended to build it. Something of its size can be
reached

gathered from a Spaniard

Huanuco
this

who passed

there in

has a fine royal palace

province of Huamalies with near

with

many

virgins

and

priests. It

186

was

it

so

548

the chief palace in

Temple of the Sun

grand

a place in the

The Road

to

Chachapoyas

time of the Incas that more than 30,000 Indians were set apart
solely for its service.

In 1539 the Spaniards seized this Inca stronghold which was so

"grand

a place"

and which offered

so

many

captives as potential

burden-bearers for their future conquests. For two years they

sought to maintain a settlement at the iz,ooo-foot altitude. Then,

unable to bear the secular winds, they betook themselves northeast

to a

warmer

climate and there they built

Huanuco survived

the old

life in

padre traveled that

to run
[i.e.,

it

way

Huanuco

New. Yet
io8 when a

the

the conquest, for in

he found the

ct

tambo with

for the accommodation of travelers since

it is

few Indians

on the Bang's

the Inca's] highway."

To

Huanuco was important

because it was the principal

which
from
were
launched in several direcstronghold
conquests
tions along the roads of conquest leading out from it, Like Dr.
us

Johnson's Rasselas,

me

strongly lead
earth,

my

business

once lived in

could say that

my

curiosity does not very

merely to survey piles of stones or mounds of

is with man/' But for the story of those who had

Huanuco we turned later

Lima, where we found

tional Archives in
ish

te

manuscript on the

city, the

to

documents in the Na-

a sixteenth-century

most complete report of

its

Spankind in

Peru.

After the conquest of Peru, the newly installed Viceroy gave

to Old Huanuco. Why had a once so greatly pop-

much thought

ulated place suddenly ceased to yield tribute to the crown? What

had happened to the more than thirty thousand natives who were
there at the time of the conquest

and what of the city which was

so

bright a jewel in the Inca Empire? Accordingly, he dispatched Don

Inigo de Zuniga to look into these matters. He arrived there in
1562.

With interpreters and Indian

caciques at his elbow to pry out

information from the inhabitants, he passed from house to house

compiling the statistics which resulted in the most detailed census

the

Highway of
ever

made

of the ancient Peruvians.

Sun

The following

is

a sample of

the information de Zufiiga carried back to his Viceroy:

HOUSE

35

In this house is an Indian named Ana Colque who is a widow

around 70 years old, without sons or daughters; her tribute
every four months is a ball of spun wool thread and a chicken
every year with some eggs.

Throughout the whole district the Indians were questioned in detail on their origins and how they had paid their tribute for the
thirty years previous to the then reigning Inca. Some of the old
men, trained quipu
were able to

The

relate

by consulting
much about Huanuco.
readers,

original inhabitants of

their "talking strings"

Huanuco, the Yacbas, were con-

quered by the Topa Inca in 1462 and the building of the fortress of
Huanuco was then begun. To secure the land from uprising, the
Inca transferred whole populations from Cuzco to this area. These

mitmaes quichwas, transferred people of Quechua speech, were the

in short, people he trusted to hold the land and inInca's own
sure

its

allegiance

and "to guard the

fortresses

which the Inca made

during the conquest."

The Yachas, adopted by

their conquerors,

were in turn settled in

new arrivals along with the

southwest.
Incas"
were
the
to
Tribute was lev^great-eared
placed
ied on everyone within the jurisdiction of Huanuco. From the
villages

northwest of Huanuco, and the

warmer regions, the Indians brought cotton, peppers, coca leaf, fish,
corn and gold; from the cold zone, potatoes, salt, cabuya fibers and
a tuber called qmnoa. All this tribute was marked down by one of
the conquerors, who had an official counter make a note of it. Of
1

"Information on estates and agents. Visit for the allotment of Indians of Gomez Arias Davila, native of Huanuco/* a report written by
I. Ortiz de Zufiiga, 1562.

188

The Road
those at

to

Chachapoyas

Huanuco, only the warriors who guarded the

fortresses

and those who guarded the bridges did not pay tribute. The corn
communal fields of the Yachas was carried to

harvested from the

Huanuco,

men

to

Bonbon and

to Cuzco.

They were

also

ordered to send

to garrison the fortresses.

Two

roads entered

Huanuco, two roads

left

Huanuco. One, the

made its exit at

Royal Road,
the northwest end of the elevated plaza and moved straight to the
Vizcarro River, where it crossed a primitive bridge made of several
descending in a sharp flight of stairs,

an Inca stone foundation. "Half league from

Huanuco, where there is a bridge over a torrential river made of
three thick logs and where there are guards who collect a toll as is
customary among these Indians," one of the Pizarros in 1533 had
crossed this highway, which, we knew from our previous exploration, was the Royal Road which led to Cajamarca and north to
Quito and beyond.
The other road which debouched from the northeast side of
Huanuco, I felt certain, was the same forty-five-foot-wide conquest road we had just seen near Jauja. It had broken off there from
the Royal Road to take its separate way until it once again rejoined
the main road at Huanuco. Since this had been the great military
tree lengths laid over

seemed most probable

that this highway was that built by the Incas for their conquest of
the Chancas.
station for the conquest of Chachapoyas,

it

was not overjoyed

some three hundred miles.

of a horseback ride over

Silvia

It

would be an arduous journey but

at

the mystery of the

gave
being
of Conquest unsolved. Lawrence and the others elected to reat Huanuco to work on his documentary film and to further

last she

Road
main

at the prospect

in,

explore the ruins.

as

unable

He would

as I to leave

then drive on to the coast, for he

knew

he could not long remain here with the rains already falling. So it
We gathered our guides, pack animals, horses, se-

Was arranged.

189

Highway of
lected the

then rode

ls it

Sun

and
equipment designed for just this sort of travel
which shrouds the undiscovered.

off into the twilight

not

as I

explained to you, Senor? There is the Maranon, far

and here is the road. You will find

below,

like a great silver snake,

that

Francisco

I,

the

Ocampo

/'

We had certainly found out plenty about Francisco Ocampo. He

was the only one among us with enough energy to talk and that
talk was mostly about Francisco Ocampo. Born on the road to
Chachapoyas, orphaned at childhood with

and

sisters,

his

numerous brothers

managed somehow to live by his wits. By

and saturnine manner one would have taken him

he had

bearded face

his

for

picaro, one who sees the seamy side of life. Yet none was
more ardent than he in searching for the illusive Inca road, no one
a

mere

more dedicated
have not

much

an unusual thing in itself, for here the people

enthusiasm for any active enterprise. But Francisco

has ridden often about this desolate country corraling supply muletrains for isolated gold mines,

and

so he

knew

the land.

two weeks of our journey in search of the conquest

road, we had to cross and recross the Maranon, take trucks where
we could, going by horse and mule at other times. When we
In the

first

we were geomark
between
Huanuco
and Chachahalfway
2
poyas and finally able to travel a continuous road. The upper
Maranon through which we now trekked is the least known region
reached Cuntur-marca, the "heights of the condor,"

graphically at the

To

give a detailed itinerary, the Inca road to Chachapoyas left the

at Huanuco, moved northeast, crossed the Maranon to
Quivilla (on the east bank) continued on high ground to CHavin de
Pariacra, continued at about 10,000 feet to Acrotambo; then to the large
ancient holding called Haucrachucro; from there to Tayapampa, then
to Parcoy and to Pataz, where the Maranon can be seen for the first time
snaking through the high hills of the Upper Maranon; Cuntur-marca lies
ten miles north of Pataz.
great square

190

The Road

to

Chacbapoyas

Peru. While the jungle areas have been thoroughly traversed

natives and whites and other remote sections of Peru are
both
by
mapped in detail, of the upper Marafion little is on record. Our
in

all

maps merely placed the names of widely separated villages in their

relative position and that was all. Geographically the region belongs
to the Central Andes, but the Marafion River has etched out a deep

canyon isolating it from the Mother Andes, and sandwiched between it and the Huallaga River, cut off from Central Peru, lies
this

towering land roughly two hundred miles in length and thirty

at its greatest depth.

But the great conquest road was no longer to be guessed at. We

were riding it over rolling hills, treeless and cold, and as we rode,
Silvia

so

and

talked of this road and

its

history.

At

first

we had been

engaged in crossing rivers on shaky contrivances, finding places

mere mechanics of moving, that we

to sleep, so absorbed with the

had had little time for talk. Now we were again in the open with the
wind blowing in unobstructed from the Amazon jungles which lay
not too far away to set the ichu grass,
tion. The whole heavens curved about

Hate and

as tall as

sugar cane, in

mo-

us.

Perhaps therefore this was a

good time to consider the creative qualities of hate. Even after his
realm had been enlarged to include a lordly section of South Amerfear

had built

this road.

the Incas had felt impelled, as we have said, to seek out and destroy that small defiant and much hated colony of Chancas living
ica,

That

this tribe was beyond the reach of their

Sun
searching Argus-eyed
King worried the Inca to distraction.
In an earlier time, when the Incas were battering their way

in the eastern Andes.

through stubborn resistence, the Chancas, eight thousand strong,

had been sent on the road as part of the Inca army of conquest^
the Inca believing so to rid themselves of the remainder of this
tribe. It

was then that the Chancas with "their

women and Hanco-

Highway of

the

Sun

huallu and eight thousand warriors, marched secretly away through

the provinces of Huanuco and Chachapoyas into the forests of the

low-lying Andes
multiplied

."

where they established

The Inca Empire

their

kingdom and
power gave

at the height of its

and attacked, yet apparently without their usual elaborate

preparations, and the Chancas "fought with such fury that the
chase

Incas fled before them."

The answer

now

to this was the road of conquest over

Only by staggering human

riding.

effort

which we were

and endurance could

road have been built. Since there were no rocky outcrops

nearby, the large stone slabs which made up the paved road had to

this

be carried to

were

and there
over a distance and the deep canyons
were miracles of construction with their step road

it

many

and mountain switchbacks,

wonderfully arranged with stone

all

supports.

By

the time

we

reached Cuntur-marca, where

we came

to our

recognizable Inca tampu, Silvia was properly exhausted. Our

food along the way had been meager and the altitudes at times were

first

so high that she had gone through agonizing

of breath, racing pulse and

all

in ruins

tampu

we had

though

it

was, the

seen in a full week.

treeless region like the

except that

from

the

moments of

shortness

symptoms of soroche. But

was the best stopping place

the other
still

We were on the top

punas over which

we were now experiencing

of the jalka, a bare

we had

traveled so long,

cyclonic winds that blew

up

Amazon.

Our camp

that night was set

up in the Inca's tambo, of stone and

without windows. The roof, replaced frequently throughout the
centuries, was of gabled wooden beams thatched with ichu grass.

Only

a portion

of

it,

a small

habitable. Silvia stretched out

saddle as a headrest while

room

we

scarcely larger than a

cell,

was

on the ground using her

busied ourselves with putting the

on

a blanket

i foe

&oaa

to

place In order. Francisco, gay as ever, chased about looking for

pieces of wood. On a rude bed of dry grass, where someone
had evidently once stored potatoes, I unrolled our down-filled sleeping bags. While Silvia made herself comfortable on them, I pre-

some

pared our food over our gasoline-operated paratrooper stove and

Francisco, in a corner where the draft could not reach it, soon had a

stew of dried llama meat and potatoes going. Then, to the accompaniment of the howling winds, Francisco continued his life's story
he had night after night, a sort of bowdlerized version of the
night tales of Scheherazade. He had reached midway in the telling
as

how

he had found a mountain of gold when the blanket which

hung as a door between the night and ourselves was pushed aside
and out went our candle. Sputtering a whole litany of curses on
o

whoever had

let In

the wind, I finally located a

by two

match and

the

lit

and unkempt-looking visitors. Francisco, looking oddly shaken, hurriedly did the honors of
our hovel, offering cigarettes and coffee. The two, roughly dressed
candle. "We were confronted

and unshaven,

come

said they

to investigate.

lean

had seen the

They

light in the

plied us with so

our quota of patience used up,

nally,

tambo and

many

so

had

questions that

we bade them

a curt

fi-

good-

night.

Francisco awakened
told

me

must

me

few hours

later.

In a hoarse whisper he

that our saddled animals were waiting outside, that

leave at once, for the

wise for us to

move

we

two men were bandits and

on. I doubted this at

first,

for

it would be
few lands in the

world are safer for the traveler than Peru. Yet since Francisco inhe was talking about, we silently stole out to
the frigid night, mounted, put on our heavy woolen ponchos and
were on our way north before the rising of the Dog Star.
sisted

he

knew what

Three hours

later,

when

the sun had

warmed

the earth,

we

stopped for coffee under the protection of the walls of some ruins
near a lake at the edge of the road. As we were about to mount,

193

Highway of
Francisco spoke excitedly:

the

Sun

"They come!" Through

my binoculars I

our erstwhile guests riding toward us. Each carried a shotgun. They were perhaps a half-mile away, traveling along the edge
could

see

of the lake and pushing their horses to a gallop. I had not,

been

much

concerned with Francisco's

shot across the

bow

fears,

as yet,

but perhaps just a

good position and aimed well ahead of them. In the

preternatural stillness, my big-calibered rifle sounded like the slam
I

found

of a cannon, the lake pushed

up

a small geyser of water

tance in front of them and a horse shied.

closer;

some

I fired again, this

dis-

time

they reined in their horses, turned and galloped away.

As we moved northward people and

houses began to appear with

some frequency. The dwellings, mostly constructed from worked

stone taken from the ancient ruins, were rough and roofed with
grass thatch. The people, although swarthy in complexion, were
not Indian and did not speak the Quechua language. Yet they lived
in hovels far worse, I judge, than did the natives in the time of the

Inca.

The

made

of untanned cattle hides.

stones laid
It

one room, generally in one bed

As a stove there was only a pile of

entire household slept in

was not

on the ground. Yet these people could not be

unusual for a

man

to

own

as

much

called poor.

as three

hundred

head of sheep, five hundred cattle, horses and pigs. In Europe if a

man had so much livestock he would have been considered well off.
Nevertheless they lived wretchedly, and I was happy to exchange
medicines for such food as they could give us without making inroads into their not too plentiful supplies.
were now in the third week of travel

We

from Huanuco, riding

down the slopes of a long valley covered with tufts of grass so high
that at times I could only see the top of Silvia's head. The sky was
leaden, the wind blew icily, bending double the tall grass. We rode

194

The Koad

to

Cbachapoyas

by immense boulders hoary with moss,

which had fallen off with the passing of

sections of eroded rock

centuries like the leaves

of a geological calendar marking the years of the sun.

And so we came in due course to the valley of Atwen. From a

natural lake, artificially widened and artificially bound by handreared rock walls, flowed the headwater stream of the Uctubamba
which emptied into the jungles one hundred miles to the
northeast. Here we came upon the remains of what was once a giRiver,

gantic Inca barracks.

Although

all

the surrounding present-day

dwellings were built of the stone taken

enough of

it

remained for us to study

from the ancient

it

and to prepare

structure,
a

ground

plan. Surface excavations yielded pottery, mace-heads, bronze

all of which bore eloquent testimony to the fact that once
knives

the Incas had passed this way. This was the first sizable Inca ruin we
had found along the road to Chachapoyas and it might well have

been the rallying place of the soldiers before they assaulted the en-

emy fortresses

that lay ahead.

The path over which we traveled was now confined to the narrow valley of the Upper Uctubamba and passed through what had
formerly been a heavily defended area. Almost every peak was
topped by the ruins of a defense point and below these ran the Inca
road. Five

hundred years of indiscriminate passage by the Spanish

had reduced

of the highway to a mass of scattered stone and where the road had disappeared, it had become a
settlers

this section

No one since the

time of the Incas had given thought to

repairing the road and the heavy rains plus the constant passage o
mule-trains had almost completely destroyed it.

quagmire.

That night we slept in an old house which lay under the shadow
of Torre Pukro, the highest peak in the valley. I had been watching
it for most of the day as we rode and as we drew close I saw
through

my

binoculars the terraced

hills

pinnacle the ruins of a massive fortress.

195

and on the silhouetted

Highway of
Oddly we found

the

Sun

a large mirror in the house

and

so for the first

many weeks we had a good look at ourselves. Among ourwe had been perhaps unduly critical of the appearance of

time in
selves

we met on the way. The women, we said, looked like old

crones and the men as if they had never bathed or shaved. Now we

those

saw what the land had done to

us. Silvia's face

was raw from the

wind and darkly tanned; her eyes were bloodshot from the campsmoke and her hair a pallid ash color from the dirt of the trail.
As for me, what with my beard, the dirt and the tan, mine was a
visage which would have competed on equal terms with any we had
passed on the way. That three weeks should have been so wearing
on us I
fire

In the morning I began to climb to the hilltop fortress of Torre

first thousand feet was easy and within an hour I was

Pukro. The

perched high on the

seen

from

cliff

this height

looking

down on

the narrow river. Clearly

was the scar of the Inca road.

My guide,

car-

rying the cameras, eased ahead, found an ancient path that zigzagged up the second thousand feet, and soon we were climbing
over the tumbled remains of agricultural terraces. I marveled at
the immense

human

effort that

went

into building these walls

the edge of nothing for the one purpose of salvaging so

In
so

on

little soil.

which was Peru, arable land was so scarce and man

pressed by necessity that he had had to resort to terracing the
this vast land

clouds.

Above ten thousand

going was difficult; I would climb

fifty feet, rest five minutes, climb again, rest. In two hours I had
reached the top. The ruins of the fortress, massively built of stone,

extended

all

feet the

along the topographical saddle of the mountain,

much

Machu Picchu near to Cuzco, offering a fine vantage point

looking down the throat, so to speak, of the valley. At one time

as did

for

had been an advantageous lookout station for the protection of

the Inca road which could be seen running as a thin line three thouthis

196

The Road

to

Chachapoyas

sand feet below. The conquest of this strongly-placed fortress must

indeed have cost the Inca's troops a considerable expenditure of
blood capital. From this spot I could see that there were similar

on many of the other hilltops. When I had surveyed the

ruins and collected numerous potsherds, I made my way wearily
fortresses

down through a sudden hailstorm.

The climb to that mountain citadel had done me in. In

the

morn-

time in a year's exploration, I had to beg off from

a proposed climb to another ruin reported to be on this side of the
valley and buried in the gloom of a forest. "We were still up 9000

ing, for the

feet

first

and though there had been no change in the barometer nor in

mean of

the thermometer, which kept to a

the valleys and portions of these

jungle.

An old woman who had

cines while

Choquillo up

come

was inspecting the

in the

wooded

were

hills

forty-five degrees, yet

as

to our

fortress

thickly forested as a

camp

to ask for

had told

medi-

Silvia that at

"there was buried a stone city

hills

times had we, responding to such rumors, climbed some wearisome hill only to find nothing. Too often
built

by

the savages."

Many

time and energy had been spent chasing these shadows. Now here
was another tale of another "stone city buried in the trees" lying at

Even Francisco with all his

could not move me. Silvia and the two guides

the end of an archaeological rainbow.

tricks of raillery

could go without

When

me if they so

they had gone

I lay

desired.

back in immense

tiredness. I

wanted

only to be allowed the utter luxury of being motionless.

"Senor!"
I

wakened

"Dona

Silvia

me, pulling my sleeve.

has sent me, you are to come. She has found the stone
to find one of our guides beside

city."

That was quite enough to shake

off

197

my weariness

and in no time

Highway of

the

Sun

was up and following him through the scrub brush in the hollows,
in
past a ruin or two, and on through a deep canyon. Then we were

where we were swallowed up

boy had to use his machete

the forest of Choquillo,

growth

encumbering

vines.

An occasional

palm

tree

showed

its

once in

at

to cut the

so thick that the

head, lianas

massive ship cables bound tree to tree, aerial plants clung to

trees, orchids hung in profusion from the highest limbs and birds

like

the growth. I could not have been more

surprised at finding this jungle in the Andes if I had been trans-

silently fluttered

among

ported to a magic forest.

Here and

there sections of massive

man-made white

stone walls,

covered with thick verdure, were just visible through the undergrowth. Ahead I heard the sound of a machete and the crash of

and

trees

ing was

in a clearing in front of a

Silvia, directing

the cutting of the vegetation that

pered the view. Excitedly she

whole stretch of forest was

Great

trees

had seen them

round towerlike stone build-

came

filled

to

meet me.

It

was

with stone buildings

had embraced the walls of the ancient

at the

Maya

a patch of white. Then,

ruins at Yucatan.

upon coming

close,

hamThe

true.

site,

just as I

We would see

we would

at first

discover the

patch to be a rounded wall, part of a circular structure. These were

set in clusters of three and were connected with beautifully laid
ashlars

forming stone

steps.

The dual

walls were high

and

roofless,

but apart from such stones as had been uprooted by the trees, most
of the buildings were well preserved. Here the jungle had acted as
a protecting screen

from the elements and, lying unseen, the

city

had been spared the usual ravages of time.

We cleared the vegetation from what we judged to have been

largest structure.

And

there

it

was

a dwelling set

the

on an enor-

mous oval-shaped stone base. From out the jungle growth, a wellmade wall of dry masonry rose up twenty-five feet, its axis over
seventy feet long, with not a stone out of place.

198

On

top of this oval

The Road
base, set

back in

to

Chachapoyas

was another similarly designed structure

had a door and square windows and

a recess,

differing only in that this one

the suggestion of a fret design in a mosaic of stones running about

top. Before

its

its

sharply pitched roof

fallen in, the building

made of

must have had an

feett Francisco cleared the stone stairways

grass thatch

overall height

had

of sixty

and we, following him

between the two houselike ruins, found ourselves on a balcony

ledge. We walked around it toward the doorway on a thick moss

which covered the stones. This we rolled back, and under

we found well-laid masonry as glowing white as it must have
been when it was first laid down. Under the moss, too, we discovcarpet

it

ered large carved stone heads sculptured on tenons which were part
of the architecture. As the unrolling of the moss-carpet progressed,

we found five such heads.

In the exact center on the circular wall was the doorway

much

had seen in Mayan structures. The terrace

doorways
which had been made of wood had succumbed to the elements and
like the

This was the only defect

otherwise the walls were in perfect state. Stepping inside the circular building, we passed into a dense growth of trees covered with

had

fallen, dislodging a

few

stones.

flowering orchids. The quiet of this forest and the mysterious jungle-covered ruins made me think of John Lloyd Stephens, the New

York lawyer who, during

his travel

gle in 1839, first discovered the

through the Honduran jun-

Maya

culture.

tc

am

entering

abruptly upon new ground," he

On

the outside walls a

said. Just so were we.

fret design with large Greek-key motif

ran around the entire edge of the building. This, too, was a type of
wall decoration very similar in design and technique to those found
in the Maya ruins of Ucmal in Yucatan.

The roof was gone, but

all else

was

in place

window

spaces for

ventilation; square mural niches in which the images of local gods

had been set; a deer antler lodged in the wall and probably used as

199

the Sun

Highway of

a tunic hanger,- a large stone on the floor for grinding corn, intact

with stone
with flat

roller;

flagstones.

and, as our excavation progressed, a floor laid

Then

and delight we came across

structure, which we were by this

to our surprise

evidences of Inca occupation.

The

time convinced was not Inca in origin, had undoubtedly been contemporaneous with the Inca Empire, and now the finding of Incadesigned pottery and a copper knife and stone celts indicated that
this, too, had been a city conquered and used by the Inca's troops.

had been some writing, some hieroglyphic scorings

one finds in the ruins of the Old World! But there were

If only there

such

as

only these silent circular stone buildings standing in a jungle. Was

this one of the cities and the forts on the hills which belonged to
the sought-after Chancas of whom de la Vega had noted: "The
Topa Inca went to conquer Chachapoyas; they [the Chancas] had
built

many

fortifications

and he had

to take

them one by one

then he had to go through

a mountain pass called Chirmaccassa and from here southward he
had to conquer all the towns for eight leagues." Or were these the
the

first

was near the town of Pias

remains of another culture without

the

way

name

or history

which stood in

of the Inca in their frantic search for the illusive Chancas

tribes?

The mountain ramparts along

filled

with ruins of ancient

the

Lower Uctubamba Valley

fortresses, cities

are

and burial chullpas,

some of which have been explored for more than a century. High
on the east of the Uctubamba Valley are the ruins of the great
fortress of Kuelape, similar in construction to these

we found about

Choquillo; and very high in the frigid jalka, there are other similar
At Jalka Grande we were to find round structures iden-

structures.

we found in our "city in the forest." But in following

from Huanuco northward into a little-known region,
we had opened a whole new region of archaeological incognita*
tical to those

this Inca road

200

The Road

to

Chachapoyas

For the next several days we walked through, an amazing luxuriant jungle. On both sides was a double array of towering limestone cliffs and in the center of the jungle was the plunging
Tambillo River, along which ran the all-weather paved road of conquest, its massive rock slabs quarried from the nearby cliffs still
surviving after five centuries.

now we met

pallidpeople moving along the road

of
intermittent
with
racked
tertiary feonslaughts
looking people

Frequently

The women wore

vers.

brimmed panamas and

large

crinoline cot-

ton skirts and walked barefooted. The men, usually driving oxen
which did double duty as pack animals, were sallow-faced and unshaven.

They were

miring

Silvia's

make

so

a kindly people, asking politely

about

youthful good looks, incredulous that

merely to walk the Inca road.

us,

we

ad-

should

long a journey

It rained heavily as

we journeyed

across the

mountains of

Puma

wind blew with such violence that the tired

mules could hardly keep their footing. The storm, coming in unchecked from the direction of the eastern jungles which lay only a

Okra and

the gusts of

score of miles eastward

and downward, capriciously alternated with

sudden gleams of sunlight, and the cloud shapes floating over the
treeless jalka hung down into the unseen jungle.
as

The red earth was steaming under the rays of the triumphant sun
we rode into Levanto. The compact little stone-built village

stood at the end of the plain. Back of it rose abrupt hills, tangled in
trees and the broken masonry of ancient buildings. In the neat and

by its old church, we were met by four

silver-headed sticks of village officials. They

quiet little plaza, dominated

men

carrying the
doffed their gray llama- felt hats and in a strangely lisping Spanish

bade us welcome to Levanto

much

way had Alonzo de Alvarado been welcomed

when in November 153? he arrived with his men to take over the
In

the same

rich province of Chachapoyas, his reward for his defeat of the Inca.

20 1

Highway of

the

Sun

Only then he had been met by Inca and Chachapoyas

chieftains at-

woolen tunics, their heads festooned with golden ornaments. So confused were the Inca nobles at Levanto by all that
had happened
the capture and the death of their Inca and the
tired in long

orders to place themselves at the

official

man

that they

had offered

command

of the white

The con-

organized resistance.

little

quistadores found these Indians the "most fair and good looking
.
of any
seen in the Indies and their women so beautiful that
.

Exceedof them are worthy to be wives of the Incas

about
in
dressed
well
fair
and
formed, they go
ingly beautiful,
woolen clothes, like their husbands, and on their heads they wear a

many

certain fringe." So Alvarado accepted the

"and founded the

homage of the Indians

city of the frontier in a strong place called

Levantu."

Now

four hundred and twenty years later here around us were

first Spanish settlement whose walls were now hid-

the ruins of this

den in thick brush. Back in the

hills

were other immense ruins and

which
hours from here, deep in the valley, was Chachapoyas
the Spaniards later sought out as a refuge from the ice-laden winds.

five

The

village elders, following us

with

pompous show of

their

ornately decorated silver-topped staffs of office, directed us to the

village school at the edge of the small grass plaza and there we took

A little lady, so

refuge from the rain.

only a miniature of a

human

small that she appeared to be

being, offered us a gentle

welcome,

shared with us her evening meal of beans and rice and gave Silvia
the only bed. She poured out her last drop of kerosene to give us
light

when

the house was whipped

exposed height the winds, roaring

fifty miles distant

and

six

by the sudden storm. On this

up from the jungles which lay

thousand feet below

screaming banshees about us and the rain poured

house as in a deluge. The rats and the bats kept

but we were too exhausted to worry much about

202

blew

shrill as

down on

the frail

us,

up an awful din,
it.

Tomorrow we

The Road

to

Chachapoyas

this time to the airfield at Cha

were to take yet another ride
chapoyas. But at long last we would be on our way to the coast.

Before sleep claimed us Silvia had the last word.

desert will be warm. I haven't been warm in so long

how

it

will feel."

Only

the squeal of the rats answered her.

203

"At
I

least th<

don't knov

The Unliving Desert

I

HE LAND

once lived

cannot be said to be dead, for that would imply that

it is

unliving. There

is

no water, no

tree,

no

it

grass,

"nor any created thing/' said a wandering Spaniard, "except birds,

which by the gift of wings wander wherever they list." This coastal
desert begins at

Tumbes near

the equatorial line to the north and

continues southward for over two thousand miles, the entire length

of Peru and on into the northern part of Chile, its arid, waterless
desolation varying in width from one to a hundred miles, bound by
the sea and the bare
it.

is

Andes which intrude

their

unclothed ribs into

The mist which hangs here often dulling the glamour of the stars
not rain but moisture in mist-clouds like unshed tears. If this bal-

ance

is

destroyed, as sometimes happens, the flood gates open

the flimsy

mud houses

When

of the dwellers in the valleys are dissolved as

melted in an onrushing wave.

the desert day dawns mistless, it is so hot that

a child's sand castle

and

is

tide within the hour.

No

it is

noon-

no

tree,
cactus, nor even canker-weed
grows in this desiccating heat, nothing that "would exalt one in desolation above Idumea." Blue sky curves to meet blue sea and no

showers refresh

this desert

which

like split Syrian

gourds is left
lies cracked

withering in the sun and beneath a torrid sky the land

by a timeless drought, its one distinctive note uninhabitableness.

"Have mercy upon me," its wailing spirit seems to say, "and send
as

204

2 'he Unliving Desert

Lazarus that he

tongue for

Yet

Man

may

dip the tip of his finger in water and cool

am tormented by

my

this heat/'

and prospered here for thousands of years, shaping a desert civilization as Man has elsewhere done in the world's
lived

Along the entire length of the desert coast, the score of rivwhich break through the
some constant, others capricious
ers
rock-hard Andes to flow to the ocean have made valleys which, unaridity*

der centuries of irrigation, have become oases in the desert.

as early as

3000

B.C.

Man

first

appeared in these valleys, he

the land in the river valleys enriched

without

disease

by alluvium,

When
found

the arid void

and the offshore waters well supplied with

fish.

Wa-

was then, as now, the key to life. Man learned the techniques of
irrigation and with long experience perfected them. He sought out
ter

streams high in the valleys, built elaborate aqueducts and channeled

them to the coast and so widened the natural valleys and increased
the areas of fertility. In time, the desert oases blossomed and thus
early

Man became the human catalyst of the

Each of
rated

and

by

desert.

these valley oases along the thousand-mile coast

is

sepa-

stretches of desolation. Isolation creates distinct cultures;

so each valley

had

its

variant in

its

customs, style, and applica-

tion, even though all shared the desert environment. All coastal
tribes had the same husbandry: corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, pepuseful for making bread and liquor when there was a
pers, yucca

want of maize

sweet potatoes, avocados, guavas, pineapples, stariron-hard

algaroba-trees with a fruit "somewhat long and
apples,
narrow and not so thick as the pods of beans," and pepinos "of very
pleasant smell and taste/* Eventually the larger tribes

which came

into being in the better populated valleys dominated the rest without, however, altogether changing their basic cultures.

The
fierce

tains

Incas, arriving late, conquered these coastal cultures after

and often prolonged wars, swarming down from their mounto lay siege and eventually engulf these coastal cultures into

20J

Highway of
their devouring

maw. The Chimu,

was overwhelmed in 1465,

to fall,

dons of Francisco Pizarro

fell

Sun

the

the greatest of these and the last

a generation before the myrmi-

upon the

entire region. After that

conquest, the Incas built "a wide road through these coast valleys

with

on each

a strong wall

side"

which drew the widely separated

oasis-cultures together.

So at the height of Carnival time we came down from the bareon the mountains to the bareness of life on the yunga-

ness of life

we

desert to find, if

could, that "wide road through the coast

valleys."

It

began with a tour by

newly

air.

The whole

arrived archaeologists, Fritz and

Expedition, including our

Dorothy Riddell from the

University of California, crowded into the single-motor Stinson

air over the grayish void of land to gain a first
comprehensive look at the terrain. After covering some three hun-

and took to the

dred miles during which time we filmed many of the obscure sections, we returned to the Lima airport and prepared for an immediate

ground survey.

With our caravan of

vehicles

personal use of the Riddells,

now

increased

we began

by one more for the

the southern exploration of

The airport had

on the highway which passed

the coastal road at the rim of the city of Lima.

once been the

site

through what

is

Close

of a

now

the landing field for international airlines.

on Lima, Morro

edge of the

sea.

At

its

way

station

from the
Arma-tambo

Solar, a Gibraltar-like rock, rises

base

on the Royal Road

is

the

where Indians making the pilgrimage to the

sacred place of Pachacamac, a few miles distant, made their ablutions before going on to the holy place. Here we lingered
long
[purification bath]

enough for the

then

we

Riddells to "take their first archaeological scent,"

passed on southward.

206

The Unliving Desert

Pachacamac, known today as the home place of thousands of sea
birds, was once the dwelling place of the Creator God. The largest

man-made pyramid

in

all

the Americas, constructed of millions of

sun-baked bricks cemented over and frescoed with paintings of

birds, it had been revered as the most hallowed spot on the entire

Now

coast.

it is

in full decay

showing only an occasional trace of

ancient murals with here and there ruins of the houses, streets and

which surrounded

walls
ished,

it.

But

at the time the coastal tribes flour-

Pachacamac bore so great a fame that even the Incas when

they conquered the coast dared not change it nor the observance of
its rituals. So Pachacamac was adopted into their pantheon of gods.

We

walked the sand-bound

streets

between the moldering walls

of the buildings which had housed the priests who attended this
great oracle, trying to imagine the life of that era. The site was not

germane to our study of the Inca roads. Yet because the road did
skirt the old shrine and the Riddells were anxious to poke their archaeological noses into this

Inca

town

to

famous

place,

we stopped

briefly in this

which the Spaniards had sent their emissaries immewas captured and held for ransom. They had

diately after the Inca

twenty steel-clad conquistadores, on January 30, 1533, to

and
take away ransom monies in Inca gold to the sum of
claim
the equivalent of two hundred thousand
ninety thousand pesos
arrived,

dollars.

"And

the Lord of Pachacamac and the principal

men came

out to receive them."

On the
tile

road south into the desert,

valley spots

vated that

all

we

passed through several fer-

which in recent times had been

so

thoroughly culti-

evidence of the ancient past had been erased. Turning

westward toward the mountains which

eased our trucks over the sand until

rose

we came

up

like

dry bones, we

to the little village of

had been an ancient stop on the coastal road. Now the

wattle-and-daub houses surrounded by gardens which had

Asia. This too

little

been painstakingly cared for in the midst of

207

this terrible dryness

Highway of
had

little

found

to suggest that

a small square, a

it

few

the

Sun

had once been a famous Inca tambo.

stores,

an ocean of sand and

We

many naked

children as serious as gnomes., but nothing else to indicate that the

Inca road had "marched along with a wall on each side." But as we
were leaving, we encountered an old man and his mule who offered
to

show us where

the old road

had been. Seated on the fender of our

Power Wagon, he guided us out of the oasis. He was an odd sight,

this man, half as old as time, as from his perch he guided us
through the desert wadis, while his sad-eyed mule ran behind us
loudly braying his fear that we were carrying his master off. And
so we came to the edge of the ancient pathway, and there our old
friend, happily clutching a bottle of

rum and

few empty cans

the

he begged for his wife, rode off toward the village.

The sun sank leaving a vast glory of fiery hanging clouds behind
it.

A sharp

breeze

came up with the night, strong enough to blow

as had survived the day, and we moved the

away such insect pests

trucks into a holllow square, set

up

the awnings and prepared our

camp.

Night on the

when

the desert

desert has a quality all

is

its

own. During the day,

a furnace, a breeze, if there

is

one, brings only

But with the coming of night, the cool breeze

comes up from the Pacific, there are no insects to inflict their torment and luckily in the center of the desert there are no hungry
dogs to be driven away from the food. With the distant western
increased discomfort.

sky still reddened with the last of the sunset, we sat about talking
of our next week's program. Lawrence had started the tape recorder
and in the clear night, emptied of sound, we listened to Mozart's
"Eine Kleine Nachtmusik."

What we hoped

to find in this low-lying area

was a continuous

stretch of road and a succession of wayside tambos.

lieve that

we

could find such a station in a pristine

stant gravedigging over the years

had

208

left

We

did not be-

state, since

con-

nothing in an unrifled

The Unliving Desert

state.

In the mountains

road and

its stations.

we had had

little

success in finding such a

But here on the coast such

chance did

exist,

for the coastal Inca road, like the salients of the caravans of the

Middle East, moved toward water; and the passes with their halting
stops were determined by nearness to water while the inequality of
the distances between the tambos was conditioned

each

by the location of

oasis.

Just

how had

the Incas after the conquest absorbed the superior

What part of the people they

And who among them built the coastal

coastal cultures into their empire?

conquered had remained?

road?

The evidence

lay buried in the structures of those dead cities

now overwhelmed by
would

reveal these clues

and

skeletal

remains

and these bones would have to be

fleshed,

sand.

Only

their graves

had said, the story of a pre-

breathed into and given

people is determined largely by their artifacts and the
changes in these artifacts, we would find careful stratigraphical exlife.

Since, as I

literate

cavation a necessity. But

first

to find that continuing road

The days went by. We traveled in sand, we slept in sand, we ate

sand. Yet we were finding, in our constant coursing of the desert to
the south, that the coastal plain was not wholly sand. Although the
immediate shore

wind
feet,

is

a great sand strip

and the prevailing offshore

has, over the years, formed dunes as high as two thousand

there is also a pampas of hard grayish soil filled with bits of

harsh gravel near where the foothills come to the desert's edge. On
this the early Peruvians built their road. Where the ancient highway

was not covered by sand drifts, we were able to follow the walls
and so came in time to the valley of Canete, one hundred miles
south of Lima, at a point where the valley spreads like a fan out of
the narrow canyons of

its

upper reaches. Here the vegetation

209

starts

Highway of

the

Sun

first the desert, then a green valley made fertile by lifewater

from complex irrigation ditches. Much as the coast
giving

abruptly;

people lived centuries ago, the valley people live now and their
houses, woven of reeds and indifferently roofed, are placed on the

edge of the desert to enable them to

utilize

every available fertile

strip of land.

We

were greeted courteously

as

we

entered

by

a pleasant-faced

woman of copper brown with marked Negroid features, surrounded

by several naked children who peeked at us in open-eyed curiosity
as
is

they clung to her widespreading cotton skirts. Life on the coast

casual and easy. As it is never cold, the need for clothing is negli-

can be had from the sea and that opiate the coca leaf,
which the mountain Indian chews to numb hunger and existence, is
gible. Fish

not used here. The yearly crops of corn, squash, beans and peppers
are plentiful, and if one is fortunate enough to own and irrigate a

can be made to yield an annual crop of cotton. Here on the coast we found the people much
more approachable than those we had met in the interior.
small piece of loam land in the sand,

The

valley,

now

it

in spring's full tide, was planted chiefly with

would be planted
with corn and beans. Although modern irrigation methods have
made the valley much larger than it was originally, the ancient
cotton but later after the cotton harvest, the

fields

Peruvians in their time had thoroughly mastered the art of irrigation. And it is an art.
canal system demands careful design, for

the working level of the water determined

tions

must be

so regulated that it will

cline. If too fast, the

flow

water will erode the

by hydrographic condi-

down only

mud

a slight in-

banks; if too grad-

ual, the canal will be choked with weeds and the sluices and the

will need constant repair. As we drove along, we saw

channels
laid along the edges of mountain escarpments
irrigation
where it seemed scarcely possible that water could be conveyed.

embankments

At

the spot where the canyon wall of the valley

210

met

that of the

The Unliving Desert

river

we saw

the

way by which

the Incas had entered the valley.

To

our right was the river and along it ran the modern vehicular road.
To our left was an aqueduct, and forty feet above it, built into the
natural rock, was the Inca road. Superbly engineered and curving

with the canyon wall, it connected the Royal Road of the Andes
with the coastal road. In many of the larger valleys, too, we found
these lateral roads always built against

canyon walls high above the

river.

For the

first

time the Riddells were actually seeing one of these

Dorothy had spent months on the re-

ancient roads, and though

search for this trip

and knew the history and the location of the

we did, the reality was a constant source of

roads even better than

wonder

to her.

Fifteen miles inland

Huasi, once the largest

on the road we found the ruins of IncaInca settlement on the coast. It stood on the

sloping dry hills where the twisting river cut through the valley; a
marked contrast with the surrounding desolation, its site covered at

square miles. There were the usual houses of the Virgins

of the Sun perched high on the hills so as to be beyond reach of the
least five

There was

complex of habitat-buildings with large columns and a gigantic storage center five hundred feet square with
two hundred and forty-eight cubicles arranged with the precision
soldiers.

of beehive

cells,

with drying yards and guardian chambers as part

What had evidently been the residence of the

of the storage system.

chieftains

was adjacent to an enormous formal plaza

six

hundred

and shaped like a keystone with an altar in its center.

In the middle of the fifteenth century the Incas began their mas-

feet long

conquest of the southern coast and so the roads were extended

down from the mountains. Some of the lesser valleys yielded after a

sive

short struggle but not so this valley.

Chuquimancu, chieftain of
Chanca Confederation, in order to block the Inca advance from
the south, threw up a stout defense which prevented the Topa Inca
the

211

Highway of

the

Sun

from coining into the lower fertile plains. The war lengthened into
four years and the Indians who survived it were still talking about
it when the Spaniards arrived: "It was/* they said, "a protracted

war and though the Inca King himself retired to the mountains
during the summer on account of the heat, his troops continued the
fighting." It was due to the length of this siege that the Inca built
Huasi, a city conceived on so elaborate a scale that it was called

"New Cuzco."

took us some time in our continuing southward journey to

cross the Pampa de Jaguay. Once more we traveled over an interval
It

of desolation which separated valley from valley, isolating one from

them into individualized cultures. The desert

the other, forming

was empty except for the path of the road with

of twenty-four feet and a stone balustrade two
straight across the sand-void.

was an imperishable

For us

this

its

standard gauge

feet high

was more than

illustration of the stubbornness of

in ages past "refused to accept his milieu as fixed

running

a road. It

Man, who

and so began to

oppose rather than endure/'

During the day the Expedition members traveled separately. Silvia and I pushed ahead in the smaller car, feeling out the road,
stopping frequently to measure

it,

while behind us the Riddells

made their observations and Lawrence, the untiring Lawrence, went

out ahead to photograph our progress across the waste. Each night
we met again, arranged our trucks in a hollow square and did our
small jobs.
eras

The sand

had to be cleaned and

water, for

a close

we were now on severe

a pilgrim seeing the

Each night the camcheck was made on gasoline and

filtered into everything.

we were as delighted as
towers of Mecca when we came to the wide
rations. So

green valley of the Chinchas. Like the others,

212

it

was planted with

The Unliving Desert

which today

cotton, the principal crop

is

as

important

as it

was

under the ancient rulers.

This was the land of the ancient tribe of Chinchas whose traces

Near the
through the valley we had seen in the many pyramids.
on a
ourselves
we
found
Hacienda de Laran, a very old holding,
its twelve-foot mud wall we
high-walled road which because of
might well have been built by the
Chinchas, as a dividing line between the holdings of one tribal
chieftain and another. Between double mud walls, our road ran a
distance of ten miles from the sea to the mountains.

knew

to be pre-Inca. This

<c

These ancient Chinchas, warriors so formidable that all of the

alliance with them, conneighboring valleys sought friendship and
far and wide into
roamed
honor and advantage/'
it a

sidering

great

of the people they encountered.

Then, returning to their coastal paradise loaded down with spoils,
amusements with
they ''gave themselves up to their pleasures and
the mountains, conquering

many

Not much

known

of the Chinchas, except

that after a stubborn resistance they, like all the rest, were rolled
over by the Incaic juggernaut. As usual the conquerors followed
their well-known policy of allowing their captives their own rulers

many women

."

is

own customs but insisting upon the worship of the Sun as

the official religion. One of the last tribal lords was still alive when
Don Pedro journeyed down this same road in 1548: "He related
much about the wars of conquest of the Incas. For an Indian, he
was a man of ability and good understanding.
adobe-block
Beyond the walls of the road we were now traveling,
and

their

9*

and strange
pyramids honeycombed the fertile land, rising up gray
out of green fields to dominate the valley. The irrigation ditches
now encircle them, while at their base the growing cotton spreads
out like a green carpet. After

we had

spent a good part of two

mud

structures, we came to
days climbing around on
the conclusion that they must have always had cultivated land at

these massive

213

Highway of

the

Sun

and that these had been shrines or agricultural huacas

cultivation of the lands
belonging to a period which regarded the
with it were embodied in the
holy, and so the rituals connected
their base

pyramid

shrine.

distinct cultures, for

Propitiatory shrines are found among many
there was widespread belief that the aid of the supernatural forces

was necessary for prosperity. In Mesopotamia, farmers built structures very like these, and the Tigris Delta is spotted with shrines

where the

first fruits

of harvest were stored.

is a huaca, as
stepped Pachacamac near Lima
mid in Mexico at Teotihuacan. In the New

is

The

gigantic tier-

the stone-built pyra-

World such

structures

"most persuasive, primitive, fundamental

and enduring religious idea," a combination of enchantment, magic
and holy place, "a primordial synthesis" which reaches into every
are representative of the

sphere of an Indian's

life.

Chinchas valley, Silvia noticed that the

road for some time had been curving to the east. And now on our
way to the next valley we stopped to examine the compass and
Shortly after

we

left the

found the road was east-southeast and by more than 1 5 degrees off
a straight course. We were by now accustomed to the "directional
deviation from the straight
straightness" of the Inca highway; this
the Pisco valley and, beyond, the
puzzled us. In front of us was
foothills to the sea was a
mountain
thin ribbon of green from the
solid wall of sand with immense dunes as high as one thousand feet.
line

Through

my

like seaspray.

binoculars I could see the

We

land of sand, the Inca had

Tambo

to avoid an impassable waste

had our answer

laid his

Colorado, a few miles

wind blowing up the sand

road to the

up

east.

the Pisco River, was like a

from the air, we

were amazed to find this ancient site so well preserved. The modern
dirt highway that followed the winding valley river had burst
painted caravan stop.

Even though we had

through its thick adobe walls into the

214

now

seen

it

familiar triangular plaza

The Unliving Desert

whose architecture

left us in

no doubt about

its

origin.

The

rec-

tangular, precision-shaped adobe blocks laid in thick walls and

plastered over with mud and the niche, always the hallmark of the
Incas,

were prevalent throughout.

Tambo

Colorado, the "Colored

Tambo,"

takes its

name from

the reds, greens and whites painted in wide undulating strips still
to be seen on its walls. On the southern side of the plaza, limited

by the banks of the

are larger

river,

were quarters which, because the rooms

style, might well have been barracks

and built of cruder

for the troops;

on the northern

side of the plaza

was a spacious

wide entrance leading into an open area suggesting a

opening,
corral or a meer used for the llamas. About this lay a complex of
rooms. Here the window openings had a stepped pattern which,
a

out of key with the

less

ornate features of Inca architecture, sug-

gested that the conquered coastal masons might have added a local
touch. Mural decorations are still found on top of the parapets, a

adobe runs about the top, and some of the rooms are so
well preserved that they need only be roofed. I know of no other
frieze of

site,

save

Machu

ably studied.

We

Picchu, where Inca architecture can be so profitfound also the remains of a stone Inca ritual bath

with a stone conduit running into it. This, however, was not the
royal tampu. That was a little below at a site whose original name

was Cangallo, while Tambo Colorado with its connecting fortresses

was actually a check point effectively blocking the canyon, and the
principal route to the mountain Royal

Road toward Vilcas-Huaman.

Here the valley road, the radial artery of the road system, hugged
the north bank of the canyon walls and though varying between
three and six feet, was wide

enough for

soldiers, llamas

bearers. Fifty miles farther along the valley the road

and

litter

climbed eight

thousand feet to Huaytara.

As

for the southern route of the road

2IJ

itself, I

know with

cer-

Highway of
tainty that

it

the

Sun

had passed here and that the river had been crossed

Tambo Colorado by a balsa pontoon bridge. During our air

survey, when our plane had circled the southern side of the slender
near

valley

bald mountains, I had seen the road very

came out of the pass near Tambo Colorado and went on

and flown over

clearly as

it

southward across the

next

its

fierce

windswept

desert in the direction of the

oasis ahead.

Pan American Highway we understood why the Incas had chosen to go back up the valley in order
to go around and avoid the fierce Pisco Desert. It was afternoon
and the wind blew like a hurricane sending white sand whipping
across the modern asphalt road and through the truck windows. In

Once we had

regained the

the corner a small

mound

gathered, grain

upon

grain, as if it

were

an hourglass telling the time. No man unprotected could have endured such exposure for long. Every afternoon this wind, known
as the paraca, the exact opposite

of the sirocco with

its

sensual

languor, blows in from the sea.

It

was blowing now and continued to do

forty miles into the

oasis

of lea.

116

so as

we limped

the

XIII
The Marked Desert
i

T WAS the season of the grape when we arrived in

lea.

Along the

sand-bound paths shaded by strangler fig trees little boys rode the
chines of their burros, balancing wicker baskets filled to overflowing with white grapes. lea was giving

over to a grape orgy

was not involved in some fashion
itself

and there was scarcely a soul who

and the dusty roads looked as if Bacchus had

passed.

Munching

sweet grape, they were all hurrying the fruit

from the vineyards to the presses, for the season for pressing was

happily at the coolly

short.

In the smaller wickerwork houses off the sand road were the
ancient wine presses made from the twisted trunks of the guarango
tree, a desert-growing mimosa. The vineyards date back almost to
lea's

founding and the region's

brandy known

charming

three sides

by

special pride has

forty miles

oasis

desert

from the

sea, lea is

grown here and,

bounded on

and on the fourth by the towering

itself,

the streets are shaded

the buildings facing the plaza are modern.

by

its

as "Pisco."

the Andes. In the city

of flowers, the

long been

The

by

foothills

fig trees

of

and

finest cotton

is

the riotous gardens

everything that grows
the
small
farms
it is watered
grapes,
produce

like

figs,

irrigation ditches

and

artesian wells.

A river which

is

not a river

week out of the year. For the other fifty-one

weeks, children and burros romp on the dry riverbed.

flows through lea one

217

Highway
In the nature o
to live. Precisely

know but
2000

now
strip

things, lea

when Man

of the Sun

would seem the most unlikely place

arrived in this valley

we

yet do not

indications are that his presence goes back as far as

ago this valley oasis was the home of what is

B.C. Centuries

spoken of as the 'Ica-Nasca culture" and within this desertone hundred and fifty miles long, lying between the Pisco

and Nasca (modern Nazca) Valleys,

are

some of the most fascinat-

ing unsolved mysteries of Peru. lea, or Villa de Valverde de lea, to

give it its sonorous ancient name, lies at the center of these mysteries

and directly on the path of the Inca road.

Here, in a vine-sheltered house close to a cotton gin, we established our coastal headquarters. Our need for such a place was
great, for it was high time that we stopped to tabulate the findings
of our explorations. My notes were now piled high. Every characteristic road feature that we had seen had its individual report. The
techniques of road engineering and geography of each region were
to be indexed, and the data compared, before we should have the

highway; photographs taken as sort of a

notebook had to be developed, and prints attached to each

overall picture of the Inca

pictorial

and reports months in arrears had to be written;

collection of costumes and textiles had to be listed, prepared

sheet; dispatches
Silvia's

and made

safe against the expected onslaught of insects. In a mili-

tary sense, then,

we were eager

to "consolidate our position.'*

In a section of an old building once a repair station for a woodburning locomotive which ran from inland lea to Pisco, its coastal

Lawrence (who was soon to discover that he shared his quarwith termites) set up his film laboratory. For over a year he

port,
ters

had filmed blindly, unable to see what he had taken, and although
he made repeated tests on his cameras, he never really knew how
much of what he had filmed was being recorded. He spent his
nights thereafter surrounded

printed film footage.

The

by and peering

at literally miles of

Riddells, preparing for their special dig,

218

The Marked Desert

took the whole yard in which to spread out the specialized tools
they would use on the ruins designated for detailed excavation*

There hovered over

remained, yet for the

all

of us an

first

time

it

air

of expectancy.

was

The

pressure
In the

a leisurely pressure.

Andes, we had seemed always to be engaged in a struggle

against
the cold, the food scarcity, the terrible roads with destruction

yawning ahead at every turn. We never

tension from the first ray of sun until its

really relaxed
last.

On

it

was

the coast there

One

could drive along the desert without having

to concentrate on every foot of the road, and its beauty could be

was none of

this.

seen and absorbed. Silvia and

estates

which had been

set

had

leisure to

tour the old Spanish

over ancient ruins. Sand and irrigation

were the dominating motifs. Here again all that grew depended on the water supply; a foot beyond the area watered by an
aqueduct, the world was lifeless. Narrow and meandering sandditches

roads were, in effect, causeways that

moved between sunken

gardens fed by an intricate system of canals controlled by sluicegates.

Woven-reed dwellings were half hidden under masses of climbing

were exposed to the broilrambling and imposing with their tall

grapes, while less fortunate small villages

ing sun. The larger estates,

windows barred with wrought-iron window guards, stood in the
cool shelter offered by the groves of fig trees.
Somewhere hereabouts, in this immense latifundium of private
holdings, we were sure was the original site of prehispanic lea, that
place mentioned by Pedro Cieza, where "the Incas ordered palaces
and other buildings built in the valley/' All that we had so far dis-

covered of old lea or Tacaraca was a sandy waste and the scattered
remains of small pyramids. It was essential that we find the original

we had again lost the Inca road. Yet we knew, from the
that
lea had been an important place on the road.
records,
Once again, as we had done in the case of Huanuco in the Andes,
lea, for

219

Highway of
we turned

the

Sun

to the National Archives in

Lima where,

in ordered

account of
piles gathering dust and termites, is an almost complete
the history of Peru dating back to its founding in 1533. Every
piece of land taken

from the Indians and given

to a deserving

Spaniard is marked by recorded legal transactions the purchase of

all these have been duly
a house or a slave, a contract, a lawsuit
;

attested

by

a notary.

Somehow, though threatened by civil wars,

and fire, all, or almost all, of these

earthquakes, pirates, termites

records have been preserved. Fortunately our good genie, Don

Felipe Marquez, for thirty years the caretaker of these holographs,

knew where

the documents

While we searched the

Would he find in
lea?

And

if so,

we sought

desert,

those early

where did

were, or at least should be.

he searched the National Archives.

documents

a description of the original

it lie?

we acquired a single but important bit of information.

Spaniard named Juan de Barrios had been given the lea Valley
fief in 15*34, during the height of the Spanish conquest. At that

In time

A
in

time "Xapana, Chieftain of the Yungas in the land called lea,

turned over thirteen hundred Indian vassals to this new Spanish
lord and the valley was split into two sections
Hanan [upper]
and Urin, called lea." The records show how the lands originally

given to Juan de Barrios filtered down to his widow; how she,

badly pressed for money, sold the land. They told of Indians, disputes, jailing, lawsuits. Gradually out of these papers we were
able to form a picture of colonial lea and the story of the extinction
of the Indians, and through them we found the exact location of

old lea.

The bright red Piper Cub plane with its United States Army insignia arrived on time and, flying low over our headquarters, it
swooped down to

attract our attention before

220

heading for the

air-

The Marked Desert

field.

The Expedition was fortunate

where

it

was most needed

air

at this time in receiving aid

and the Inter-

reconnaissance

American Geodetic Survey of the Corps of Engineers of the United

States Army, co-operating with the Peruvian Government in the
preparation of an accurate ground map of all of Peru, had graciously consented to give us the occasional use of their plane.
I

we

found Captain Henry Leighton servicing

arrived at the sand-bound airport.

career

Once

his small plane

when

a paratrooper

and a

man, Leighton had been attached to the Army Enwas commissioned on the field of battle in Korea, and in

Army

gineers,

time was transferred to the United States

Army

Engineers Air

Corps and sent to Peru. The history of the road and the paradox of
a primitive people who had developed a highway system which
eclipsed in its length and engineering those of other highly civilized
nations had greatly intrigued Leighton.

Once he

joined in the

search, he became one of the ablest of our collaborators. That the

view from the air could not be omniscient, Leighton and I agreed

we set off to explore the roads by

who were by necessity landbound, a
as

save us

much

plane.

Yet

different

would give us,

perspective and so
it

valuable time.

This was a day of an extraordinary air luminosity

hulking sand dunes, the sky, and the blue sea with

making the
its

fringe of

breakers plainly visible. Every abrasion in the desert was apparent,

and the straight line of the ancient roadbed, except when it was

completely erased, was clearly defined. In a moment, seemingly,

were over the Bay of Paracas, fifty miles northwest of lea.
looked

down

at the extending peninsula shaped like a

we

We

broken ax-

head jutting out into an agitated sea ruffled by the paraca.

Almost at once we saw the gigantic symbol of Tres Cruces.

Etched into the inclining sandhill on the cliffs of the bay, it stood
out clearly and enigmatically, six hundred and two feet high. A
naturalist

would say that the strange device looked

221

like a giant

Highway

of the

Sun

candelabra cactus: an archaeologist would recognize

it as

the "tree

of life" symbol, which appears with amazing frequency in Peruvian

designs; while to a religionist interested in anthropomorphic explanations for every natural phenomena, this impressive design

is

the Three Crosses.

Leighton, who held the plane directly above it, shouted over the
howl of the wind that the symbol seemed to point directly north-

oddly resembled the elaborate north symbol on a

compass. Made by Indians who scooped out the sand to a depth of
et
four feet, Tres Cruces" lies against the slanting face of a cliff

south and that

it

pitched at a sixty-degree angle, and faces the Bay of Paracas. Over

the years the action of the salt -laden sea has hardened the sand, and
this,

in turn, the

wind

action has constantly

the deeply eroded ditch which

thousand years old.

"What purpose did

why

this

is,

so

we were

blown in and out of

told,

symbol serve? "Why did

it

upwards of two
face the sea

and

directly north -south? "Was it to guide seaborne balsa rafts to

this, the richest bay in sea fauna in

the area, or was

all

it

for some

other purpose?

toward which Leighton directed the plane was the colored sandhill of Cerro Colorado. There,
in deep stone-lined caverns, four hundred and twenty-seven

Over and back of

this inclining cliff

mummy bundles were found by a Peruvian archaeologist

when

freed

from

their

which,

swathing clothes, yielded the most star-

tling fantastic weavings ever

found

in

all

the Americas.

The

mum-

mified bodies topped by false heads had been dressed at burial in

simple tunics, and then clothed with embroidered mantles, ponchos,
and turbans, all decorated with multicolored embroidery.

shirts

Even as we now glided over the sand with our small plane casting
shadow like the outstretched pinions of a condor, we could see

a
a

macabre scattering of human bones left behind by the grave robbers who had ravished the dehydrated dead of their rich robes.

222

The Marked Desert

Not much
come from

is

known

of the people o

Pisco, lea or Nasca?

The

this necropolis.

Had

they

elaborately stylized designs

were characteristic of the Nasca Valley peoples, but where then

had been the production center from which such embroidered
mantles had come? There are no remains of their dwellings, only
evidence that they lived temporarily on the Bay of Paracas, subsisting

on

fish

and seaweed while they prepared

their dead. In

to

way is the Tree of Life symbol etched into the sand related
Was it a guide to those who brought the dead from the sea?

what

them?

between the mummification of the ancient Peruvian dead and the Egyptians shows clearly that similar
environments will nurture similar cultural patterns. For both cul-

The amazing

similarity

death was an exact replica of life and the continuance of life

after death depended on the well-being of the corpse. The dead were
tures,

believed to carry off the living to comfort their loneliness and

be propitiated;
therefore, being hostile to the living, they had to

food, animals, servants, even

and the things of their lives
had to be buried with them. So were the dead appeased.
wives
the caverns of
Occasionally they were revisited, as in the case of
the mummies
Paracas, where archaeological evidence shows that

were frequently disinterred and perhaps redressed in those gorgeous

embroidered mantles.
Had the Incas, knowing of these people, run a lateral road to the

known
Bay of Paracas? Were the rich caverns of the Paracas dead
offshore
fierce
the
paraca wind
to them? If so, the desert beaten by
gave

little

evidence.

there?"
Suddenly Leighton shouted: "Look! Is that a road down
a
above
was
the
parallel line
flying
plane
Looking down, I saw that
in the desert.

were

little

doubt that

We went

down

until

when

more than two hundred

it

was

a road.

"A

the plane leveled off,

feet above

it.

we

There was no

"is like a
people," wrote a Frenchman,

223

Highway of
man.

When he has

the

disappeared, nothing

Sun
is

left

of

him

unless he has

taken the precaution to leave his imprint on the stones of the road."
Was this an "imprint," this road that moved directly between the

toward the valley of lea,

necropolis of Cerro Colorado southeast
were now flying directly over the road.
fifty miles distant?
could even make out the ruins of some sort of small buildings by

We

We

the roadside. In our travels

cient roads, Inca

we had

seen thousands of miles of an-

and pre-Inca, and by

time

this

knew

the salient

of the
features. Leighton cleverly flew his plane so that the shadow
the road, and having the exact measurement of

wings overlapped
the wingspread,

we

estimated that the road was not

much more

than twelve feet wide. This was not Inca construction. What, then,
was it? Had this been the road over which the people, at some time
in the first century, carried their dead for burial in the desiccating
sands about the Bay of Paracas? If this -was the pre-Inca Paracas

road,

it

would

definitely tie these people of

mystery to those widely

spaced valleys of Pisco, lea and Nasca.

The road continued. It climbed a hill marked on

my map

as

Cerro Burros Muertos, "Mountain of the Dead Mules," then grew

faint in the ubiquitous sand and, within ten miles of the green
oasis of the

we
disappeared completely. Days later
but we never again found the mysterious

Valley of lea,

it

sought it on the ground

road that led toward the caverns of Paracas.

At high noon, with

the plane pitching in the hot air of the desert

an upwelling sea, we were again flying directly

over the Inca road. Now, south of lea, we saw below us the utter
desolation of the desert-pampas of Hualluri. The grayish-white
like a small boat in

wastelands had nothing of life except an occasional writhing mark

where water, thousands of years ago in some curious reversal of
Peru's arid nature, had coursed

down from
224

the mountains. Across

The Marked Desert

in a southeast direction at precisely 165 degrees, the
Inca coastal road moved along with not a variation of a degree.

this,

moving

We

surmised that the water marks had been there long before the road

down.
How had I known where to look for the road? Leighton asked
this as we flew over the newly found road. I explained how
experience had shown us that, while the Inca highway was not always unalterably straight, it did have what was called a directional
was

laid

straightness. In other words,

it

always ran in a straight line between

Four centuries of intense

civilization
two given
way stops.
had obliterated the road here in the Valley of lea, but by our
searching of the early documents we had managed to locate the
original site of the Inca city. We also knew that the next stop on
the road south of lea had been the place called by the Spaniards La
which meant the Little Roadside Inn. This
Venta or La Ventilla
had been a small stop, midway between lea and a wide expanse of
desert. Also the next stop on the road mentioned in the old chronicles was "Huayuri," or ^Uuayurl pueblo tambo rreal" as the sixcities

or

teenth century Poma de Ayala described it. That this had been a
tampTi, on the missing road was confirmed by yet another chronicler
who noted: "Fourteen leagues [fifty miles] south of lea is the

Huayuri Valley small and sandy." These localities we had found on

maps which we used, so, by drawing a
straight line on the map between La Venta and Huayuri, and then
taking our bearings, we had determined that the road we were now
flying over was the Inca road.
the Peruvian military

"Well, 111 be damned!" Leighton's astonished voice came back to

over the intercom when I finished my explanation.

me

Now

Pan American Highway ran along

each other for some miles, but when the modern highway
bore due east so as to take a gradient over a mountain ahead, the
the Inca road and the

parallel to

Inca road kept going straight on. It was a wonderful thing to

225

see,

High-way of the Sun

more wonderful from the

air

than

it

would have been had we been

must have often

crawling along the stifling desert sand. Death

walked that highway. "Up to the Huayuri Valley is all sandy

desert," wrote a padre who had traveled over it by mule, "and the
Indians usually start out in the evening to cross during the night,
for the great heat during the day is apt to kill many of the animals

and one has to be

very good driver or expert in the following of

it often happens that people get lost

the route or take a guide for

in these sandy wastes

We

."

traced the road to a thin line of green and a cluster of

buildings that stood just above it. Where the escarpments

of the mountain range began were the ruins of what had been the
tamp^i of Huayuri. Just ahead of us loomed jagged mountains,
towering four thousand feet high, looking as if a piece of kraft

modern

paper had been taken and crumbled up, and in these

the pass the road might have taken.

Suddenly

we

looked for

tapped Leighton's shoulder and pointed. We both

Below us, a lifeless city of sizable houses

gazed in excited wonder.

with stone walls and small chambered

valley a

mile or more distant to the

hundred such

divisions lay in a

oasis.

There were

hidden

at least five

houses, clustered about the dry valley, along

the remains of formal plazas and

hills

with

terraced as if crops had

grown there; and on the mountaintops were still more buildings.

Even from this height I surmised
and I later confirmed by excavation
that we were looking down on the only known intact
city of the Ica-Nasca cultures,

on

whose people had preceded the Inca

this coast.

How had
that

it

any people lived in this wilderness of desolation so dry

would not even support cactus or lichens in the bare rock?

number of houses, a thousand or more people must once

have lived here. Where had the water been drawn from and where

By

the

in this barren height had been the

2.26

soil

to

grow

their crops?

The Marked Desert

We

found the pass which must, in a

later time, also

have been

an Inca route through the mountains. Then in a matter oi

minutes our plane had passed over the mountainous upthrust, and
used

as

without prelude

we

burst

upon

a vividly green valley. I

had

just

located the ruins of what certainly was the ancient halting station
on the road, when Leighton spoke excitedly over the headphones:
."
"Ahead, on that flat pampa, look at the lines
Below us stretching out in all directions on the flat gray plain o
series of rectangles
flint rock was a vast network of drawn lines. A
some originating from
as wide as airfields and long straight lines
.

went off in every

complex, others from no source at all
variant of the compass to fade away at the end into nothing. There
were lines, triangles, circles of all sizes appearing at frequent intera single

vals.

As we looked down
beneath us,

we

fascinated at the bewildering

realized that

we were looking

the southern Peruvian

great mysteries of
so-called "Lines of Nasca."

Unknown

until recently

was not until

first

airlines

noticed. There

and not

began to

fly

at yet

maze spread

another of the

deserts, this

time at the

from the ground, it

route that they were

easily seen

over this

are several theories concerning their origin, all

was that they led to

the popular one
had
to do with the riddle
that
buried Nasca treasures, another
they
of the mummies of the Bay of Paracas. But when the lines were
contradictory.

One

traced and measured

by Fraulein Maria Reiche, who has made a

that they led

searching study of the phenomena, it was found
to
nor
mummies
to
forgotten cities. Inneither to treasures, nor
stead, the theory gradually

being substantiated

is

that they are con-

nected with ancient magico-calendaric ceremonies, and were the

handiwork of the people of the Nasca cultures.

Somewhere between A.D. 500-900, an Andean people of the Tiahuanaco Empire, which centered about Lake Titicaca, invaded the

227

Highway of

the

Sun

were to do hundreds of years later and

the
cultures
of the Nasca peoples by their interest
influenced
greatly
in astrology, including the development of a solar calendar and the

coastal areas as the Incas

determining of the

solstices. It is said

that one of the Tiahuanacan

"who lived in continual melancholy, without anyone seecalled a great assembly of his
him
ing
laugh in all his reign
chieftains

and they studied the solstices with

clock "by which they knew
shadow
They
which days were long and which were short and when the sun went
to and returned from the tropics/' It is not altogether impossible
that this sort of interest in the heavens was transplanted to the

wise

care.

men and

3'

astrologers

also perfected a

desert coastal people

who

for some

unknown

purpose laid out the

mysterious "Lines of Nasca."

But it was not until Leighton brought his bright red Piper down
to an altitude of five hundred feet that we first saw the animal designs, those

from high

amazing

altitudes.

traceries

They were

then and there to write

PRE-!NCAS

my

which could not be distinguished

so extraordinary a sight that I

next dispatch to the

WERE

FIRST IN

began

New York. Times:

MODERNIST ART

Gigantic Drawings They Made of Animals in Peru

Discovered from Plane

We

followed
Ingento, Nasca Valley, Peru, March 24, 1954
the pre-historic Inca road over the Nasca Valley, and it led us
to a modern art exhibit.

we saw from our plane etched in the valley's

Colorado could have been the tortured drawings of a
Salvador Dali. But they were as much as 500 feet in length
The
pampa

figures

and the "canvas" of the ancients was the desert's coarse sand.
Moreover the drawings were upward of 1,500 years old.
The mysterious lines in the Nasca Valley have puzzled everyone
especially the archaeologists, who offer no precise exThere are also gigantic figures of animals,
planation.
.

228

The Marked Desert

birds

and

insects along

with abstract figures of geometrical

pattern.

Over the communications system Captain Leighton asked

me if I had ever seen anything like it.

ica's

It

suggested to

me Amer-

Ohio Valley and Southwest.

For an hour above the desert we attended this ancientart show. We counted more than fourteen gigantic
at least 200 feet long,
drawings. There was one immense figure,
of a whale drawn in extreme naturalism. A harpoon went

modern

through

its

eye.

Long roads of varying widths radiated in all directions about

or a hummingit. Then we came across a bird (was it an eagle
it seemed
bird?) more than 500 feet long. With wings spread,
to be diving.
abstractions, symmetrical and
Near it were other figures
farther
on, "Spider" came the
Then,
geometrical patterns.
word over the microphone. There was no doubt about it; eight
it had
(one of which became a road) ; the rounded body;

legs

been drawn with boldness and simplicity.

It was a weird afternoon, flying around drawings which
desert many hundreds of years
primitives had etched into the
.
.
How could
never
themselves
which
fully saw.
they
ago,
.

but
lines, yes, for they move along for miles;
no. Only by hovering at rooo feet dithe animals' figures
rectly above them could they be seen clearly.
they have? The

Then what purpose did they serve, and what are they? Whatand one woman, Fraulein Maria Reiche, has
ever they are
her time tracing them out without coming
of
five
years
given
conclusions
definitive
to any
they are part of the gigantic
series of mysteries of the Nasca Desert.

and figures must have meant little to Inca coj

the straight line into Peruvis
querors. They, who had ruled
to these symbols than the
attention
more
no
thought, paying
would to a flight of birds had laid their twenty- four-foot wi<
coastal road right through the lines and the figures.

Yet

these lines

ZZ9

Highway of
Days

later the Expedition

in the valley of the same

and

the

Sun

drove on toward the ruins of Acari

name on

the southern coast.

had made a careful study of the

aerial pictures

tions of the Inca road as it entered the site of Acari

The

Riddells

showing secand emerged

again to crawl over immensely high sand dunes to the next valley.
aerial reconnaissance has shown that there were at least four

My

Inca halting stations in succession,

all

of which had been mentioned

by early Spanish chroniclers, and that they were joined by the

highway which was plainly visible at many sections. The Power
Wagon was packed to overflowing with what the Riddells needed
for their proposed stay in the desert

tents

and generator, food

gasoline, water drums and camping equipment. Fritz Riddell,

an accomplished archaeological-draughtsman, stowed away all the

and

would need to map their search into the

while Dorothy, who was also a specialist in pottery and pottery

technical equipment he
past,

techniques, arranged

all

the paraphernalia necessary for a thorough

study of the lives of those who had peopled an Inca tampu.

So down we went to the south, following the Inca road through
the

first valleys

of La Nasca, whose gemlike strips of green were

hills. We passed through

of
An
groves
early priestly wayfarer wrote of those
guarangos.
cc
groves of trees, On the Nasca road there are five leagues of these

sandwiched between the desolate dry

woods, so thick that the Inca's highway is the only way to get
through them, and one sees nothing but trees and the sky ..."

After

we had

two hundred and fifty miles, through

and narrow valleys, in the course of which we

traveled

alternating deserts

located and identified every successive halting station

southern road, 1 and

still

on the

following the Inca road with

its

coastal

rock-wall

The first, just outside of lea, was La Venta, now a hacienda; the
next, twenty-seven miles across the desert, was Huayuri, a hacienda with
ruins of the ancient tampu above its modern houses. Over the mountains
we found the ruins of Chillo; and at the edge of the third Valley of Nasca,
at Ingenio, the Sugar Mill, a large and formal
tampu and administrative

230

The Marked Desert

we came

balustrade and smooth even surface,

at last to the

high

Cerros of Chocovento. Below this in a narrow valley held by high

walls of white sand was Acari.

On

the dry desert edge of the irrigated land of Acari, herds of

cattle whose ribs were as plainly visible as the keys of a xylophone

stood about a pool of noisome water looking thin and hungry. The

mules which

we had

passed in large herds seemed contrariwise to

on the meager rim of land, their bodies were sleek and shiny.
handful of men, standing by their mounts, watched the mating

thrive

of a pair of mules with

An

elderly

much

ribaldry.

man mounted on

us to the ruins

we had

in line with Acari.

roan stallion volunteered to lead

sighted off

on the descending road

directly

We

drove along asking many questions of our

he
which
answered
with a soft Negro labial which we could
guide
not quite place, but his face was that of a full-blooded Negro. As
our trucks, in grinding low gear tried to stay with the slow pace
of the cantering horse, his specious tales seasoned with old saws of
Inca gold, mysterious subterranean chambers, and underground
roads, gave us some pleasant entertainment. Arrived at the great

mounds of raped

stone with the fallen adobes, he raised his hat

with simple dignity, wished us a happy sojourn among the ghosts

of the past and rode off, leaving us to follow the Inca road into the
formal plaza.
Acari had been well chosen for
bluff overlooking the river

its

position. It stood

with below

it

on

high

the town, the valley and

center which was anciently called Tambo de Collao. Fifteen miles south
of this station was the principal Valley of Nasca and on the south bank
of the river were the gigantic remains of the formal Inca city now called
Paredones, "but then
the coastal road, but

known
was

as

also

Cassamarca." It was not only a station on

used as a supply point on the much-used

lateral road which connected the coastal highway with the Royal
of the Andes.

231

Road

Highway of

the

Sun

the river, and beyond this the high-rising dunes with the Inca road
still visible zigzagging up the sand to the other valley. All around
the town, the land was in cultivation and the people, now as then,
were growing cotton, corn, beans, squash, tomatoes and peppers in
much the same place and manner as they had done centuries ago.

pyramid upon which to put

their camp. The constant wind from the sea eighteen miles away
would blow away the mosquitoes and in addition they had a fine

The

Riddells selected the highest

panorama of the

ruins below.

The whole day was used

to set

their headquarters. Curious villagers of a variety of skin hues

up

gave

equipment were rolled into

the river. Although most
from
in
water
barrels
and
place
procured
of the buildings were in ruins, the Riddells were eager to begin putus a willing

hand and soon

the tent and

ting their puzzle together. The ruined buildings, the ancient kitchen
middens, the shards of broken ceramics that littered the ground

above and below the surface would provide them with the necessary
pieces but they would have to work with speed, for even as they
established themselves, men were pulling down the ruins to obtain
as it may seem, after five hundred years the
sun-dried
bricks were still in such perfect condition
rectangular
that townspeople found it easier to take them from the ruins than

the adobe.

to

Amazing

make new adobe

Peru has

little

blocks.

protection for

its

ancient structures and the time

not too far distant when nothing will be left of ancient man
above the ground. The good padre Vasquez de Espinosa, who came

is

from Spain
plete

is

its

and whose writings we

would not recognize Acari today, so com-

to the village of Acari in 1618

now consulted

regularly,

destruction. "Acari," he wrote then, "is a village of one

hundred Indians and forty Spaniards who live here together."

A Carmelite traveling on the Bishop's business, Vasquez, like our
other friends of the road, kept a journal. He had visited Ecuador
and Mexico and in 1617 arrived in Peru where he set off, sometimes

232

The Marked Deserf

walking, sometimes riding an outsized mule, along the way of the
which has only recently
Inca. It might be said of this journal
that

been published

gives details of the last audible breath of

it

the Inca. Wayfaring along this same sand-bound road we were now
traveling, he came into Acari and there he found "many curious
buildings of the ancients and they should always remain the

because

Man

never

it

rains.

."

same

The good padre had forgotten about

the Destroyer.

This one sentence of Vasquez de Espinosa's was all that the Ridhad of Acari's history. The rest they would have to find in

dells

the things of the graves.

As we climbed

the

hill

to continue our southward journey, the

Riddells raised the blue ensign of the

ciety.

We

American Geographical SoU B I Q u E spread out on

looked back to see the motto

the breeze.

Chala: the Fourth Quarter

HE GREAT ROAD

of the Incas passed through all these valleys,"

wrote Cieza during a rare moment's pause in his flight from the
I

furnace heat of the desert, "and in some parts of the desert, signs
may be seen to indicate the road that should be taken."
That, however, was in the time of the Incas. Now there is no
such thing as a sign and we had to find the remains of the road as

we

could by careful inquiry and search. The term "coastal

road" here is only a relative term, for the Inca road, in order to
avoid the terrifying desert, had been built inland and over the
best

From Acari it passed

over a 3ooo-foot mountain of sand

and rock called Cerro de Mendoza after the Conqueror of Acari,

mountains.

one Pedro de Mendoza. Across the Mountain of Mendoza, the road

down into the Jaqui valley. A more frightwe had never seen. Canyons were slashed by dry river-

after fifteen miles drops

ful desolation

beds like the wadis of Africa, and sand dunes 3000 feet high were
we could not look at them with the

so dazzling in the sun that

naked

eye.

was simple animal economy that made the Inca engineers put
their road inland. The coast here at the Desert of Tanaca has a perIt

petual

wind which blows

so fiercely that the

sand dunes form and

disappear almost as one watches. For fifteen miles the sand builds

up

in monstrous waves and back as far as ten miles

234

from the

sea at

Chala: the Fourth Quarter

to peaks of three thousand feet.
this desert. Even the modern road
living thing can withstand

the foothills, the dunes climb

No
is

eternally besieged

and day to keep

A few miles

it

up

by sand and

work crew

is

kept on duty night

open.

south of Acari between the modern Pan American

Highway and the

sea,

a distance roughly three miles,

we saw how

terraces
the intervening land in a series of ancient agricultural
sea.
to
the
a flight of giant steps
descended as

by

We had come to the "Hills of Atiquipa," the only place in the

entire two thousand, five hundred miles of coast where plants grow
without irrigation and where it rains with seasonal regularity. It
was well known to the
valley

early Spaniard that

sea rise the

by the

ing, the best in the

ct

end of the

at the very

Atiquipa lomas where there

is

good graz-

kingdom."

could see the agricultural terraces continuroad and the sea.

ing for miles southward between the modern
cattle and, at the Hacienda Parcoy
passed herds of fine-looking

On looking

back,

we

We

a still
where, in the midst of incredible squalor, people were flaying
to the ancient stronghold
half-living sheep, we inquired the way

we had sighted on the highest hill.

The "hill" turned out to be a mountain 4720 feet high, but the
heated climb to the ruins of Cahua Marca was counterbalanced in
a measure
ally

shaded

Why
where

a small miracle

fact that the

hills

were actu-

by trees.

does the rain

else

by the

on

fall

here at this pin-point on the

the entire coast of Chile

and Peru?

map and no-

Silvia

asked our

answered that it
guide this question and he smiled toothlessly as he
was a good
which
domain
God's
in
was because it rained only

enough answer for one whose religion is his only pastime. Above
that he did not know. But he did say that rains came from the direction of the mountain from August to October, and from the sea

Highway of

the

Sun

during January and February. What was there about these hills o
Atiquipa that made them the one exception to the fact that it never
rains

on

this

two thousand mile long

coast?

The answer seems

to

lie

bathed by a cool 58 ocean current which, beginning in the Antarctic and owing its origin chiefly
to the prevailing westerly winds and the meteorological whirl of
in the fact that the entire coast

is

the eastern South Pacific, moves in a stream one hundred and fifty
miles wide for a distance of three thousand miles. The cold current
lowers the temperature of the
capacity for heat exceeds the

air
air,

that moves across

rain never

falls,

it,

and

since its

or almost never.

as one can see from the trees, the grass

Atiquipa lomas
it rains through
stretches of agricultural terraces
every season. Whatever the reason, the Incas took full advantage
of it.

Yet

at the

and the long

Cahua Marca itself covered the rounded top of the mountain.

Here the houses were strung in orderly fashion along the narrow
streets and there was a formal plaza with a ruined Sun Temple and
dwellings with gable roofs and those typical Inca trapezoidal
niches. The buildings, although crude and rustic, were much the
same

as

those at

Machu Picchu

with rounded storage

bins,

un-

derground water wells and outside of the city proper, a large

rounded burial chullpa, a catacomb of femurs and skulls. Still

known by

its original name, Cahua Marca [View Town] is only a

than 5000 feet above sea level and is the highest point on
the entire three hundred mile coastal road south of Lima. From this

little less

vantage spot,
for

fire signals

and smoke

signals could

have been seen

miles in every direction. To complete the strategic piccould see the Inca road plainly through my binoculars as it

many

ture, I

passed through the canyons, climbed the eroded

and moved toward

and

hills

of El Atajo

stood on the edge of the ruins.

Below was the desert of the Arenal de Tanaca where nothing that
us. Silvia

236

Chala: the fourth Quarter

endured the day, but here on the height the breeze
was bracing and, when the sun was obscured, actually cold. For
what purpose then had Cahua Marca served?
lived could have

"Why

not

as a reconditioning center for the llamas?"

asked

Silvia.

And why not?

It

was a question which

the existence of this stone-built city.

extensively used for coastal traffic

if

We

answered might explain

that llamas were

knew

from the evidence of the mummi-

with such "dated" trappings as the scarlet

fringe that Indians hung over their eyes to keep out the sun glare
and from the use of the llama as decorative motifs on ceramics

fied llamas decorated

which pre-date the Incas by

thousand years.

the most stylized, the most preposterous animal in

Nature's book. It has a camel's head and large eyes, a split nose, a

The llama

is

two-toed feet which look cloven but are not.

hare

lip,

is as

leisurely as that of a

grande dame entering

also leap like a deer and,

train

an Andean

when stampeded,

Its

a salon,

will

run

usual gait

but

it

can

as fast as a

Along with the camel, to which it is reAs the camel was used on
Roads as a beast of burden, so the llama

train.

lated, the llama has an amazing history.

the ancient Chinese Silk

was used on the Inca

The

roads.

of the llama and the camel belonged to a

primitive proto-cameloid stock of North America, fossils of which
are found only in North America. Yet where the camel was a
earliest ancestor

rarity in the deserts of Africa until the fifth century,

by that time

the llama was well established in Peru as an animal inured to the

heights as well as the desert.

Wherever the Indian moved, there

the llama went. Beyond the confines of the Inca realm, it did not go.
To the native, the llama offers a means of transportation, for al-

though weighing only three hundred pounds, it can carry as much

as one hundred and twenty-five pounds for a distance of six to ten

237

highway of

the

Sun

miles a day. In addition, its wool is made into blankets, the coarse
hair into charqui, the equivalent of our western "jerky"; taqui, its
be credited, there has been
dung, is used for fuel; and, if legend

and

still is

a zoophilous relation

between llama and man.

of a full ton
Although the llama never equals the camel's weight
nor its ability to carry fifteen hundred pounds, it has the same
of climate extremes. The llama
tenacity to withstand the diversity
can live above the perpetual snow line and it will also live, although
it

will

not reproduce, in Peru's desert.

And

that they once were

the llama bones found in

very common on the coast we know from

Indian graves. When young, they make delightful pets

charm-

and affectionate; and, when traveling in a herd,

their necks moving with each step, their hindquarters all rising

ing, inquisitive

contrapuntal balance of tension that

in the
ties them together as in a fugue. That they suffered horribly
desert heat, where their thick wool and their inability to sweat freas if

on

a single note, there

is

a death march, there is evidence

quently turned a desert trip into
over the ridge on
enough. In the furnace-hot valley of Jaqui just
which we were sitting, hundreds of mummified llamas had been

found dead for want of fresh fodder and breath with which to

combat the hot wind.

invigorating cold and
its grass, was doubtless, as Silvia observed, a reconditioning center
for multitudes of pasturing llamas. Here their foot pads, worked to
from the journey across the empty way of the desert, could
a

So Cahua Marca, with

its

high altitude,

its

quick

be restored and their bodies fattened. Even the character of the ruins made this seem probable. Although on the Inca road, Cahua

Marca had neither the formal plaza nor the architectural polish of
other administration centers. There were no elaborate Sun Temwas utilitarian, the kind a
ples, and such pottery as we found

238

Chala: the Fourth Quarter

woman

uses in her cooking.

humble

social order; the

The clothing suggested natives of a

burials were communal; the number of

storage chambers (out of proportion to the population) suggested

that food was stored for wayfarers on the road or else for transport
to the mountains; the dwellings

were rustic and

and had doubtless been occupied by

utilitarian in style

people from the mountains

who knew llama husbandry.

So here was another link in the pattern

which indicated that in

ricultural terraces,

searched for, one

oddly isolated city with

its

familiar ag-

traced the Inca civilization

down from

this

we had

we

the heights to the coastal area.

Some

miles ahead over the boulder-strewn land

the coast,
sea breeze

and where
it

we walked

and hard upon

along
magnificent section of the road. The
of the Pacific less than a mile away cooled the day -heat
a

dry canyon slashed the

plain, the road

swept down to

in a magnificent flight of stone steps so well preserved that an In-

dian need only employ a broom to clean off five centuries of sanddrift. In a stretch of ten miles we found every engineering characteristic

of the road

terraced walls, stone stairways, rock-fill to

even the way, remains of chasqui stations, a tomb-shaped stone

marker or topo of distance
all important features on the Inca
road system.
One of the most fascinating aspects in any journey of exploration is the element of discovery involved. Not the accidental kind

an ant employs when some instinct of formic memory

causes it to plod tirelessly back and forth until, by sheer elimina-

such

as

stumbles across an object it is searching for. But

discovery which has been arrived at by the use of such foreknowltion of space,

it

edge and experience

as

makes

it

probable that in

239

a specific

spot there

Highway of
is

this or that to be

explorer.

When

Sun

found. Such revelation

all is

mendous mystery?
Given the scale
our plot: how had

the

said

and done, what

is

the

pabulum of an

archaeology but a tre-

is

we had
what, where and when

here the whole of South America

these people arrived; in

and who eliminated whom? "We had the exposition: the styles of
pottery, architecture, utensils, figures on the desert, gold-spangled

mummies. And

for stage setting: the scenery

the overwhelming

Andes, the jungles, the desert coast, the strange radiating lines in
the desert and giant symbols carved into sides of sand-cliffs. And
last,

we had

suspense

across the Acari valley.

On

we

stood looking out

the other side of the canyon, the road

Such was the pattern of our thinking

as

turned a well -engineered curve of forty-five degrees and moved

due east up the dry canyon. We were by now too well acquainted

with Inca psychology not to know that when they built other than
on a straight line it was for good purpose. Ahead of us and a mile

from the highway, lying close to a crescent-shaped

beach, we saw a large cluster of buildings, evidently the ruins of a
fishing village, with interesting low-roofed structures which apor so back

peared to be storage chambers.

Here then were our clues
Cahua Marca where llamas were reconditioned, miles of agricultural terraces, a magnificently
road, a fishing village with large storage chambers,

made

and the deviat-

ing road turning due east toward the Andes. All this was no accident, not "just there." As Dr. Raoul Porras Barranachea, Peru's emi-

nent historian of the Spanish conquest, had stated it: ''Why did
Francisco Pizarro when he was trying to establish the vague outlines of his kingdom in Peru and was warring with his
partner in
rapine,

Almagro the Blinkard, push his claim beyond the official

Chincha and want to include a place to the south known

line set at

vaguely

as

Vilcaroca?"

240

Chala: the Fourth Quarter

Where was

this

mysterious region? For that matter, where did

the Inca get his fresh fish from the sea in two days* time? Where in
all Peru was the most direct route to Cuzco from the sea? "Silvia/*
I

remember saying with mock

heroics.

the missing section of the 'world'

that leads

from Cuzco

At the end of the

"Hear

this! I

think this

is

the Cuntu-suyu road, the one

to the sea."

ravine

we came

to the ruins of the ancient fish-

ing village. Here were the stone dwellings with their gabled roofs
of the same type as those which crowned the heights of Cahua-

Marca and the underground bottle-shaped storage bins, ten or more

feet deep. Apart from the main village was a structure two hundred feet long, proportionately wide, with high walls and a formal
entrance, the remains of what must have been a guardhouse; and
within, sixteen enormous storage chambers intact with stone roofs.
It

was the only complete structure we had found in all Peru. In the
these ruins I wrote a report to the Riddells urging them

shadow of

to consider Chala their next project once they

of Acari.

Even then

did not realize

had finished with the

its full

tampn
importance.
The next day Captain Leighton's bright red plane made an essay of the emergency landing field at Chala. Swooping down close
enough to whisk away the remaining hairs from my head, he turned

about and came in for a landing. From the airfield we could see to
the south the three mile beach and the modern town of Chala, looking like an early American frontier village. To the north was the
thin line of the descending Inca road and, on the bluff, the remains
of what had been the tampu of the Imperial coastal highway.
I

was

elected to

make

the flight since I was to photograph out of

the cockpit and the plane could only carry one passenger. Leighton

was briefed, I climbed into the parachute harness, and we were up

and gone. We located the ravine, and after I had photographed the

241

Highway of

the

Sun

ruins and the road, I saw again the trace of the turn-off. Leighton,

blood-hound having been given a scent, was off. As we

mounted, I explained what we had found and how we had found it.

like a

Our

we followed the dry canyon, and there

minutes we were flying over altitudes of

course set northeast,

was the road! Within

five

thousand feet and the road and the landscape were gray and
desolate. Within fifteen minutes from the coast the hills were green

five

and small farms began to appear and the ancient road had disappeared. But over the vacant puna, still flying due northeast toward
Cuzco, we picked it up again. Then we were over Lake Parinacochas,
round and not much more than ten miles in diameter. Around it

were small farms and at

its

eastern edge rose Mt. Sarasara,

rated cone encrusted with snow.

Oddly

its

ser-

the shores looked black

with people until we swooped down and the people turned into
hundreds of flamingos. It is from these beautiful birds that the lake

name
Farina [flamingo] cocha [lake]. At the northwest corner we saw the ruins of Inca structures, agricultural terraces curved to the natural contours of the hills, some of them still
being used. Then we saw the road leading out from the ruins in the
takes

its

Cuzco one hundred and seventy miles away.

not follow the road to Cuzco?" I shouted.

direction of

"Why

In answer Leighton pointed to the gasoline gauge. Dangerously

low, the high altitudes were rapidly emptying the reserve tank and
the last

saw of the Cuntu-suyu road was when we banked to clear

But I was satisfied that we had

a flock of high flying flamingos.

found the missing quarter that made up the Inca Empire and the
the
great road which had traversed one of the four quarters
Cuntu-suyu. Another piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.

A half hour later the motor coughed, spluttered and

sharp report just as our wings cleared the

242

last

died with a

western peak of the

Cbala: the 'Fourth Quarter

Andes. Ahead was the blue sea and the line of the exploding surf. It
was no longer necessary to talk over the intercommunication phone.
It

quiet as eternity save for the hiss of the air as the plane
into its glide. Leighton, calm as Buddha and as casual as if he

was

went

as

were reading the compass bearings of the map, gave

me

instruc-

tions:

"Tighten your parachute harness.

I will

try and glide in for a

landing. If anything happens I'll go out to sea. Don't inflate your

life jacket until you hit the water. And don't forget to pull the rip-

cord."

And

that was

all.

we

disputed the air passage with two condors who, like

were
Pacific-bound, and when they found a wind curourselves,
rent, Leighton followed them slightly upward. There was the emerBriefly

gency strip on the high bluff we had left three hours before and
there was Silvia standing beside the trucks. There was one long mo-

ment more when

thought we would surely hit into a canyon, but

Leighton skillfully avoided it and set us down on the Chala airfield. Our search, I felt, was becoming unpleasantly hazardous.
I

That night, with a water keg as

lamp with the insects, I wrote

line

my table and sharing my gasomy dispatch for the New York

Times:

INCAS* SIDE

ROAD

Is

FOUND

IN PERU

Von Hagens Discover Lateral by Which

Was Carried to Cnzco

Kings' Sea Food

"We found today a fifteenCbala, Pern, June 19, 1954

mile stretch of Inca road as wonderfully engineered as anything the Romans ever built. The same day, after a long search,

my wife Silvia

and

the Inca capital

I located the lateral road that led to Cuzco,

the road over which the Inca King received

daily shipments of fish fresh from the sea.

Along the coast, we have followed and explored the high-

243

Highway of
way from Lima

for

the

Sun

miles, finding all the cities

have left a team of arran.

more than 500

We
through which the route once
chaeologists to examine four of these ancient settlements.

Now

we pushed farther south to seek positive confirmation of the

how they lived and their amazing enevidence of the Incas
gineering skills.
The Inca realm which was at its height in 1 500 A.D. was held
together by its system of roads. Between the final decline of
Rome and the rise of Napoleon, who revised the Roman roads,
these Inca highways were the finest communication system devised

by man anywhere.

the mountain road,

There were two main highways
which began in what is now Columbia, then ran through Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia and split to reach into modern-day Argentina and Chile, a total distance of 2,700 miles; and, second,
the coastal highway which began at Tumbes, Peru, at 3 degrees
south latitude near the Ecuador line and traversed the entire
desert coast for 2400 miles to the Maule River in Chile, 3 5 de.

grees south.

Supplementing the two main roads was an intricate system

the laterals that connected the two
of secondary routes
main trunks at various parts of the empire. These are some of
the most spectacular thoroughfares; they climb the valleys
from the arid coastal desert to the snow -filled heights of the
Andes.
In our study they are important because they were the route
of the Incas' conquest and show us the extremes in the techniques of Inca engineering. We had plotted and followed most
of these important laterals. We had found all the important
laterals but one
the road that was said to have led directly
from the coast to the Inca capital of Cuzco. The Inca Kings
were said to have had fresh fish delivered daily to them from
the sea. If that was true, it must have come over the shortest
route

from the

coast.

When we found a turn-off from the main road

it

due

east,

the sea

and followed
was the road coming from
the Cuntu-suyu quarter moved directly to Cuzco.

we were

certain that this

M4

Chala: the Fourth Quarter

Our exploration by land, a laborious one, was finally complemented by an aerial survey and we followed the road until it
feet in altitude,
disappeared beyond Lake Parinacochas, n,ooo
and saw the road making its way toward Cuzco.

Many weeks

later,

Inca road south

all

when

the

returned from following the

to the border of Chile, we found the

and

Silvia

way

Riddells already deep in excavation at the ruins of the ancient fishon the sea coast of Chala. Over
ing village at Quebrada de la Vaca
their tent as

we approached

the

AGS flag still flapped, its now

faded

blue field giving some index of the time they had spent under
Acari's menacing sun. About the tent and under the canvas, neatly
labeled boxes filled with skeletal material they
this stay

rolls of
pieces of cotton, textiles,

had gathered during

mummy

wrappings,

of
bits of bone instruments, copper and bronze tools, fragments
No
labeled
and
of scrubbed
potsherds.
quipas, and box upon box
had only to
We
time.
of
the
us
of
tell
to
needed
was
calendar
flight

same color

as his hair,

now

blond growth the

and generously coated with the dust of the

look at Fritz Riddell's beard,

a luxuriant

who

presented a slight almost boyish appearance,

was primarily a "dirt archaeologist." He had worked among the Indians of his native California, excavated in Alaska, and had dug up
of
of the
ancient
Tlingits. After several years
centuries. Fritz,

prehistoric
villages
service as a marine in the Pacific, he returned to his

work

in the

Southwest. His training in a field known for the paucity of its mabe searched expertly for every clue,
terial, where the ground has to
fitted

him

for this

work

in Peru,

where there were hundreds of

We

were to find that

ferent clue-bearing artifacts.

concerning the Peruvian Indians'

way

of

life

dif-

his conclusions

gave us an ex-

themcellent and well-rounded ethnographic picture of the people

selves.

245

Highway of

the

Sun

had been alone except for the regwith fresh fish

ular visits of Lawrence, who dropped in on them
interval or
the
in
and briefly photographed what had been done
had made a
drop of supplies and mail

Here on the

coast the Riddells

when Leighton

parachute
from the village of Chala had come
of the seaweed
to the cove to search for molluscs or make a harvest
a red fox,
that clung to the rocks. For company they had often had

Now and

again local fishermen

drawa by the smell of their garbage and at last so tame that he

would sit and watch Fritz Riddell excavating the mummies. Condors paid them hopeful daily visits and frequently sea birds, dying
Once a
of some
malady, fluttered down to die in the camp.
strange

moribund
helplessly

weak and clumsy, staggered into camp to fall

side. Dorothy propped it up with rocks and tried

pelican,

on

its

in vain to feed

it,

but within an hour

died and the condor's dance

it

of death began. The detailed maps they had made of Acari, the neat
the findings with their careful analysis of the rupile of reports on

and the scaled charts of the structures, showed how much they
>s
tc
had accomplished. These weeks too had given them the feel of
ins

the climate

its

mist-cold, the winds, the torrid heat, the ever-

which had forged the Indian way of life. So, in a

sense, through them the dead became the living.
And what had they learned of Acari, that "buried city" on the
ancient road? To what culture or cultures had it belonged? That
lasting dryness

the Inca had built their village city

on top of an

older village of the

study of the architecture and

Nascas, they had determined by
by comparing the potsherds they had found in the various layers of
Acari's history. The stylistic changes seen in the design, firing, modtheir

eling of the ceramics

had much

to say.

The

Riddells* first project

had been a thorough analysis of this pottery in terms of its association with the architecture in order to establish a typology of these
artifacts. In so doing, they had learned that several cultures had
had

a part in the

making of Acari.

246

Chala: the fourth Quarter

The Nascas,

that shadowy people whose identity was revealed by

of
polychromic colors adorned with stylistic representapottery
tions of birds, animals, trophy heads and elaborate stylized anthro-

pormorphic monsters, had been in control of the Acari region from

about 800 A.D. until the arrival of the Incas. In about 1450 A.D.
Inca road-planners, marking the oasis villages where the IcaNasca tribesmen still lived, had laid down their road so as to connect the different valleys. Leveling the earlier Nasca buildings, they
erected a formal administration center complete with pyramids,

sun temples and a plaza with a north-south orientation. Into this

they ran their road. The rooms of their buildings were large. Ancient

wood stumps

from

close at

pointed to the fact that the rooms had been

roofed and thatched with straw while building materials had come

hand

river cobbles set in clay

mortar and covered

with plaster painted white and yellow and the adobe which they
used extensively. The tampu itself had numerous storage chambers,
low-walled cubicles of loose stone construction

known

as

pirca

with house compounds. The repetitive

use of these storage chambers indicated, so the Riddells had concluded, a construction used only at such places as had been halting

which

stops

are usually connected

on the Inca

road.

The people who had

tunics fashioned

much

lived in Acari

and other

like those of the

Andean

coastal valleys

wore

dweller, only theirs

were more cotton than wool. Their agriculture was, as it is still today, the cultivation of corn, beans, squash and peppers. This basic
food supply the native Peruvian supplemented with fourteen species of wild succulent roots, forty-two types of fish, twenty-one
different

forms of edible animals and

at least forty varieties of

game

bird.
Still earlier

Tihuanacu

the coastal civilization had been influenced

culture.

That

by the

during this period there had been consid-

erable trade with the jungles, the Riddells

had discovered

in their

Highway of
examination of the

the

tell-tale artifacts

Sun
the jaguar, puma, parrot

and monkey were common motifs on their pottery, and the ironhard chonta wood, used for spindle whorls and combs, was only obtainable in the jungles. However, even after the Inca conquest early
in the fifteenth century, the people of Acari had kept their own
of life and their pottery and textiles retained their traditional

way

own

language although they were

forced to learn Quechua, the tongue of the conquerors. Yet they
became a part of the whole, and under Inca administrators and
patterns. Also they spoke their

engineers they built the road along the coast and on

it,

the

tampn-

city of Acari.

Here the

architecture, according to the study

made by

Fritz Rid-

dell, showed clearly that the work on both road and city had been
done under expert supervision and with a single unified plan and a

pattern which pointed up the difference between the helter-skelter

formless Nasca city and the purposeful compact Inca city which

took

its

place.

The

latter,

functional and utilitarian, was a fine ex-

ample of the striking accuracy of Inca planning and attention to

the details of arrangement. All that we had previously surmised
about the over-all pattern of the Inca road, the careful planning
went into the road system, and the organization of the tarn pus

that

was confirmed

in these archaeological details the Riddells

had found

at Acari.

The

Incas did not, of course, create these coastal cultures.

They

arrived too late for that and actually the aesthetics of their art

was

often inferior to those of the people they conquered. The Incas were
organizers and their road became the connecting link which joined
these competitive valleys skirting the thousand miles of Peru's
desert. Local

wars were stopped, the interchange of cultures began

commerce and the well-being that trade causes brought a broader
;

and

a better organized life to the coastal tribes.

Proof of

all this

the Riddells

found in the graves they examined

248

Chala: the Fourth Quarter

and in the ruins of the kitchen middens. Engraved gourds, bits of

whorls, yarn, cordage, slings, nets and bags,
dishes,
pottery, spindle

beads and ornaments, fragments of figurines, stone and bone knives,

working leather and wood, weaving implements and carding combs, club heads and combs of chonta wood
from such as these the Riddells had drawn their conclusions regarda lost way of life in ancient Acari, a caravan stop on the long

awls for
pins, needles,

ing

Inca coastal road.

In order to determine whether Chala,

cated on the road to Cuzco, the Riddells
radial road

and had found where

it

broke

we suspected, was
had made a survey of
as

off

from the main

lo-

the

coastal

highway and where it ran up to the Parcoy Canyon. So, although

there were indications that this had been only a small village, they
had estimated that there had been at least two hundred and seva capacity from
enty underground stone storage chambers having
two to ten cubic meters. Only a fraction of this number would have

been needed to maintain the

bers, a walled structure

village.

two hundred

One

of these storage

use

had been

had mapped
Cuzco or for of-

feet long, Fritz

in detail. In these the food obviously destined for

ficial

cham-

stored,

For food the people along the coast had fish and dry molluscs,
boiled in
along with corn, hot peppers and seaweed. The dry corn,
lime juice, was

made

into a sort of

hominy

called

mote

to

which

and molluscs were boiled with

peppers were added to give it flavor,
fish were ample for a people
the
the seaweed. These dehydrates and
of such limited tastes. The needs of the people were simple and the
Inca had perfect genius for keeping them that way.

Much

of the

and there were apyear the climate was agreeably cool and pleasant
examination of
their
From
parently few disease-carrying insects.
infections were
the
skulls, the Riddells found that tooth

mummy

the

common

with even the children suffering from diswas shown by the traces of numerous cavities and

affliction,

eased teeth as

249

Highway of
abscesses in the

the

Sun

jaw structures. Yet on the whole,

their teeth

were

well preserved.

From

their studies o

the skeletal remains they fleshed the bones

in this wise: they concluded that these Indians

size,

robust

were of medium

and broad-headed, with prominent "Roman"

noses typi-

of the mountain Indians of present day Peru and with protrudor a sort of lantern-jaw
ing chins which caused facial prognathis
cal

and black, was worn in various hairwhile the women wore braids interst yl es
pigtails for the men,
twined with colored wool fringe wound very strikingly in back of
the head with decorative ribbons. The men wore a breech clout and
appearance.

cc

chusma,

The

hair, straight

kind of

made by taking

a fold of

the edge, leaving gaps for arms,

and cut-

sleeveless waistcoat

square cloth, sewing up

Both
ting a slit for the head in the fold."

men and women wore

the

and
chumpi stomach band, an elaborately woven cummerbund,
leather sandals. The women wore a loose-shaped tunic called anaco
which served a dual purpose
reaching the toes and a sort of shawl
carrier. Motifs in the textiles
protection against the cold and baby
were different for men and for women, so much so that the sex of
as

by looking at the peculiar

found here were simidead
that enveloped them. All of the

the skeletons could be determined merely

textiles

the fishing
suggesting that a homogeneous people had lived in
had died
a
child
was
high; many
village. Infant mortality seemingly
lar,

of an ailment which had attacked the bone

the Riddells thought

it might have been congenital syphilis. So well had they catalogued

the motifs of the weavings in the mummies that they could tell

from the

burial textiles whether the little skeleton belonged to a

As everywhere

in the world, the mortality

than
male children was higher
among the females.

boy or

girl child.

among

In one of the more elaborate burial chambers the Riddells had

found what they took to be the remains of the

2JO

chieftains,

judging

Chala: the Fourth Quarter

and the fact that the qmpus, those

buried with
string knots with which they kept records, had been

from

the quality of the textiles

them. The architecture of the village also pointed to the fact that
the formal house patterns facing the bay were the living quarters of

an important caste. In the decimal

which all were ruled, such a village
a chieftain

named

the empire by
would have been run by
hundred people. But this had

classification o
as this

to rule over five

"one quarter of emto Cuzco, so therefore an even greater

pire/* and a direct route
in command.
been
have
would
chieftain
been the terminus of the

It

now abundantly

was

that the three

Chala,

all

pampas

Cuntu-suyu

sites

clear

we had

from

studied

section,

a study of the

whole region

Acari, Cahua Marca and

located within a twenty-mile stretch of boulder-strewn

were related culturally and functionally. Here then the

Inca road, important

as the

turn-off to Cuzco, had been particu-

The road-rnarker which we had noticed as

be, when examined by the Riddells, a well-cut

larly well constructed.

we came

in

proved to

stone nicely fitted into a prepared base. It stood in the road just before the Cuzco-radial began, marking for the couriers the point at

which they were to turn toward Cuzco.

However, Chala's ta-mpn was another mile further along the road,
on a high bluff overlooking the sea and the long beach. There a still
a different part in the life of this region. This
larger site had played
the Riddells surmised from the skeletons of the people found there.
Whereas here at the fishing village the people were homogeneous, at
the site of the tampu at Chala they found all manner of skulls
been
heads, "string heads" or those which had
flattened heads,
long

which were elongated and deformed

which would seem to inheads
mingled with undeformed broad
which
a
dicate that this tampu had been mingling place of all tribes

artificially flattened, skulls

used the Inca road.

251

Highway of

the

Sun

These conclusions the Riddells stated with considerable caution,

dry bones of speculation. As Dorothy said,
"this is the sort of information that is available in such a region
and it is astonishingly complete, partly because of the unusual pres-

offering

them

as the

ervation of the evidence and partly because of the ethnographic historians and the Spanish chroniclers."

our footsteps but the Riddells still had

to do and so would remain in Chala for some time. As for the

Time was nagging

much
rest

of us,

at

we were now

ready for our northern journey.

At our

Lawrence had finished the documentary film on

the Riddells' archaeological work and was ready to go on with us
lea headquarters

along the Inca road from Lima northward to its end at Tumbes.
Dorothy and Fritz walked down with us over the connecting
Inca road to the main Inca axial highway where our vehicle stood.
We said our good-bys and then watched them turn back to their

camp. They were a dedicated couple, re-creators of the dead. In

their work with the complicated techniques of recording, reconstructing and classifying was the romance of treasure hunting; but
mending the broken pots, the study and clas-

in the slow process of

of the bones and the concentrated study of their findings,

of the patina of romance was of necessity rubbed off. Yet
they had so given life to a long-dead people that as we stood on the
road we seemed to see about us the hosts of those who had once
sification

much

traveled this

highway and over

of ancient man

moved

this

once more.

2J2

rock-dwarfed spot the ghosts

X V
The Kingdom of the Moon
As

SOON AS we were north of Lima we

felt the influence

of the

Chimus. There was not, to be sure, any physical change in the deswere more populated. The aridity was

ert except that the valleys

overwhelming and the sterile desert was even more encompassing if that was possible. There was still the same desolate pamjust as

pas between the enveloping sand and the foothills of the

still

on

its

surface the ubiquitous Inca road.

We

Andes and

followed

it

in our

fashion.

In our two trucks specially equipped for this terrain we went

around the sand dunes that loom up high and "impassable'* along
the Bay of Ancon and followed the track of the road through the

pampas itself. The technique we

had developed over the past year and more of exploration had become almost mechanical. We knew the characteristics of the Inca
valley of Chancay, then onto the

now we needed only to plot our direction, seek

out the region, find the road, mark down its features, make measforward.
once again
urements to check its width and then

road so well that

Near to the sea we passed Huara where the first Spaniards to

come this way had stopped on the 2 8th of January, 1532, *'at a very
large village near the sea ... where we were well served by the
." And then
Indians who supplied us with what was required
.

the

Highway of
again turning eastward from the sea

Sun

we took

to the stretch of des-

between valleys and once again three miles back from the
sea came on the Inca highway coursing across the pampa Medio
Mundo. As soon as the influence of water appeared, all trace of the
olation

highway disappeared.

It

was completely

coastal city of Barranca, vehicular traffic

all

we

could do there was

make

modern

eclipsed at the

going directly over

it,

and

an historical notation of the road's

on a high bank close to the large river the

the Huaman-mayu, the Falcon River, was the site of

existence. Further on,

Incas called

an Inca settlement

During

known

as

Tambo

Viejo (Old

Way

Station),

the heavy rains in the sierra the river, practically

trollable, caused the Inca engineers considerable trouble.

uncon-

But

one weak link in the coastal highway, they had managed

to

at this

main-

pontoon bridge made of reed boats across the river when it

was comparatively dry. In full flood wayfarers "were conveyed
tain a

across the river in balsa-boats, the horses

swimming."

The further northward we journeyed, the more we felt the influence of the Kingdom of the Moon. Every crag, it seemed, on
the grayish-brown verdureless hills was marked by a fortress with
immense walls of adobe blocks, signifying that this was the territory of the ancient Chimor Kingdom.

The

coastal

mus' country.

highway had brought us

On one of the

the Pan American

Highway

sandstone

to

Paramonga

in the Chi-

overlooking a river and

which runs directly at its base was the
hills

remains of one of the great chain fortresses which the Chimu in

their Kingdom of the Moon had erected to discourage any
trespass

by the Incas from the Kingdom of the Sun,

Even in its ruins, Paramonga is impressive.

We

passed under a
massive gateway, once the formal entrance, and climbed the fallen
stairway that led us into the fort through its only entrance. It was

constructed

much

as a fortress in the

254

Middle Ages would have been.

Highway of

the

Sun

with redoubts pushed out on the slope and salients to

of crossfire, Paramonga at any
give the defenders the advantage
the
time would have been considered a powerful fortress. It marked
and a system of fortificaMaginot Line of the Kingdom of Chimor

In six

tiers,

tions against attack

by the

Incas

who

since 1400

had sought to

wrest from their resplendent rival the suzerainty of all the Perus.
When it finally fell to the Inca legions, they merely incorporated
-stathe mighty fortress into their highway system, put their halt
control
point for
tion under its massive shadow and made it a key

the coastal

way and

a check point as well for the lateral road

which

connected with the highroad leading northeast up the valley to the

mountains of the Callejon de Huyalas. The walls of

white-peaked
the

Paramonga

fortress, plastered

with cement,

still

show the red

which were extant until the nineteenth cenwrote that the buildings
tury. Don Pedro, seeing them in 1548,
were very handsome with "many wild beasts and birds painted on
the walls which are now all in ruins ... in these days the fortress
."
only serves a witness to that which has been
Northward was country that has been described as "hollow and

pigment of

frescos

on through
fainting" and destitute of beauty, and we hurried
Huarmey, once a way-stop on the road and held, albeit briefly, by
a Spaniard called Martin the Tongue. The land has not changed
since he complained that he had been slipped a valueless thing, "a
land full of dispeoplement." For a hundred miles we searched the

sands and dry valley and found the road, but nothing else Inca. It
seemed strange, after being so aware of the Argus-eyed Inca during
the thousands of miles

we had

traveled, that

now

there were only

shadows of the once-powerful Moon Kingdom with

mense moldering mud-cast fortresses.
these

Such a

was Casma in the next

its

im-

Perhaps the
Incas had no need to utilize the massive buildings they had taken
fortress city

256

valley.

The Kingdom of

Moon

the

along with the Chimus, their last opposition. For the Inca, master
of three hundred and fifty thousand square miles of land and
seven million people, it was essential that communications be kept
open so that tribute could flow to the collecting stations, and that
the road be always in good repair so that
without hindrance on the Sun's business.

Beyond

this, in

road again and

all

which

move

the Valley of Nepefia, we came upon the Inca

that night close on to the little town of

coastal Inca villages,

I shall say

now

as in

no more than that

it

on the road.

a night stop

1548,

"Huambacho ... of

resembles

ground while about it, watered

the
was
richly cultivated valley.
on

could

we camped

Huambacho, which formerly had been

Like

his legions

sterile

by

all

the rest," stood

the constant river,

Beyond that narrow verdant valley where a sea of sugar cane

grew, once more the Inca highway continued northward. The road
alone was Inca.

The ruined

cities

were those of the

while on every
beautiful remains of what the "Sun" had destroyed
hill

the

rival

Chimus

stood a ruined fortress and other barbarously

when

it

eclipsed

"Moon."

What

better index of these Inca earth-conquerors and their pas-

sion for communication than to see the

way

this part

of the road

towering wall had been

passed right through the protective walls?
raised to block a valley but the Incas had built their road right

through it, tumbling down t!he ancient markers so

next valley without deviation.

as to

reach the

Throughout all the long stretches of miles that we had passed between Nepena and the desert of Chimbote, Lawrence had faithfully
filmed the phases of the growth of Royal Road to Cuzco. Here
where we found the best preserved section, we spent the whole of
August 14 going back and forth over it for his cameras. The air

was

like a flame

and there was not a

257

tree

nor bird-voice to lighten

the burning

air.

All

Highway of the Sun

that suggested man had ever

been

this

way was

the seemingly always present road. These people, I thought, nmst

have had a great capacity for sustained resolve and a stern, unrelax-

ing self-discipline.
there

was

said

cc

and

Let there be a road"

a road.

On we
we were

The Inca had

went northward through the

Chimbote where

desert of

engulfed in a sand-storm. Later

we climbed up

to the Santa Valley where, past massive

mud

the dunes

fortresses

of the

Chimu, past the cultivated strips of cotton, over railroads which

had been laid on the passes marked out by the Inca, we followed the
ancient road.
journal states, we went
through the "Great Wall of Peru" and came to the last defense wall
of the Kingdom of Chimor. The great wall, once towering to a

At midday on August

i6> 1954, so

my

height of eight feet and built of rough stone, began at the sea a few
and ran inland over the

miles north of the bay of the Santa Valley

mountains for forty

discovered

it

miles.

in 1931

At

least, so

and followed

it

thought Robert Shippee who

in air flight until it was lost

in a tangle of masonry among the complex lower hills of the Andes.

The wall which connected with a small fortress had evidently been
a strong bastion of defense.

Next, in the Valley of Viru, we came to one of the oldest recorded and most systematically investigated valley-cultures in
Peru. In 1944 a group of

American

archaeologists

had pulled back

the layer of history to find at the lowest level a people

who

lived

underground adobe -block houses and were without pottery

their date, 2500 B.C. Layer after layer of this record was examined

in

to discover the past.

In 1000 B.C.

mountain culture known

as the

Chavin "intro-

duced mirrors, finger-rings, carved stone

and corn." By the
first century irrigation was being developed and the small Viru
Valley two miles long, nine miles at its widest, extended its arable
.

258

The Kingdom of the Moon

With increased population, it so attracted conquerors that in
800 a system of fortifications was erected on the dry hills.
Then the valley was absorbed by the Mochicas, a people who knew
land.

A.D.

how

to govern,

stratification

who came

showed

in

from the north. For

this culture

the

fine pottery, gold casting, better textiles and,

above the ground, impressive truncated temples, fortresses and

walled roads. After A.I>. 1000 came a new conquest, this time by a
tribe coming out by Lake Titicaca. The shadowy figured Tiahuanacus brought with them their cult of the
ator

God who

eternally weeps

zoomorphic

Weeping God, the Cretears of condors, snakes

and puma heads.

The Tiahuanacu conquered and rebuilt the fortresses and living
compounds within the valley. Ceramics changed to fit the ideology
of the Weeping God, with the dominant color black and most of
the pottery mold-made.
conquered, they did not

and

after A.D.

They,

However, although the mountain people

know how

to administrate the defeated,

1300 the desert land was reconquered by the Chimus.

so archaeological evidence shows, spread their influence as far

south as Lima and the valley of the Rimac and as far north as Ecuador and ruled until they were in turn defeated by the all-conquer-

who arrived in 1460 with all their heavy splendor and

ing Incas
hideous litter of war and slavery. Utilitarian as ever, the Inca organizers did not even attempt to build onto forty-five

years of history. Instead they avoided the prebuilt

lished their headquarters outside the

Guanape where
and storehouses.

in 1549 there

still

sites

hundred

and estab-

Viru Valley on the pampas of

were remains of the buildings

In the final analysis the Incas were civilizers, and so their practiran their Royal Road for twenty miles along the high

cal engineers

sand-bluff

on the edge of the

capital city of the

Kingdom

sea until it entered

of the Moon.

Chan-Chan, the

Highway of

the

Sun

Worshipers of the Moon, the Chimus raised a city-state where it

in the sterile desert hard upon

did not seetn a city could be built

the sward of the Moche Valley*

Slowly, with the years, the metropolis of

Chan-Chan 1 took form.

A city of pyramids, temples, house-compounds, streets, gardens and

day must have been the most populated city of the Americas. The immediate valley as well as the
other valleys under Chimu dominance were extensively cultivated,
reservoirs,

Chan-Chan

and many

irrigation canals

tains to channel

it

in

its

brought water down from the moun-

into reservoirs within

the walls of

Chan-

Chan.
Everything here was large in

scale.

Their weaving, of exception-

high quality, was a commonly practiced industry and there is

evidence of widespread commerce hundreds of miles from their
immediate realm. Ceramics, predominantly blackware pottery, were
ally

mass -produced in molds; golden ornaments were cast and hammered out by expert craftsmen. Within one of the ten great wall
enclosures

was an

the melting ovens

ments

entire village of gold-workers

is still

to be seen.

where the dross of

The many golden Chimu orna-

drinking cups, pendants, earplugs, necklaces and crowns

the Arabian Nights unreality of

now in museums give an idea of

this capital of the

Chimu.

When

the clash occurred in 1461 between the Sun (Inca) and

the Moon (Chimu) , it came, as war often does, unexpectedly. An

Inca general on a raiding expedition in a sierra struck north at the

tribal-state of Cajamarca
one hundred miles directly east of

Chan-Chan

and in

a short sharp conflict the raiding legions

were victorious. Until that time, the Inca in Cuzco had not wished
the Chimu, fearing their strength. But with the fall of

war with
1 I

remain indebted to my friend Dr. John H. Rowe for considerable

material for this chapter, adapted from his pamphlet, The Kingdom of
Chimor. (Act a Americana Vol. VI, Nos. 12. 1948.)

260

The Kingdom of the Moon

Cajamarca,
Chimor.

his

massive armies began the siege of the

An attempt made
in Cajamarca

allies

Kingdom of

by the Chimu troops to relieve their mountain

had been beaten back with fearful losses. In

turn the Incas' attempt to storm the Chimu defense positions had
ended in failure. Then a plan was made, the cleverness of
which so charmed Indian folk singers who told of past events that
also

many years

for

thereafter they sang of

sideration the fact that the

and

rivers

how "the Inca took into

con-

Chimus' valleys were irrigated by water

from the highlands and that without

it

the

Chimus could

not get along; so that they sent many laborers accompanied by four
thousand soldiers and in a few days they diverted the river of the
Chimus into the sandy wastes which swallowed it entirely. They
sent a messenger to the

Grand Chimu saying that the

Inca, the son

of the Sun, had dominion over the waters and that he took

away and would keep them from the Chimu

them

so long as they did

not

submit."

So the Inca conquered and thereafter the Kingdom of Chimor

was ruled by the Sun instead of the Moon. And again, although the

Chimus were forced

own

to

customs and dress

submit to Inca law, they were allowed their

and local chieftains. Loot from Chan-Chan,

the "richest ever," estimated at eight million dollars, was carried

off, as
ile

was

their lord

in Cuzco.

Minchancaman, who was kept in honored exconquered Chimu, possessors of a supe-

And from the

rior culture, the Inca learned. Town-planning, metal-working,

all became part of the
mass production of textiles and tapestry
Inca way of life, for the Incas with their capacity for conquering
also

knew how to

assimilate different ideas

and techniques.

A Chimu

colony was eventually established in Cuzco to teach these

At

crafts.

the time of the Spanish conquest (which followed that of the

Inca within fifty years) the traditions of the Chimu were still so
much in evidence that a Spanish chronicler wrote: **. . when the
.

261

Highway of
Bang's Incas
the

Chimu

made themselves

Sun

the

lords of these coast valleys they held

and ordered large buildings and

in great esteem

And

ure houses to be erected within the city walls.

Road

built

with

its

walls

was

also

We lingered on at Chan-Chan.

made
Silvia,

pleas-

the Royal Inca

to pass through the valley/*

who had

patiently endured

the hardships of the road through the miles of sand, wished to stay
longer at the ruins to sketch the few remaining wall arabesques,
those last fragments of the rich decoration

which once covered

all

Chan-Chan. Lawrence, as well, wanted to photograph

thoroughly, for it was obvious from the rapid pace of destruction

the walls of
it

that within a few brief years nothing

would be

left

of

it

except

mounds of amorphous mud.

Man

and nature have combined to bring Chan-Chan to ruin.

The coast that usually knows no rain is here subjected, by some
twist of the meteorological dial, to a deluge of rain every thirty
years. Since

quency

1924 these rains have increased in violence and fremost of the walls now resemble a piece of chocolate

so that

left in the

noon- day sun.

of Nature have been

Spaniard in

And

men

of able assistance to this iconoclasm

in search of buried gold.

1577 found two million

Ever since a

dollars in gold in

one of

Chan-Chan's pyramids, treasure hunters have assiduously under-

mined its walls.

While the others worked
find the route taken

by

the

in the ruins,

busied myself trying to

highway through the Moche valley into
I

the ghost city of Chan-Chan and beyond, hoping I could discover

how the Inca administrators had handled their highway when they

brought

it

into a crowded city area.

through Chan-Chan's high

walls,

Would

they have pushed it

as they did in the

tumbling them

when they came to the outer defense walls of the Kingdom of

Chimor? Would it have been good policy to irritate the defeated by
desert

bringing a road through the heart of their city?

262

The Kingdom of
It has

the

Moon

been suggested by historians that the Incas had done just

proof they pointed to the numerous roads still seen to

the north on a line with Chan-Chan. I was not of this school of

that,

and

as

thinking. There is something to be said for instinct, and instinct

told me that we should look without, rather than within, these high
walls, believing that the Inca engineers

had tended

to disregard the

not sufficiently utilimade by those they had conquered

tarian. Anything that slowed up such progress as could be made
over their straight all-weather roads they regarded as a waste. The
as

roads

Incas measured distances

and while time

by time

is

not precisely

life and speed is not necessarily civilization, speed does cancel space,
and the Incas had always to think about the time-space equation in

this tortured landscape of desert

So

and mountains.

turned to look without the walls. After some days of search-

ing in the morass of grass-topped dunes between the old walls and
the sea, I had found no trace of the road. There seemed no evidence
of

it

the sifting dunes and the long tufts of grass had usurped

We next tried an air view. Although the view from the

when an

air

it.

many

survey was followed

immediate
the
former
an
examination
had proven an
ground
by
was
aid.
in
an American
Chan-Chan there
invaluable
Fortunately
times confounded the confusion,

aviator

who

operated a

fleet

air

of small dusting planes for one of the

largest sugar-cane estates in the

Chicama

valley.

And one day Frank

yellow Cessna down on the airfield which lies

of
Chan-Chan's walls.
immediately outside
curly-headed, onea
with
for
Chimu
Calif
ornian,
passion
graves, he coneyed
hunting

Wellman dropped

his

sidered his Sundays well spent

a

well-packed lunch and

when, armed with

his family,

his

mine

detector,

he could scour the Peruvian

Chimu

one reason he was deeply interested in the

gold
route of the ancient roads. Knowing this, I had ventured to ask his

earth for

assistance.

He

arrived

on schedule.

"This shows the influence of Albrecht's clock at the hacienda,"

Highway of
he

said.

"Over the

face

reads

it

the

Hora

Sun

tacit et labora. I

watched and

labored and here I am."

That

flight

Wellman.

along with

was well remembered. It was to be our last with

later he went down in this very plane

few months

Silvia's cousins in

the mountains just above the Inca

we were ex-

road. It seemed to be our strange fate that, although

posed to physical dangers every day, we had escaped thus far while
friends and family were struck down. Only recently we had been

stunned to hear of the death of our friend Dr. Wendell Bennett

who had

guided the Expedition from the beginning and soon

were to have word of this latest tragic happening.

we

The Cessna had no sooner gained the air above the dry river canyon at Rio Seco at the northern edge of Chan-Chan ruins than we
saw four roads, and for five minutes we shifted excitedly from one
side

The

of the plane to the other, looking first at one, then the other.
larger road which we had already gone over was at least sev-

must therefore have been

enty-five feet in width and

cessional road.

We

knew

Chimu

pro-

was not Inca for they would have rea conspicuous waste of effort and land.

it

garded such wide roads as

other three roads were more in keeping with the Incas' idea of
each was narrow and bordered with walls. All disroad economy

The

appeared from view in the windswept desert.

There was no great mystery about the appearance of so

North of

Moche Valley

many

the valley of Chicama, the

principal valley belonging to the Mochica's (A.D. 0-800) cultural
roads.

the

is

on the

coastal valley. But it was only after our plane

fourth sweep of the desert and we were again near the
airport, which is located between the Rio Seco and the first walls of

predecessors

had made

its

the familiar parChan-Chan, that we saw what we hoped to see

allel lines, the mark of the Royal Road. It was obvious
why we had

been unable to find

top of

it!

The

it

below.

line of the

The

airfield

had been

road was faint, yet

264

we

built directly

could see

it

on

going

The Kingdom of

the

Moon

along the shore between Chan-Chan and the sea. So our instincts
had not played us false. The Incas had kept, as we felt they would,

communication outside of Chan-Chan's

their direct line of

Now we could continue north

Huanchaco,

on the Inca road.

a village within sight of the ruins of

close to the sea.

walls.

In times past, large

wood

Chan-Chan,

rafts sailed into this

lies

bay

carrying tropical woods, gold, bird-feathers and chocolate from the

north jungles. Anchored here and still used are small fishing fleets of

made
Chimu tombs. The

totora reed balsa boats

just as they appeared

posited in

natives call

them

on pottery de-

caballitos, "little

horses," of the sea.

Above

the village of fragile houses

made from

the flattened

withes of Guayaquil bamboo was the church of San Jose de Huanolaco, built directly over an Inca halting-place; and three hundred

away from it on the desert was the Inca road. Like the other
roads we had seen from the air, it too was soon lost in the sand.
feet

This seemed to us

as

good a place

as

any to

"directional straightness" of the Inca

true, as has

highway system.

an undeviating

line or that

It

is

not

they always overcame

physical obstacles rather than avoided them.

where the road ran between

make

Often

in the coastal

a double array of hills,

we had

4 5 -degree angle rather than needlessly mount

But because on the overall the road was constructed so that

seen the road

a hill.

theory of the

sometimes been assumed, that the Incas always built

their road in

valleys

test the

it would move in a straight line and act*

on
the
that
variants always have to be built up
ing
assumption
against determinants, we began to lay down a theoretical line on
the basis of what we knew.

between two given points

On our Peruvian military maps, Lawrence plotted a direct line

between the road on which we were standing and the next known
Inca stop in the Chicama valley ahead.

26$

He drew

a light pencil line

the

Highway of

Sun

over the intervening desert of Campana between these two points.

reading was 330 degrees north.

The compass

We

started off in the early

morning on

day hot enough to

broil

one's brains. In the vanguard, Silvia drove the jeep while I kept

vigilance over the compass. I do not believe a vehicle had ever

none could unless

crossed this desert

it

was, like ours, powered

by double transmission. Even so the jeep had soon sunk to its hubcaps and we crawled forward at the pace of a mule's walk. It was

we

as if

negotiated the

There was nothing to hold the eye, for

whirlwind of sand had blotted out the

sea.

wind whipping up

the

3000-foot mountain to the

east,

leaving us floating on an unlim-

ited sea of sand.

The heat came

as

out of a blast furnace and sand, blown by the

persistent gale of wind, cut like fragments of

glass.

Our

calcula-

showed that we had approximately thirty miles of desert to

through but even at our present speed of three miles an hour

tions

pass

we

felt

But

we could

that with luck

reach the other valley

in a short time the jeep boiled over,

and

by

nightfall.

crawled out in the

high wind, pushing forward as a diver would walk on the floor of

the sea. I could not open the hood of the motor, for it would have
been sand-bound within moments.

Power Wagon.
its

It

fiery red clearly

We

could only wait for the

long time in coming. Then we made it out,

showing through the sand haze. It too was hav-

was

ing trouble finding traction in the enveloping sand and, like the
jeep, it

was overheated.

So, while food was being prepared,

for a better vantage point and with

sand. There

again

was nothing

if this desert

my

binoculars searched the

had ever been traveled. Our

What

could not negotiate

climbed on top of the jeep

to be seen in either direction. I

firmed the utter desolation of

to attract anyone.

it?

if

On

this region

we

there

stuck in the sand?

foot one

266

map

wondered
only con-

was nothing here

What

if

would have extreme

the cars

difficulty

The Kingdom' of

the

Moon

getting out, and, even if help could be summoned, where was the
vehicle that could cross this desert? I had grown so accustomed to

our crossing the worst terrains that the thought of not being able
to extricate ourselves from any situation had never occurred to me.

But now

Lawrence was

drinking coffee. I had long since stopped esticoffee he drank but certainly it was more than

still

mating how much

consumed daily.
of the ice from the

the thirty cups that Balzac was supposed to have

Silvia

nursed

a small cool

drink with the

giant Thermos and the sand continued

snow.

We

to

last

blow

in fine as blizzard

discussed our prospects. For the moment,

I felt it

wiser to

had

just had. Lawrence was only a litcertain

the
of
the
trucks to withstand the heat
tle less
ability of
than he was of the probability that we should find the road. At last

keep to myself the thought I

came up with the suggestion that since we could not see anything anyway, why not wait and travel by moonlight? That indeed
seemed sound advice. Surrounded by sand and desert, I felt the very

Silvia

opposite of that poor sheik who said: "The four wives I have are all
ignorant and cause me much trouble. I want one with whom I can
talk. If I

can find the right one,

might be even willing to allow

her to wear a hat."

as we discussed our predicament the
even deeper into the sand. The wheels threw up
geysers of the stuff and the more I ran the motor, the deeper they
sank. Lawrence finally managed to pull us out with the front winch

Meanwhile we found that

jeep had

settled

of the Power Wagon, but then he was stuck. This was something else
again for there was more than a ton of equipment in the trucks. In
the fury of wind and sand, we emptied the truck and let the air out
of the huge tires. Still it was not enough, so we fell to shoveling.
For hours we dug at the rear wheels, hoping that in due course we

might settle the tires on the hard pampas surface which lay somewhere down below the sand. As I alternately shoveled and wiped

Highway of
away the coursing

perspiration

against the Inca road

the

Sun

mixed with

we would never be

grit,

fulminated

able to find it

anyway

in this benighted spot. Then, after digging out four feet of sand,

found that we had deposited the Power

Wagon

directly

we

on the

hardened surface of the road.

The night

did not bring the

moon.

A veil of heavy mist

settled

about, so thick that our lights could not even penetrate it and the
best that could be said of our night voyage was that it was cool and

we were not forced to stop every half -hour to rest the motors. Although we kept to the 330-degree direction, we were soon well past
the absolute maximum of time it should have taken us even at our
we were exhausted. It was
slow pace to pass over the desert. More
midnight and with the unchanging sand and mist acting as
soporifics, even coffee could not keep us awake. Finally, with the
close to

firm conviction that

we were

utterly lost,

we

our sleeping sacks and, like seasick voyagers

whether they sink or float, we went to sleep.

gave up, dragged out

who

are past caring

In the morning the mist and wind were gone and the air was as
if it had been rain-washed. With daylight came humiliation.

We

stood in the precise center of the Inca road! On either side were the
remains of the high mud walls and in front of us was a tall, mud-

black pyramid. This

we

we climbed

after

we broke camp and

before

and from the top we saw other pyramids such as

the one on which we stood lying ahead in the sugar-cane fields. Unset off again,

knowingly we had followed the road into the dead realm of ancient
Mochica.

Today the Chicama Valley

all

the largest and most productive of

the coastal valleys and the site of the world's largest sugar haci-

enda.

is

As we looked down we could

see the faint impression of the

ancient road running along through the canefield. In the course of
hundreds of years of being traveled over, the ground had so hard-

268

The Kingdom of

the

Moon

now crops did not grow well where the road once
Over the feathery gray plumes of sugar cane loomed the pyramid of El Ingenio, The Mill, where in 1540 the Spaniard Diego de
Mora had planted the first sugar cane in Peru.
The Mochica culture, the most advanced of the coastal region if
not of all South America, was centuries ahead of all the others. Yet,
ened that even
ran.

overwhelmed about

A.D. 800, the

memory

long

However, while the Mocontrolled the central coast area they built cities, and exten-

before the Incas even

chicas

Mochicas were a

came into

existence.

works, as is evidenced at Ascope in the upper Chiand

road systems which in time were closely copied
Valley,
by the Inca. Although no Mochica house structures are extant, we
know from their pottery that they were built with well workedsive irrigations

cama

out floor plans, that they were constructed of adobe brick, and that
the roofs were gabled with massive roof combs. That the Mochicas
used mass labor

is

evident from the tremendous size of their pyrahas calculated that over thirteen million

One mathematician

mids.

bricks were used in the construction of their great

Pyramid of the
and
the
massive
mud fortificapyramids
capping natural rock ridges, little is left of Mochica architecYet few other civilizations have left so impressive a record of

Moon. Aside from

tions
ture.

these

themselves.

road again in this cultivated valley of Chicama and,

making a detour to get to the desert on the other side, we came to
the hacienda of Chiclin where the buildings had been calcimined a

"We

lost the

distinctive pink.

The road

to

its

administrative center parallels the

course of a narrow gauge railway carrying sugar cane to the mill

along a broad avenue planted with strangler fig trees.

Senor Rafael Larco Herrera, the hacendado of Chiclin, an ex-

mannered eighty-year old patriarch and a former Vice

met us and graciously conducted us to the museum which he had founded. An able
albeit amateur
archaequisitely

President of Peru,

269

Highway of
ologist, his

son

Don

the

Sun

Rafael Larco, present director of the museum,

from his business to pursue the

has for thirty years taken time

ghosts of the Mochica people and other related cultures in this

richly endowed sepulcher of Peru. To our delight we found that

the

museum housed

exquisitely

feather

worked

work

all

Mochica ceramics and

a priceless collection of

thousands of other artifacts

textiles,

necklaces,

gold pieces,

bronze

"footprints" left

wood

instruments,

by the Mochicas on

carvings,

mummies,
the road of

Time.

The

revealing part of the Mochica history

portraits in clay

show

is

in their pottery.

a high level of realism

The

combined with

delicacy of modeling, painting and firing which has

hardly ever been equaled anywhere in the world. Their sculptured
heads are actually documents pertaining to a lost culture and the

charm and

precise details of the faces

make

it at

once apparent that they rank

with the extraordinary art of the Egyptians.

There is in this pottery so wide a range of

we were

able to

that of an obese

form

facial structures that

good idea of their appearance.

man with

a cascade of chins,

One

head,

had the bemused ex-

pression of a sybarite while other sterner types with painted faces

were evidently warriors. Some of the portrait vases

made from
molds in the form of stirrup cups and designed to hold liquids

which had been taken from graves show Mochica tribesmen afwith disease. In fact a study of the portrait faces might give

flicted

one a catalogue of the endemic diseases of the coast. We found the

figure of a felon whose face had been purposely mutilated, and still
other faces showed the effects of the disease which had eaten

away

the upper lip and nose leaving the face, when healed, with the appearance of a grinning skeleton. There was scarcely a facial feature from the piercing of the ears to the headdress which the Mochica artists did not realistically portray. Their headdress, a sort of

turban, was their most conspicuous adornment, and in these the

270

The Kingdom of

the

Moon

and most colorful materials were used. Distinctive turbans

marked the priest, the medical curer, the soldiers and the couriers

finest

who

ran the road.

There were

infinite details to

be seen in other ceramics.

We

saw

models of houses and pyramids; an elaborate variety of realistic

ceramics on plants was so well done that the species could easily be
identified; landscapes simple

growing

and

in cultivated fields;

realistically

graphic showed plants

backgrounds were

as delicately

gested as in Chinese paintings; cactus plants stud the

sug-

pampas

close

to a walled road in a technique similar to those seen in Persian

min-

iatures.

The

native animals, an intimate part of their

lives,

have been

painted and modeled with a warm feeling that again is scarcely surred fox sat on a stirrup-spout jar with
passed by the Egyptians.

a lifelike sly look

on

his face;

on another was

hunted fox with

reddened tongue hanging from his mouth; on yet a third a deer

lovingly nursed its fawn. There was a long parade of the bird

kingdom, done with such exquisite modeling and careful attention

to each feature and detail that we easily identified the pictured bird.

Among the seabirds, a blue-beaked boobie-bird held its young affectionately under outstretched wing,

and ducks swam with

their pe-

The modelers of this pottery had caught the livelimonkey, the humor of the sea lion, the feeling of

culiar dignity.

ness of the

animals. It

was remarkably impressive.

These remarkable pictorial vases even recorded visitations to the

tribal doctor, a practitioner

always identified by the peculiar sash

he wore. In one a skilled curer was removing a tumor from a man's
shoulder; in another he trepanned the skull, removing pieces of broken bone that pressed upon the brain
the success of this operation

is

graves.

confirmed by

On

many trepanned
an old woman with

'the

another vase

hands on a patient's stomach to divine

271

skulls

removed from

eyes closed placed her

his plaint; in yet another, a

Highway

of the Sun

curer hovered over the body of an inert patient trying to extract

the "fairy dart," the symbol of his pain. There were vases showing

dwarfs, hunchbacks, Siamese twins

cases of cretinism

and

and amputees.
But while it was

socially profitable to

syphilis,

be a doctor,

it

was

also

dan-

when

the patient died under treatment, the doctor

gerous
was held accountable, as was shown by one vase on which a doctor
for

naked, except for the usual badge of

man. The

and the

office

was

tied to a

dead

formed

a spiritual bond; they bewere

bound;
they lay in the desert
they
and waiting.
with a carrion bird poised above
Here then in this pottery collection was the history of a people.

killed

longed to each other,

In one

sense,

and

killer

so

an illustrated history

written one, since the written

word

is

often more explicit than a

is,

in the flight of time, always

subject to interpretation. It has always been a mystery

advanced

civilizations did

would have enabled them

why

these

not invent some form of writing which

to leave a record.

The

principal stimula-

tion for the invention of writing, first used in Mesopotamia about

the fourth millennium B.C., was economic and the earliest

known

written accounts are pictographic records of payments made to a

temple. Such tribute was also paid by tribesmen in Peru's early his-

we know

they did through their knot-string records, but

55
beyond this there is no known "written account. If writing was
"an artificial creation impelled by the idea-diffusion or stimulus diftory. This

fusion," the Mochica did not have

it.

Yet they may have had a system of glyphic communication.

Their couriers, a special class as seen by the form of their turbans,
on the ceramics as running along the desert roads
some
sort of bag in their hands. Senor Rafael Larco once
carrying
found such a bag of beautifully tanned light llama-skin in the tomb
are often pictured

of a chasqui.

He

believes that the

Mochica developed communica-

tion through the use of decorated painted beans in such stylized

272

The Kingdom of
form

as

the

Moon

to be, in fact, ideographs, and that these glyph beans were

He has drawn these conclusions from

carried in such a leather bag.

thousands of ceramics which have the motif of the painted beans

on them, often coupled with the running cbasqm figure.

Death and the little gods were also present in this painted

history.

We came away with a complete idea of the Mochica military equipment and of

their warriors. Their

weapons were buinesslike: spears,

war
clubs
weighted in bronze or stone.
sharply pointed javelins,
Each warrior was accoutered in a buckler and a shield on which was
painted the heraldic totem of his clan. On vase after vase we saw
scenes of carnage and battle, where sweeping vital figures clubbed
and mutilated, and scenes of triumphs showing naked prisoners,
disarmed and bound with rope around the neck, being led to a
chieftain

who was both

judge and victor. Death too stalked the

exhibit shelves with the vanquished trussed

up and hanged or

left

to die in the pictured desert.

And woman

in

Mochica

art,

gently and tenderly. She appears

woman

as the

handled by the artist

mother-wife, an active, symis

pathetic role not always given her in other examples of primitive

American art. The artist catches her as she washes her long hair and
is

in the act of wringing

it

out; she

is

found making

a large

bowl

of intoxicant or cooking in the kitchen or weaving or perhaps removing a sand flea from the foot of her lordly spouse. Or she is

found

sitting contemplatively while arranging her hair.

These are

singular portraits of the primitive woman of the New World. Usually she emerges as a force in this society yet she waits to press her
demands until her man has been made drowsy by the fumes of
desire.

The Mochica was a sophisticated society and that they caught all
the humor and accide of great art is shown in their
engagingly
candid pictures of their sexual life. There is nothing in the whole
more libidirange of erotic art
Greek, Egyptian or Indian

273

Highway of
nous than the intimate

one

it

details that

Sun

they modeled on their vases,

fearfully and wonderfully displayed. Phallic worabounds. In

would be better to say phallic admiration

where sex
ship

the

vase, a

is

man sits in

standard that

it

such a state of desire and with so enormous a

could have been characterized by an eighteenthas "not a weapon of man, nor the plaything of a

century courtesan

youth, but a maypole."

treated with Rabelaisian

ment ingenieux

sits

On

another vase an outsized priapus is

humor; on the very summit of this instru-

a small bird

who

looks

down on

it

in a most

curious expression of unbelief.

The positions of love on these vases are more numerous than
those

known

to Montegazza, that nineteenth-century gazetteer of

sexual aberrations. There

up by man. So many and

is

every approach, every position, thought

one recalls Remy de Gour-

so varied that

mont writing that "the animal is ignorant of diversity of the accumulation of aptitudes; man alone is libidinous."

When the Inca conquerors arrived on this part of the coast they
were shocked by this display of sodomy which involved both
women and men. This fashionable way had been inherited by the
who

Chimus from the Mochicas, and

the Inca

paratively Spartan

an abomination. They tried

by destroying just those involved

their best to

life,
it

regarded

out, first

stamp
and then whole families and

officials,

lived a

com-

it as

clans. But the practice was obviously

too deeply ingrained to be stamped out, for after the arrival of the

Spaniard fifty years later the religious phase of sodomy was

still

rampant.
Cieza de Leon

said,

"It

is

certain there were

some Particular

where they kept Boys in Temples for that Purpose, and

look'd upon that Abomination as a Piece of Religion, only to be
Places,

practis'd

upon solemn Occasions by the

Priests

and Caciques

for every Temple, or Place of Worship of Note keeps one or two

more Men who are clad like Woman from their Infancy, imitating

274

The Kingdom of the Moon

them

in their Tone,

and

all

other Particulars. These on great festi-

vals, the prime men us'd to have their Beastly Copulation."

The Incas seemed to have had no answer to sodomy except whole-

programs to
time to

slip

and when

workkeep the people so fully occupied they would have no

out of the ritualistic rhythm of work. Accordingly

sale liquidation

this failed

they created

artificial

they impressed thousands of these pleasure -loving coastal sybarites

into their road construction.

And

so over the

tombs of the Mochicas which

eternal repository, those ceramics

held, as in

an

which told the well-defined story

of a long forgotten and highly articulate civilization, the Inca ran

highway which Humboldt characterized

useful and stupendous work ever executed by man."

his road, that

275

ce

as

the most

XVI
A

Great City Called Tumpiz

INo MONUMENT marked it; no one had penned an epic about it.
Yet where we stood on what had been a truncated pyramid, the
conquest of Peru had begun. We had come to the end of the great
coastal road, near to Tumbes where the river of the same name flows
into the sea.
his small

And

here in 1532 Francisco Pizarro had landed with

company of

soldiers

and the

stirring

end in the death of the Inca Empire had

its

drama that was to

beginning.

Although at that time the Spaniards did not realize it, the road
that they found outside of Tumbes, or Tumpiz as they called it,
was the very road that would lead them to
people so carefully
did the Incas. Just

by

made arrangements
as

their goal.

for their

the Persians paved the

way

Never had

own downfall

a
as

for their conquest

the forces of Alexander the Great, so did the magnificent roads

of the Incas betray them to the Spaniards. As we stood on the ramparts of the pyramid where the first part of the drama took place,
and looked at the not too distant sea, I thought about the man who

had tumbled the Inca Empire.

Francisco Pizarro belonged to that

company

of Spanish tercios

who, intermixing piety with rapine, had helped to double the

world's landscapes. In 1532 with his little army he stood outside of
this

Tumbes

at the

margin of

wide road "made by hand, broad

Highway
and well

built

claimed

all

claim to

all

and in

many

of the Sun

places paved,"

and

as

Balboa had once

the land which the Pacific touched, so Pizarro

now

laid

the land that this road serviced. It was a large and gen-

erous gesture since the road spread, as the Spaniards were to learn,
over all of Andean South America. Chilli-masa, the corpulent Indian chieftain of Tumbes, who with a retinue of his people includ-

ing buffoons and dancers had turned out to welcome the steel-clad
the furling of the Imstrangers, was amazed by the proceedings
perial flag of Spain, the

drums, the bugle and the reading of the

Of the last he could make

the Royal Scrivener.

proclamation by
nothing, and even the garbled version supplied by the Indian translator attached to the Spaniards was of no help. Since the road went
to every part of the "four quarters of the

Sun" and embraced the

desert, the Andes and the jungle, and therefore the lands belonged
to the Inca, how then could these people claim it? Or how, if this

claim was denied them, could they take it by force, since his people
were seven millions and the Spanish army consisted of a mere one

hundred and eighty men, thirty-seven horses, two cannon, twenty

crossbows and one white woman? The whole thing had an air of
utter improbability. But that Francisco Pizarro
crossed the Indians were soon to learn.

was not a

They were

man

to be

dealing with the

most deadly fauna ever to walk the Peruvian earth.

Three years earlier, on July 26, 1529, Francisco Pizarro had made
a contract with his Queen to make a conquest of these lands in her
name. As
title

was to have 750,000 maravedis annually, the

of Governor and the prerogatives of a Viceroy. He had spent
a reward, he

Kingdom and now bore at

snow of fifty-six winters and in his heart an infinite
bitterness. Born illegitimate and nursed, it was said, by a sow, able
neither to read nor write, he had come to the "new founde worlde"

many

years searching for this Golden

his temples the

to change this outrageous fortune. Life in those times was a lottery.

Chance has a way of elevating one man while she buries others in

278

A
mud

Great City Called Tumpiz

and infamy. The great

prizes

were few and the odds in

this

game of conquest were frequently stacked against the player. Fortune had eluded Pizarro during his first decades in America. Then
after the discovery of the Pacific

gan to

filter

up

to

Panama of

by Balboa, copious accounts begreat kingdom of gold that lay to

the south.

In search of this kingdom, Pizarro and his one-eyed partner,

Almagro, spent a weary five years moving south along the seacoast
until, after vicissitudes which would have ruined a less demoniac

man

than Pizarro, they arrived at last in 1527 in the port of

Tumbes where they took refuge when their single ship sprung a
leak.

To

roofs

which

their

was

amazement they found they were facing

appeared to be gold

mass of

while about

it,

with

a city

the usually dry

land by the gestures of the

city's inhabitants who thronged the beaches, Pizarro sent one
Alonzo de Molina ashore. He returned presently with descriptions
desert

color. Invited to

of a place which rivaled the splendor of the Arabian Nights. The

women "were as beautiful as suns," every one wore gold in her ears,
about her neck, and wrists and ankles. The houses were well made,
luxurious, the finest that he

had ever

seen. Believing that their

com-

rade spoke out of the Stardust of the imagination, Pizarro sent another, this time Pedro de Candia, the "Greek," who went ashore in

armour freshly burnished and stayed the night. His

even more wonderful than the other.
full

The

tale

was

great city called Tumpiz is inhabited entirely by Indiclose to the shore is a great house belonging to the

ans and

lord of the country with walls built of adobes like bricks, very
beautifully painted with many colors and varnished. I never

saw anything more beautiful. The roof is straw also painted so

that it looks more like gold. About a large temple was a garden with fruits and vegetables of the country imitated all in
gold and silver. The women wore a dress large and broad like

279

"Highway of the Sun

morning gown, and the chieftains went dressed in mantles
and shirts and wore a thing like a turban adorned with gold
and silver beads which they called chaqmra. The country itself was desert, but the Indians had made it bloom by irrigation. They said they were the vassals of a great lord named Old
Cuzco who lived in the mountains and that he had much gold
and the people spent many days and nights at drinking bouts
and it is certainly marvelous the quantity of liquor chicha that
a

these Indians drink.

The Spaniards were mad with

They had found at last the

Golden Kingdom. They bartered for golden ornajoy.

outpost of the
ments, took aboard several llamas which they called "sheep/' traded
for vicuna-wool weavings

which they thought were silks, and manthem to Spain. In

aged to persuade several Indians to return with

turn

it

was agreed that Alonzo de Molina, the first Spaniard who

ashore, would remain at Tumbes alone with his Negro

had gone

slave Gines to await their return.

That return took

In 1532 Pizarro was back with his

"contract" for the conquest and his titles and his emoluments. He
found the Spaniard dead and Tumbes destroyed. The "golden garfive years.

dens" of which de Candia had sung and the houses plated with gold
were all gone. The Golden Kingdom about which Pizarro had

leaf

spun beautiful stories, where gold gushed out of the earth midst
emeralds and pearls, was gone. There were mutterings of revolt.
Pizarro, "who was as proud as he was poor and whose eagerness for
gain was in proportion to his poverty," rose to the occasion. He
sought to buoy up the hopes of his men by having his scrivener
write a note which he claimed was given to him by an Indian:

"Know

ye," said the note, "whoever

to set foot in this country, that

than there
Failing

is

by

it

you may be that may chance

contains more gold and silver

iron in Biscay."
this ruse to satisfy his followers, Pizarro left a

280

crew

Great City Called Tumpiz

behind to await reinforcements coming from Panama and, after

three days in the ruins of Tumbes, moved off and so came onto the

wide road.

"On

from Tumbes

day," said the scrivener, "the governor departed

which was the i6th of May, 1532, and he arrived at a

small village.

From

the

first

road in search of

there they began to

this

'Old Cuzco.

The Spaniards were amazed by

march south on

this

wide

"
the road.

Coast and Vales, the Caciques and prime Men, by

a Road 1 5 Feet wide with strong Walls on both
Sides above the Height of a Man. All the Way was very clean
and shaded with Trees, whose Boughs in many Places hung
over heavy with Fruit, and Abundance of Parrots and other
Birds were everywhere among the Woods. In each of these
Vales the Incas had stately Apartments for themselves and

Along

his order,

this

made

mighty Magazines for their Soldiers being so much Fear'd that

The Walls were carnone durst omit to provide for them
sides
the
on
both
Road
of
ry'd along

At

the end of

and precisely

August 1954 in the second year of our Expedition

four hundred and twenty-two years after the Span-

Golden Kingdom, we ourselves were

searching for the remains of this 15 -foot wide road with "strong
Walls on both Sides."

iards set off in search of the

We had begun, as Pizarro had begun, at the end of the beginning.

was soon apparent that modern Tumbes on the banks of the
Tumbes River was not the old city. But on the advice of one or
It

two

in the valley

tory,

we

to

know something

of the road's his-

traveled four miles southwest to San Pedro de los Incas.

There in that
dwellings,

now

who seemed

little village,

we found

with

its

wickerwork and mud-covered

the ruins of the first

Tumbes. Around them

a skein of irrigation ditches nourishes the fields of rice,

281

and

Highway of

the

Sun

through them and over them runs the new four-lane vehicular Pan

American Highway.

small house

sits

atop the Sun Temple

first

by Pedro de Candia. Cows and goats wander up its steep sides

where still to be seen are the adobes "painted with many colors and
seen

varnished."

With an

by Dr. Georg

map of the place supplied

geologist, we moved through the

archaeological

Petersen, an oil

to us
little

Inca buildings seen by

village and traced the outlines of those
Pizarro and his men in 1527. There were the courts, the enclosures
first

and the walls, and we could still see faint traces of the old road
which Pedro de Candia marched over when, fully armored, he came
in from the ship to visit "golden Tumpiz." It is now little more
than a flooded

of

ricefield.

But the ancient road was gone. "We found nothing but a memory
it as we moved back toward the mountains in search of the route

of the conquistadores. The land itself has changed. Floods have

ravaged the region and there have been devastating earthquakes,
while for four hundred years the natives have been busy turning
over every available piece of arable soil.
Thirteen miles due south of the village,

we

passed the remains of

an Inca tampu called Ricaplaya. This had been the first "small village" which the army of Pizarro reached on its first day out of

Tumbes. The landscape was now much like the velds of Africa.
The mimosa stood tall with flat-spreading foliage and stalks of
shrubs stood bare of leaf in the coarse
algaroba trees
trees of

soil with the cactus. Large

which had reminded the early Spaniard of the Karob

Arabia appeared

now

in profusion.

It was a trackless place. No car had been there before us and we

rumbled over the ground as a battle tank might have done. Southeast and to our left were the Mountains of Amatope
rising, so

our maps indicated, to

with vegetation.
it

Had

height of 3000 feet and completely covered

the Inca road climbed that mountain or had
a

hugged the plain at the mountain's base?

282

And where was

the "vil-

Great City Called Tumpiz

among hills" where the Spaniards stayed on their third day out
of Tumbes?
That night we camped in the dry forest. With the rising rnopn
lage

came the animals. A red fox loping by stopped to look at us for a

moment, a deer with its spotted doe leisurely walked in front of
and above the

sibilance of the night cicadas there was

It was the cry of the howling monsound.
another deep throbbing
keys. Somewhere high in those mountain woods the deep -chested

our

lights,

males were beating out their song.

Along the lower foothills of the mountain spur where the trees
were the largest, we came on the old road again. Under the detritus,
gift of the

marked

sun and the

rain, there

a continuing wall.

was

dim but

definite line that

Lawrence drove the Power

Wagon

slowly over the rock-strewn ground as Silvia and I walked ahead

with our guide. It was when we saw parallel walls which were distanced twenty-four feet that we knew we were on that wide road

"with strong Walls on both Sides."

I had long wondered what part of Peru the conquistadores had
referred to when they said the road they walked had been shaded by
This region was the only place in the entire twenty-five hundred miles where such a situation could exist. Here were the trees
trees.

and large blue morning glories that bloomed in profusion, the same
flowers they had seen, and vines that had a large melon-like fruit
which,

when

dead, emitted a dry ash like the Apples of

Sodom

found in Arabia Deserta. This then was the place of the shaded
and the fruit. And so, alternately finding and losing the road

trees

over which the myrmidons of Francisco Pizarro had marched in

May of 1532 on their way to find the Lord Inca, we came at long
last to the

banks of the Rio Chira in the

And on

embankment

first

valley south of

same type of terrain

was
studded with cactus and mimosa,
where the rolling dry earth
we found Poechos. Here Pizarro, following the Inca road, had come

Tumbes.

a high

283

in the

Highway of
to "the banks of rivers

the

Sun

which were well peopled and yielded abun-

dance of provision of the country and flocks of sheep [llamas],"

and here he made camp

we never

in a large village called Poechos.

long the track of the ancient road.

It ran along through ancient villages, up the sides of hills, through

After

this

a desolate country,

lost for

moving from

valley to valley.

In order to reach the place the Spaniards had called Zaran [Serran], we had to take the winding vehicular dirt road that wound

up and around

the sides of the lower

now

Andes and back through the

hacienda lying in a valley where

several small rivers meet but in 1533 it was a place of considerable
semidesert land. Zaran

is

importance. Ruled over by a "great lord," its fortress guarded the

Inca lateral road which there connected with the Royal Road

through the mountains not more than fifty miles to the east and
upward. It was at Serran, where we found more ruined structures,
that Pizarro had waited for the return of

with

his

twenty

soldiers

Hernando de Soto who

had gone into the mountains to seek out

the whereabouts of the fleeing Inca King.

We

fortunately had an account of this search as

it

had been

re-

ported by de Soto's soldiers. Don Diego Trujillo told how, after

Pizarro had seen at Serran a road which appeared to go up to the

mountains, he sent "Hernando de Soto with forty men. I went with

him, and we continued up the road for twenty leagues until we

came to the road which

led to Caxas, the operation taking

two days

and one night without resting except for meals."

Eight thousand feet above the Rio Tabaconas, in June 1532, de
<e
Soto and his forty soldiers came upon a village surrounded by
mountains." Here at Cajas (which still exists) they saw the first
evidence of the grandeur of the Golden Kingdom, "fine edifices
and a fortress built entirely of cut stones, the larger ones being five
or six palms wide and so closely joined that there appears to be no

mortar between them." Since the natives were under the

284

strictest

Great City Called Tnmpiz

from the Inca not to attack, the two thousand Indian warwithdrew into the mountains, leaving de Soto master of the
place. In time a chieftain appeared and through an interpreter oforders
riors

fered to guide de Soto out to a "road

enough

for six

men on

made by hands and broad

horseback to ride abreast."

Thus Hernando de Soto became the first white man to see the
Royal Road of the Incas, the "same road that traverses all the intervening land between Cuzco and Quito, a distance of more than
three hundred leagues/' The distance is actually one thousand two
hundred and thirty miles. The same Indian described Cuzco, the
Golden Kingdom's capital, "as a league around, and the house of
the Lord Inca as four crossbow shots in length," and he told of the

war between the two brothers who had been rivals for the
Inca-ship of all the Perus. The victor, Atahualpa, was even now not
far distant from this same Cajas, taking the hot water baths at
civil

Cajamarca.
et
a great and
It was not long after this that the soldiers found
strong building in the town of Caxas [Cajas] surrounded by adobe
walls in

cloth

which there were many women spinning and weaving

and there were no men with them except the porters
.

who guarded them." At

the entrance the bodies of three Indians

were found hanging by their

tered the houses of the chosen

feet,

punished because they had en-

women. Even

in this ferocious

drama

of conquest there was a parenthesis now and then for other pastimes
and de Soto's men, who had not seen women for months, could not

be restrained. Five hundred of the Virgins of the Sun were forced

out into the plaza, and while some of the crossbowmen mounted
guard, the Spaniards had their way with them. Finally the soldiers
left off and de Soto marched on down to Serran.

That the conquistadores were brave men, I will be the last to

deny. To march in such small numbers into an unknown land must
have required courage of an uncommon sort. But I can only sug-

285

Highway

of the

Sun

any who have traveled as we traveled, changing from

from horse to foot, sleeping out here, taking a hurwould agree that the
meal there
over the same terrain

gest that

vehicle to horse,
ried

Spaniards in those early days were less inconvenienced than we.

They at least found a road in a fine state of repair; the tampu rest-

were well provisioned; and if the proper pace was maintained, in the evening there were night quarters for the traveler. It
is true that for us there was no hostile people ready to fall upon us.
stations

On

the contrary, a

more peaceful people than the present-day

Peruvian scarcely exists. Still even in those June days of 1532 the
Spaniards went unmolested along a road wide enough "for six
horses to go abreast." Such a road we never saw in its entirety, only
seems amazing to us who followed the traces
of these roads back and forth across mountain and desert that any

fragments, and yet

it

part of this once great highway system should be intact.

was in

It

this

same region between Cajas and Huancabamba

von Humboldt, "traveling for the acquisiof knowledge," made a scientific study of the highway. After

that in 1802 Alexander

tion

following it for hundreds of miles through Ecuador, he wrote:

"The roads of the Incas were the most useful and stupendous works
ever executed by man."

He went

on to speak of the

**.

solemn

impression which is felt on beholding the deserts of the Cordilleras,

increased by the remarkable and unexpected fact that in these very
regions there

still exists

Incas, that stupendous

On
are

wonderful remains of the great road of the

work ..."

the sides of this road and nearly at equal distances there

small houses built of well-cut free stone
.
answer-

still

While we
ing the purposes of caravan-series or tambos
journeyed onward on the heights of Pullal, our eyes were continually riveted on the hard remains of the Inca road upwards
of 20 feet in breadth; this part of the road had a deep under .

structure and was paved with well-hewn blocks of black-trap

286

A Great City

Called

Tnmpiz

of the Roman roads which I have seen in Itsouth of France and in Spain appeared to be more
imposing than this work of the ancient Peruvians; and the Inca
road is the more extraordinary, since according to my barometrical calculations it is situated at an elevation of 13,258

None

porphyry.

aly, in the

feet

We
far

saw

still

grander remains of the Peruvian Inca road not

from Huancabamba and

also in the vicinity of

Ingatambo

On

our travels northward in the Cordilleras

between Cajas and Huancabamba, we had no less than twentyseven times to ford the Rio Huancabamba, compelled to do
this on account of the numerous sinuosities of the stream,
which on the brow of the steep precipice near us we had continually without our sight the vestiges of the rectilinear Inca
road
near Pomahuaca.

In time, following this important lateral that joined the two

the coastal and the Andean
we too came to
main axis roads
the same "vestige" of the road near

Humboldt, and

so

found and

east into the jungle

story.

On

Huancabamba mentioned by

later explored the Inca road that led

realm of the headhunters. But that is another

that night

we

slept in the

same Serran where Pizarro had

once stayed for eight days awaiting the return of de Soto. Then,
hearing his captain's story of the "things" of empire, he had gathered

up

his

whole army and continued south on the wide road

And now here were we taking

"with strong Walls on both Sides."

the same coastal route.

We

moved our

trucks through little towns with old Inca

names
Copiz, Motupe "where there are great fields of cotton
with which they make their clothes," through the next valleyvillage of Jayanca,

"where

made channels which

a pleasant river flows

serve to irrigate

all

with

artificially

the land that the Indians

Highway
choose to sow." All along the

of the Sun

way we found

ruins of pyramids,

and occasionally a section of the Inca road.

As always, it measured twenty-four feet and even in its decay, it
was ever a wide road "with strong Walls on both Sides," At the
end of several weeks, the canvas top of the Power Wagon was torn,

outlines of structures

the paint on the cars marred and faded

from the constant sun, and

we ourselves burnt to a crisp. Yet like a beagle following the scent,

we kept to our pursuit of history and the roads.
Inca road.
By now we had formed a clear picture of the over-all
twentyIn the south, and in the north, it had measured the same
four feet. Whether the land through which it ran was desert or
remains of tembos and
semi-desert, along the entire route were

found the roads and

pyramids. Always our inexorable itinerary
measured them; found the tambos and measured the distances to
determine the intervals between stations; surveyed the ruins and
them; searched for potsherds. All this, recorded
and catalogued, was building toward an ever more complete picture
of the Inca Empire. We were taking the extraneous legendary material of history and giving it archaeological foundation. The dead

made

a plan of

we

cities

discovered were not resting places wherein

we

sat

and in-

nature and dedulged in "sententious reflections on the transitory

the task of
was
Ours
Ruines.
in
his
did
cay of empires" as Volney

and the reasons

rediscovering the direction the roads had taken,
that
than
this
rather
geographical avenue,
why the roads entered
the utilization of terrain, the history of those who had come and
gone over them. We were seeking to revitalize a dead civilization,

with
its

its cities, its

manner of handling surplus,

these to gain

methods of communication,
system of records, and along with

division of labor, its

its

some knowledge of the people and

activities in the social

their multifarious

complex.
important part of this phase of our study had to do with
our attempt at ferreting out the chasqui-coutier system. Ever since

An

288

A Great City

Called

Tumpiz

we had found those courier stations in the mountains and had made
our test, we had been searching along the roads for the communication posts. The stations were turning up more frequently. We came
across a number of them well-spaced along a section of the desert
road which had perhaps remained untouched since the Spanish
abandoned it after the conquest. Speed was the important factor of

communications "for the Inca King thought he should be as a

heart in the midst of his realms," and the newsbearing cbasquis,

who were

as

blood flowing along the

arteries, carried

information

with the greatest speed. It was as a solution of the time-space problem that the chasqui system had been established.

On

we

stopped for a breather at Cinto [Zana,

Zana, or Sana] once a populous oasis watered "by a great and rapid
river." In 1532 the conquistadores in their search for the Inca had

our

way

south

Road which they found

so wide that two carts
Cinto. Now we were driving

traveled along this stretch of the Royal

"paved and bound on each

side

by

a wall

and

." into
could be driven upon it
our vehicles abreast over the same road, looking
had then for the road to Cajamarca.
.

do not

"the road,

know what Zana was

made

looked then.

for

Now

when
Old Cuzco when he
like

sand surrounds

it

it

as

the Spaniards

was Indian nor

visited his

and there

is

how

dominions"

a small village

with a little square and houses of painted adobe, windowless to keep

out the mosquito plague at night. In the seventeenth century, this
village had been the place of an "experiment in God," and several
beautiful churches, whose ruins were

the semidarkness had been built in

visible as we drove by in
what then was an extensive

still

agricultural region. These offered no place to set up camp, for with

the twilight the insects were out in thick swarms and our only escape was to find a place where we would have the strong wind from
the sea. So we forced our trucks to climb the sides of a demolished

pyramid. There in dust ankle-deep

289

we

set

up camp. But

tired

Highway of

the

Sun

though we were we could not sleep, and presently in the hope of

finding someone who could give us some information about the old
road Silvia and
3

went down

Fortune favored us

man

precise, this little

containing but

welcomed us

We

its

evening for we found Mayta. Small and

with the Inca name wore pince-nez glasses

perched at an angle on his nose. He

bare room and fetched out another candle.

a single glass

into his

him our business. He had seen our truck

emblazoned INCA HIGHWAY EXPEDITION and the running

had no need

with

to the dark streets of the village.

this

to tell

He

had been reading news of our Expedition in the

Lima papers and he had hoped that we would come this way.
there is at
Mayta was an antiquarian, or better, a huaquero
cbasqui figure.

least

one in every village

one touched by interest in things past

up graves, records the facts. He was

exceedingly helpful. He knew, he said, the part of the road for
which we searched, the part that broke off from the main coastal
road and moved east to the mountains, the one that Pizarro took

who

collects information, digs

when he

searched out the Inca King. His grandfather had accompanied the great Antonio Raimondi, the Italian-born Peruvian ge-

ographer,

when he

too sought

Then he brought out

it

out in the

last

century.

the collections of ceramics he had found in

We

saw the black polished ware of the Chimu; the beautigraves.

ful polychromic pottery of the Mochicas on which deer, fox, and
people were naturalistically portrayed; and Inca pottery. When we
asked how he had managed to find these, he brought out a notebook

covered with diagrams and figures. He opened it, furtively glancing

over his shoulder first one way then the other, leaned toward us and
said, "I

among

work in the occult sciences." He had, it seems, a co-worker

the unseen forces, an Inca spirit called "Claudio." On
proper

contact, Claudio

would inform him where

to dig

and

at

what

level

he would find the antiquities. It was Claudio who had told him of
the Inca lateral road which led to the sierra. Then he rose and, tak-

290

A Great City

Called

Tnmpiz

ing the candle In hand and moving in front of us so that his small
shadow was large on the wall making it seem as if we were following
the genie rather than Claudio, he led us to a dusty back

room furmore treaswood carvings, bronzes and mummies* He then

saying that he had to contact Claudio for word

nished with only a bed and a crucifix. There he showed

ures

ceramics,

excused himself,

about the morrow's trek.

ne

With Mayta and

Claudio"

as

our guides, we found the Inca

As soon as the in-

road in splendid condition to the south of Zana.

fluence of the water canals ended, the desert began

saw

their road, direct

white

men who

and wide

traveled

it.

The

eternal everlasting drought,

a flame in the

sun

as

as it
soil,

and there we

had been described by the first

waste gravel baked hard in the

glowed underfoot and the

we walked toward

the remains of a

air

way

was

like

station.

The ground was a fallen desolation of stone of dry-laid masonry

which had once formed the tarn-pus for this part of the road. Our
measuring tapes out, we set to work in the brazen sun. One station
measured one hundred and fifty feet by one hundred and twenty
feet and was broken up in several rooms. These were right on the
road which had been indented so that the structures could be
keyed to the road. The stones used had been brought from the upthrust rock-hill a few hundred yards behind, a hill Mayta called
"the Hill of the Gallows."

Here the road bifurcated to the east and, along a lateral road
which climbed toward the mountains, Francisco Pizarro and his
small army, thinned

by

disease

and

fear,

marched toward the

lair

member of that expedition against an empire

of the Lord Inca.
wrote: "From Zana we took the road to the sierra."
seemed that we moved for hours, so slowly did we creep
through the skein of small trees toward our goal, the blue haze of
It

291

of the Snn

Highway
mountains

rising in the east.

thriving somehow

We

in the aridity

passed several small haciendas

where we stopped

enough

just long

road through the mountains to Cajamarca. It was essential that we get to the coast as and
when we had planned and we could not now make the long and

to assure ourselves that this

was the

lateral

arduous climb over the i2,ooo-foot mountains that lay between

Cajamarca and ourselves.

With extreme difficulty we worked the trucks around the Nancho River which here snaked between the lower foothills of the
towering Andes. At San Jose de Nancho we left our trucks and set
out on foot to see the traces of the Inca road. We found it close to
the pass that led up the mountains, a pathway still used by mules.
There rising ahead of us was the now familiar step-road of broad
treads,

broken and out of

line,

but the same step-road which

Pizarro had used to seek out the Inca.

With an
his

emissary sent

as

an escort by the Inca Atahualpa, and

one hundred and thirty foot-soldiers and forty horses and the

numerous Indian porters who had been

gathered about him, Francisco Pizarro,

pressed* into his service

who knew how

make

to

solemn moments, mounted a rock close to the road

and addressed his men. The import of his words was recorded by

fine speeches at

his scrivener:

He exhorted

all his

men

to

make up

their

minds to act

as

hoped they would, to have no fear of the great numbers of

he

sol-

army of the Inca. Though the Christians might be

number, they had been blessed with divine aid for the
confounding of their enemies. He would be with them seeing
that they went hence with the good intention of bringing these
diers in the

few

in

infidels to a

knowledge of the truth.

So we left the conquistadores climbing up the sides of the Andes

over the Inca road, climbing into history, into glory, as they carried death and destruction to the Inca's
sanctuary.

292

XVII
The End of the Road
WAS

FORTUITOUS or had

it been
subconsciously planned that
should
end
at
the Expedition
Cajamarca where the end of the Inca
Empire took place? I do not know. I remember only that in putting
together the last links of the Royal Road in the Andes we had

IT

woven back and forth between mountain and

second anniversary

coast

and our journey's end

environs of Cajarmarca.
In our two years of travel

we had

linked

by

almost the entire road system of ancient Peru.

and that our

found us in the
direct exploration

We

had followed the

Royal Road up and into Ecuador marking its way accurately; we

had entered Huancabamba, famous in history as the first Inca city
seen in the mountains

by Hernando de

Soto,

who

there

had had

his

first glimpse of the opulence and wealth of a mysterious empire;

and out of Huancabamba we had followed the until now unbroken

road built by the Incas in 1470 over which they had moved
seventy-five miles east to the banks of the* Maranon River and
eventual defeat by the head-hunting Aguaruna Indians.
All through the last months of the Expedition we had been at

work

joining together those roads in the highlands

which we had

been forced to bypass on previous trips. Now to mark the end, we

had come north to Ichocan along the vehicular dirt road. On the

we put up what was to be our last formal

were but three now
Silvia, Richmond Lawrence and

plain near Cajamarca

camp.

We

Highway of

the

Sun

and our
myself. The Riddells had finished their work and gone,
native helpers and assistants were down on the coast preparing the
final

packing of our collections. Here

began to write the

last

dispatch:

EXPLORERS FINISH INCA ROAD SEARCH

EXPEDITION WENT 22,OOO MILES IN UNCOVERING VAST
HIGHWAY NET IN PERU

U.S.

ICHOCAN: DECEMBER /, 1954: WE HAVE MADE OUR LAST

RUN ALONG THE INCA ROAD AND OUR LAST DISCOVERY
WE HAVE SOUGHT THE REMAINS OF THE FABULOUS ROYAL
ROAD OF THE INCAS BY TRUCK, BY MULE, BY AIRPLANE, ON
FOOT. WE HAVE FOLLOWED THE INCA ROADS THROUGH DESERT
AND TOWERING ANDES INTO THE JUNGLES IN ONE OF THE
.

FIRST

broke

what

it

EXTENDED STUDIES OF COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS OF

PREHISTORIC MAN. OUR LAST

I

off

from

this

summary

was that we had

to think

how

accomplished in these

might say exactly

two years. I turned

had

abstractedly to watch Silvia busy in the last light of day. She

when we

been only twenty-three years old

began, young and untried in this arduous work. Now bronze and lean, she had a knowing

her and an awareness. She had

way about

won

her spurs as an

explorer; working, drawing, collecting, helping to gather the

terial

which

would draw upon

in

framing

my

ma-

over-all report. I

turned to Lawrence, at work as always on his cameras. For two

years, often under the most miserable conditions, he had photo-

graphed the history of a people through their roads and had taken
all 60,000 feet of color film without the loss of a
single roll. Our
all had
archaeologists, our draughtsmen, our guides, the aviators

in

worked with

us in our search for the answers to the questions

asked: Where had the Inca roads gone?
built them? What

Who

had they played

garman, thief"

in creating an
all

et

we

part

Rlch man, poor man, begthe

the
along
way
people of the road had

Empire?

294

The End of
shown
past.

very

I shall

the

Road

our search for the horizons of the

real interest in

be ever grateful for their helpfulness and inherent

kindness.

Had we found
system, a vast

only

road?

Much

more!

We

had found a road

network of communications which had bound

all

the discordant elements of geography and of peoples into an empire.

This we had followed wherever it led us and so had given substance to those first incredulous reports of the Spaniards.

We

had

had studied
which made passage through
bogs and fens and over high mountains possible; had seen how tunnels were constructed through the living rock and the way in which
the courier -system of communications was set up and maintained.
measured these roads at thousands of different points;
structures, techniques, the engineering

We had

found, after following an estimated five thousand miles of

these ancient roads, that we were dealing with a master plan, that

the Incas

out of the pale of history

as

we know

it

had con-

ceived and put into operation under a uniform plan a road system
which extended from Colombia to Chili and into Argentina, a total

of no

less

than ten thousand miles of all-weather roads which

climbed to heights over which

communications.

Man had never

until then maintained

"Whatever we had accomplished, I thought, could not be measured in mere numbers of photographs nor in the vacant figures of
mileage nor in the menacing piles of notes, maps and surveys. It was

our hope that because of our study and traverse of the roads we
had brought the story of the Inca civilizations into the focus of

world history, and that these ubiquitous, these overwhelming,

which climbed mountains, pervaded jungles, crossed
highways

now

take their place among the major achievements in the history of the world along with other great roads of
Europe and Asia. I thought, too, of the shock our findings had
deserts

could

given to complacency*

Highway of

the

Sun

Scholars have long been aware of the great influence of Early

Man's roads and his communications, yet few of us who take for

the world have

granted the present-day roads which now encircle
any clear idea of the extent of prehistoric communications. Early

Man was

a far-ranging animal, willing to

to obtain something

which would

undertake great journeys

alter his

humdrum

existence.

He

built a road from the Black Sea to the Baltic to get out amber, "that

God."

special act of

He

laid the Silk

Road halfway around the

world to get material in order that he might enjoy the luxury of

soft cloth. He pushed roads to the turbulent sea to obtain Tyrian
dyes so that he might wear garments of royal purple.
not possible to minimize the importance of the world's roads,
for every prehistoric road is a wish that has gone to work, every
road built an accumulation of persistence. These roads were the reIt

is

fusal of

Man

to accept his

environment

Roads took

as fixed.

Man

out of himself to seek for something beyond his own borders of experience. We are surprised to learn that men were laying down brick
response to a demand for allweather roads for the wheeled vehicles, that the Greeks in 500 B.C.
roads in India as early

as i6"oo B.C. in

were preparing a manual on road repairs, that the Romans laid down
fifty-two thousand miles of road with traffic regulations, milestones,

maps and an

itineraria, or

travelers'

handbook, for the

road.
If

we

forget

peel back the

cient route

how

deep our roots go into the past,

we have only

layers of roads. London's Watling Street

two thousand

years old before the

to

was an an-

Romans

arrived.

They found it straight enough to put their own road on top of it,
and that in turn became the King's Highway and is today a great
traffic artery.

Similarly

more than one

fifth of Peru's

modern roads

upon or utilize the strategic alignments of the ancient Inca

The coastal Pan American Highway runs for miles alongside

are laid

road.

the ancient one, and in some places

is

296

actually laid over

it.

In

Hun-

The End of

the

cayo in the Andes, the Royal Road was

Road
first

Inca, then the King's

Highway, and now the modern road.

A road

man.

When

dead he remains thus only for

when it
as long as he is not remembered, and so it is with a road
is not maintained or used, it disintegrates and dies. History is built
in layers

is

like a

he

and what we do not use or

are our routes to the past.

ologist seeks to discover

road

is

see
is

are likely to forget.

first

Roads

thing that an archae-

and through stratigraphical excavation he

attempts to find the layers of history.

We separate the present from

extremely difficult to
not past but a permanent part of life, just
ontogenesis is part of our physical evolution.
Civilization is a road. And if civilization can be defined as the

the past

by many

artificial barriers,

perceive that the past

as

we

the

finding

it

is

building of cities, the division and exploitation of labor, the conversion of resources, the creation of large social units, the complex

keeping of records, the building of

monumental architecture, the linking of cities with roads and their
corollaries, communications and bridges, then our Expedition has
religious organizations, the

followed a path that has led us back through the centuries to the
Inca civilization. Had time, endurance and money permitted, we

could have extended our search for thousands of miles more into

Argentina and Chile and north into Ecuador. Yet, in spite of these
limitations, we have taken this road from the many general state-

ments of the old chroniclers and have given it physical reality

by finding it and following it through an inhospitable land, and so
established something of the

of a people. In following the itinerary of these roads we gained what we believed to be the first
comprehensive view of the extent of the Inca Empire, and more, by

way

our excavations, provided an ethnographic picture of the people

road and used the road.

who built the

"We fleshed the dry bones, breathed on them and gave them

life.

High-way of the Sun

who

were no longer technical archaeological terms who moved by some orphic feeling. Together
they showed us conclusively by their ever-present road which trav-

The road and

the people

built

it

from the suffocating sands of the desert to the moonscapes of

the Andes that Man, wherever he is or whatever he is, accepts none
of the frontiers laid out for him by Nature.
It is this, then, that we have accomplished, apart from actually
rediscovering large sections of the road and innumerable cities and
tampus along the way, and it is only when this immense amount of
eled

we
we know

material has been evaluated and written into the record that
shall really

know how much has been found. At least

who builds a great road earns a

with Emerson that "he

place in

history/

Cajamarca, which today has no resemblance to the place once described by one of its Spanish conquerors. Following along on what had been the Inca road, we had

we were

So at the end

at

come late one afternoon to the hot sulphur baths a few miles south
of Cajamarca where the Inca had been with his troops on the evening of November 15, 1532, taking the baths and performing various religious purifications. Then we moved on to Cajamarca. It is a
small city laid out like a checkerboard with carefully spaced streets

and

a large plaza

dominated by a colonial fountain and bordered

by eighteenth-century
eucalyptus trees

marca has never been

On

the outskirts are masses of

fields

of lucerne and alfalfa. Caja-

churches.

and blue- green

a strategically

important

city.

Lying

does in a complicated fold of the Andes at io,ooo-feet altitude,

as it
it is

not today of any vital importance nor was it in that year 1532. Except that it was here that the Spaniards finally caught up with the
Incas.

crossbow-shot from the plaza, as our Spaniard would have

The End of the Road

described

it. Is

a small hill

about five hundred feet high, once capped

by an Inca fortress overlooking the square. We left the Power

Wagon and climbed the hill, surmounted now by a cross, and sat

down on

stone seats carved out of the rock.

About

us lay the pano-

rama of Cajamarca.
The Spaniards had come into the city of two thousand inhabitants from the north, arriving on Friday, November 15, 1532, at
the hour of vespers. In this city was a plaza "larger than any in
Spain" surrounded by a high wall and entered by two doorways

which opened upon the

streets of the

town. The buildings were

man and roofed

long, strongly built, three times the height of a

with straw. "They were," the scrivener said, "the finest we had
seen." In the distance steam could be seen rising from the sulphur
baths where the Inca was taking his pleasure, while nearby white

ground as thick as snow flakes." Thirty thousand

soldiers were encamped about him. "It filled us with

tents "covered the

battle-tired

amazement," wrote the Spaniard, "to behold the Indians holding so

proud a position." On the hills were fortresses "of a strength as not
before seen

among the

Indians" and the small

army of

the Spaniards

passed along beneath several such fortifications which, had the Inca

been so inclined, could easily have stayed its progress.

Why then had not the Indians attacked? Why had the conquistadores been permitted to reach this Cajamarca without harm? Why

had Pedro de Candia been allowed to mount

thus enabling

him

his small

cannon on

to dominate the square?

nearby hill,
These were questions which Atahualpa himself later answered.
He had thought them at first to be followers of the returning Kontiki Viracocha, the Inca's Creator God who, so the legend went,

had once brought them civilization but later, dissatisfied with his
handiwork, had sailed away from Peru thereby setting a pattern for
an amazing twentieth-century sea voyage on a balsa raft which bore
the now familiar name Kontiki. The devastating civil war in Peru

Highway
between the time of the
in

which brother was

first

of the

Sun

and second comings of the Spaniards,

pitted against brother for the leadership of the

empire, had ended in triumph for Atahualpa and his generals. The
way to Cuzco was open and the victor was on his way to the sacred

King when two cbasqms from

arrived at the baths with
five hundred miles distant
Tumbes
a message: "People have arrived by a big ship from out of the
hatuncoca [sea], a people with different clothing, beards and anicity to be officially proclaimed Inca

mals like llamas only larger."

At

Atahualpa was hardly puzzled. He remembered how,

youth, the "Viracochas" had come to their coast and then

first

in his

away. Now they were here again. After consultation

priests, he ordered a general rejoicing. Had not the Kontiki

had

sailed

with

his

Viracocha returned to add divine sanction to

He

his recent victories?

sent a message back that he was to be kept informed of the

movements of

these visitors, forgetting in his eagerness the real

ec

Viracocha's departing warning:

people will come who will say
that they are Viracocha the Creator and they are not to be believed."

As

the Spaniards marched inland, Atahualpa was told of every

He knew when they killed some of the

into chains. He knew too when Hernando

incident of their advance.

natives and put others

de Soto's men, climbing to the Royal Road, entered the village of

it was then that the white
Cajas and ravished the Sun Virgins

man

lost his divinity. Still the

Inca held back and

still his people

not to attack the Spaniard nor provoke
him. The concept he had formed of the nature of the danger which
threatened him was to prove disastrous. The reports which reached

were under

strict orders

him indicated

that the strangers and their horses were one

and

that,

dismounted, the "manpart" was ineffective and therefore incapable

of fighting; that their "fire-sticks" were animated thunderbolts;

300

The End of
and that the Spaniards'

woman's weaving

steel

the

Road

swords were no more effective than

Yet the Indians'

battens.

llamas, like horses,

were

four-footed; the Indians' bronze weapons were like the white man's

swords; and their

own

military tactics of flank, envelope and

charge were similar to those of the Spanish.
However, their fatal mistake was that they underestimated the
ability of the Spaniard to get reinforcements

from the

sea.

To

the

land-bound Indian, the sea was an impassable barrier and once an

enemy was encircled, that was his end. The plan, then, was not to
give battle to the Spaniards, not to attack; rather to give

them en-

resistance, to draw them into the mountheir

from
away
ships, and then strike and end it all at once.
How was an Inca King surrounded by his thousands of battle-tried

couragement by the lack of

tains

troops, ruler of seven million people

out

all

the latitudes south, to

and two

To

soldiers

know

and

land extending throughfear of a paltry one hundred

a

on foot and sixty- two on horseback?

the Spaniards the

moment

called for audacious action.

De

Soto

to invite the Inca

King into
theirs, taking- no more notice of the thousands of armed warriors
than he would of a handful of flies. Invited to sit on a seat of gold,
rode boldly into the Indians'

camp

he was waited upon by two Indian girls "as beautiful as suns."

De Soto's talk was of the King of Spain, the Vice-regent of God,

how

he had sent Francisco Pizarro and his companions to

bring the divine truth and holy law to these realms. The Inca agreed
to go to their camp as invited, with his warriors unarmed, so as not

and of

to give offense to Pizarro.

Toward

the evening of

November

6,

the retinue of the Inca ad-

vanced into the plaza. First came a squadron of Indians dressed in

livery of different colors "like a chess board"; they advanced sweeping the road clear of any obstacles.
ing drums, blowing their

Next came more

Indians, beat-

conch horns, dancing and singing. Then

301

Highway of
came the Inca himself on
feathers

and

plates of gold

the

Sun

a litter adorned with

and

silver, carried

plumes of parrot

on the shoulders of

the bleat of the

eight blue-liveried nobles of the Rucana tribe. To
horn and pounding of the drum they entered one of the gateways

of the plaza. The rest is history.

'""The Spaniards were hidden in the surrounding buildings, the plaza
was vacant of white men and to the annoyed inquiry of the Lord
the whereabouts of the intruders, a solitary figure crossed
the plaza. It wasJEriar Vicente. He stopped before the litter of the
Inca: "I am a priest of God and I teach Christians the things of

Inca

as to

and I come to teach you." Offered the Bible and unable

God
to make any sense out of it, the Inca threw it to the ground in
.

proper rage. That was enough. The war cry "Santiago!" splintered
the air and from the houses the armed Spaniards poured

down on

the trapped Indians.

^~It was all over in thirty-three minutes, one of the most fateful
half -hours the world has ever known. Within the space of time it

took for the Spanish bugles to blow and the falconets to explode,
for the shock of Spanish cavalry charging into the ranks of naked
bodies, for slaughter of the

bodyguard and the capture of the Inca,

an empire which had been thousands of years in the making fell in

the dust and gore of that plaza at Cajarnarca. The people never
fully recovered

Within

from the

first

shock.

days, realizing that his captors suffered

from

malady

for which gold was the only remedy, Atahualpa offered to ransom
himself with the gold and silver of the Empire. He would, he said,

standing on tiptoe, "give enough gold to fill this room twenty-two

feet long and seventeen wide to the white line which is halfway up
the wall."

with

it

As

for silver, he said he

twice over/

"Atahualpa," so
age, good-looking,

would

"fill

the whole

chamber

a chronicler

somewhat

cc

wrote,

stout,

302

with a

man

of thirty years of

fine face,

handsome and

The End of
fierce,

the

Road

the eyes bloodshot," sent his chasqui runners out over the

Royal Roads with orders to

the gold and silver.

all

Indian

officials

that they deliver

In the eight months during which the Inca was held

as

up

hostage,

ransom poured into Cajamarca, filling the room "twenty-two

feet long and seventeen wide" which he agreed to fill once with gold
and twice with silver. Several hundred Indians arrived carrying

the

"in greater part, of gold plate

litters filled

taken from the

walls, for holes showed where they had been secured." Native goldsmiths were put to work melting it down into ingots. An account
the gold alone came to 326,539 pesos, equivalent now
was made

to $20,000,000.

While the royal assayer of the ransom "with the fear of

fore his eyes evoked the assistance of heaven to do the

God

work

be-

of di-

viding the gold, conscientiously and justly," the captains about

Francisco Pizarro pressed for Atahualpa's death. Rumors of the
mobilization of Indian warriors were rife and Pizarro knew that he

and

his

men would

never get out

all

their golden loot once the Inca

who had taken the precaution of having the Inca chained, went to him and remonstrated:
"What treason is it that you have prepared for me, Lord Inca
I,

was set free. So in a feigned rage Pizarro,

who have

treated

you with honor

like a brother

and have trusted

your word?"

"Do not make

nonsense with me," the Inca answered.

were
There
many Spaniards, among them de Soto, who protested
against this travesty and who thought that only the King of Spain
should have the right to try a monarch. It is ridiculous now to speak
of justice, for codes of action are founded upon necessity. The

whole thing was improbable, ridiculous, fantastic

tured in his

own realm,

obedient to his

own

king cap-

laws, held in chains

and

for ransom, only in the end to be tried for crimes against humanity.

There was a

trial

in

which Atahualpa had twelve accusations

303

Highway of
leveled against him;

among

the

Sun

these that he

was

a bastard,

he had

wives, he was an idolater, he waged unjust wars and he spent

many

which rightfully belonged to the Spaniards. He was found

guilty and condemned to be burned alive. In great distress, Atahualpa asked if there were not some way he could escape. He was
tribute

offered a

"If

way

you

will

your blood

out.

become

a Christian, I will promise that not a

shall be shed," said Pizarro.

drop of

The Inca agreed and

the

Spaniard kept his promise. On that 29th day of August, 1533, when
the Inca was finally led out to the square, not a drop of his blood

was shed.

He was strangled by the

garrote.

Disintegration began immediately with the Inca's death. This

empire, which was the apogee of many other ancient native civilizations,

tribe

began to fall apart at once. The roads were first to go. Each
had had the responsibility for the upkeep of that section of

road which ran through his particular land. The victors, not at first
aware of this, gave these border-line villages to deserving soldiers
in fief

and with them the Indians who lived in them

were then marched

off as burden -bearers to their

as vassals.

new

lords.

These

One by

one the villages and tampus whose function was the maintenance of
the roads were depopulated, and beneath the hammering blows of
climate and conquest the roads themselves

fell

into disrepair.

The

Spaniards, soon realizing their mistake, wrote their "Ordinance for

Roads and Tampus" which required the Spanish owners of the vil-

through which the roads passed to do various things, one of

which was that each should keep his section of road in good condilages

But by this time the Spaniard was used to making his own
<e
terms on the principal of l obey but I do not comply." After the
dissolution of the roads, the rest of the culture that had been the
tion.

Incas' followed.

Yet in 1548 the road was

still

wondrous

sight

and young Pedro

Cieza de Leon, a soldier of but twenty-three years, rode along

304

it

The End of the Road

and, moved by all that he saw, decided to write down an account
of the wonders of the Indies. "One of the things which I admired
most, in contemplating, and noting down the affairs of this king-

how or in what manner the Indians could have

made such grand and admirable roads as we now see and what number of men would suffice for their construction and with what tolls
dom, was

to think of

and instruments they can have leveled the mountains and broken
through the rocks to make them so broad and good as they are. It

me

the King, our Emperor, should desire to give

orders for another Royal Road to be made such as this which goes
from Quito to Cuzco, and the other from Cuzco to Chile
even

seems to

with

all his

that

power

if

I believe

that he could not get

it

done. O!

what

greater things could have been said of Alexander the Great or any
of the other powerful kings who have ruled the world than that

they could have made such a road

longest road in the world."

305

as this

the grandest

and

von Hagen, 26, co-leader of the

at the American GeographiExpedition,

Silvia

cal Society,

before dimensional map of

which she made.

the Cuzco Valley

Victor von

Hagen in Puno,
with Expedition mascot, vicuna Afidea, and an Indian
helper for the Expedition.

Huacho.
Expedition on the coast near
Hans Disselhoff, archaeologist, Victor

von Hagen,

Silvia

von Hagen.

Lawrence and von Hagen ascend canyon of Apurimac, on

way to "Bridge of San Luis
Rey."

Members of
Henrik Blohm, 21, Harvard undergradExpedition volunteer, discoverer
of ruins of outlying Vilcabamba.

uate.

The Rid dells with

Captain Henry
Leighton, USA, pilot to Expedition.
The chasqui symbol of the Expedition
and its living counterpart, an Indian
dressed as a chasqui.

the Expedition

Lake Titicaca beyond the

The

city

of Puno.

entrance gate to Puno,

City of the

Around the

lake.
less,

Puno and the

lake adobe
houses, windowthatched with straw.

Titicaca

Lake

mm

First seen
in 1533j the basin about the lake has held
by white
South
America's oldest cultures since the earliest times, At
12,50Q feet altitude,

freezing at night, sun-bright during the day, Titicaca is one

of the highest
lakes in the world
and the most
-populated area, in the Andes,

down

Balsas in their alignment before playing

The

floating

bridge

from

Squier's

of matting.

Peru

(1877).

Llamas cross the newly made balsa

in simulation of the old crossing.

The Balsa
The reed pontoon balsa bridge, the floating road invented by the Indians
were strung
for river crossing in a treeless land. Thirty or more reed balsas
the pontoon road which spanned the
together, filled with straw, matted for
Desaguedero at Lake Titicaca. The bridge
endured for 1000 years.

pictured by Squier in 1866,

The square and round

chullpas near Qutimbo, Lake Titicaca.

Towers of the

Various chullpas
on the west
of Titicaca, close
to the Inca

highway.

Dead

Entrance to the interior of the

chullpas, with carvings of viscachas
(related to chinchillas).

Chullpas (Toivers of the Dead), found around all of Lake Titicaca. They
made of well-fitting stone as fine as
anything Incaic. The
t(
chullpas were built to house the dead.
They once outnumbered the
are pre-Inca,

houses of the living" said an early

Spaniard. They are a great mystery;
rifled for four centuries, there are not enough remains to determine age,
epoch, or culture.

iBWlitCi^
An

old Inca causeway resurfaced

northern end of Titicaca.

at the

San Jeronimo de Asilla (built 16781696), village of Asillo, entrance into

Carabaya.

Detail of facade of San Jeronimo de Asillo.

Carabaya Country
Around

the northern end of Thicaca flows the Inca causeway moving

through the little-known Carabaya region into the eastern montana. In the
smallest villages, such as Asillo, stand churches built by Hispanized Indians,

marking the wealth that once came from the "verie riche

Carabaya."

river

of

The Sun
Inti-raymi

Festival

marked the sumwhen the Sun

mer

solstice

God

returned to be

among

modern

version of that Festival, done

with authentic costuming.
his people.

The llamoids (below), related to

camels ; domesticated by the Inca for
wool and as beasts of burden;

also,

like the camel, for great zoological

mysteries. The vicuna, which Silvia

von

Hagen

holds,

was never domes-

but protected by the Incas

for the fine wool seen (below)
hanging from the male vicuna
ticated,

chests.

The

inquiring face

is

an

wool provider, livsnow. Llamas are

of burden, but poor wool

alpaca, the real

ing high in the
fine beasts
yi elders.

Vicunas down from the

hills of the

Carabaya for shearing.

Face of a young alpaca, close to

Macusani, Carabaya.

Llamas resting on Inca roadway to

herd of mixed alpacas and llamas close to Allm-Capac mountain.

"**

"

"

aih^v

j-JaK^"*''

'$? ":

Somewhere, Lost Vikabamba

Machu

section of the Inca road system,

Picchu, in the jungle, or Antt-suyu

It is
on top of a mountain in the Urubamba Gorge, at 10,000 pet.
a good idea oj
notable for being the only Inca city found intact and gives
network and terraced
Inca city planning. It is the climax of an Inca road
One road leads to Cuzco. Prom 1000 feet higher on top of Huayna

is

cities.

Picchu, where Victor

and

Silvia

road leading southwest from

it

von Hagen stand, Machu Picchu and the

can be seen.

In the valley north of

Machu
The river

Picchu

is

valley

cuts

jungle,

ringed with ancient

and goes under the

roads,

Salcantay.

through tropical

is

20,000-foot-high Salcantay massif. It is reached

by mule over log bridges and
great

through
tures.

freezing

tempera-

The Bridge of

the

Great Speaker

The Apurimac-Chaca, the Bridge of the Gre'at Speaker, a suspension bridge

over the gorge of the Apurimac. It entered literature as the "Bridge of San
Luis Rey." Squier, who made an engraving of it in 1866, measured it accurately as 200 feet long and 118 -feet above the river. It was built circa
1350 ; lasted

The

tunnels,

until 1890.

and the

Its

rope cables were replaced every two years.

steps to the road, still exist.

Victor von

Hagen with Spanish documents dated 1541,

Sanctuary of the

at

Ayacucho.

Hawk

Consulting colonial documents tvas one way to find the elusive Inca Road.
These showed that the Road bypassed Ayacucho to move on to Vilcashuaman, where the Sun Temple is still intact. Built during the apogee of
the Inca Empire, this Sun Temple is now the only such edifice in the whole
extent of what was the Empire.

The Sun Temple

at the ruins

and village of Vilcas-huaman.

von Hagen walking

the step- road between
Jauja and Bonbon.

Silvia

down

Highway

of the

Sun

the Sun between Jauja and Bonbon was

great military Highway of
in road building varied with the terrain.
found in good state. Technology
and
not
was
a
needed, and the road was walled
hard
On the
puna surface
a
On
hill,
erosion.
steep
drained with steps placed on all hills to prevent
were used. Silvia von Hagen essayed descent on the Royal
steps (pata pata)
at
the chasqui ran 1250 miles in 5 days, resting
Road. Over this

The

puna,

terraced villages such as Tarma-tamho,

the Expedition walks over the Jauja road

to prevent erosion.

A member of
were placed

where small treads

An

Indian garbed

as a chasqui

makes the

''run"

between

stations

on the road

at Inka-katana.

Terraced village Tarmatambo, a halting place on the Royal Road, which

climbing the sacred hills above the modern village.

is

seen

Map of Huanuco drawn

by Spanish Expedition, 1786.

A*

One

of a series of ornamented doorways in the main palace.

Road

to

Chachapoyas

Huanuco, the greatest city between Cuzco and Quito, was built late in the
Inca Empire period as a strategic city for the conquest of Chacbapoyas, the
Chimu on the coast, and for Quito. Three roads entered and left it. It had
a population of 30,000. The map of 1786 shows this Huanuco. The larger
shown in the photograph.
building had doorways of crouching lions
Huanuco is 12,000 feet
desolate; one reaches it by an ancient causehigh,

way

after

going up a

series of steps to reach the

high plain.

The causeway

The

staircase

of the Royal

Road which reaches Huanuco.

road on the way to Huanuco, close to Banos.

The

fortress of

the crown of a

The

staircase

highway beyond

Torre-Pukro high on
hill.

Pataz.

The paved Inca road entering the

jungles close to Leimebamba.

Road

to

Chachapoyas

All along the route of the conquest road to Chachapoyas, the empty way is
crowned with fortresses raised to prevent Inca troops from entering, and
stone stairway roads marching across the silent jalka and then entering the
jungles. It is 450 miles in length and is the longest fully paved road in
the entire Inca road system.
}

In the matted jungles close to where the Inca road enters the

Expedition found countless stone ruins, One, the

found almost intact. Stone-laid dry walls were

site at

"forest,

the

Choquillo, was

a fortress, while,
part of
within the jungle, rounded stone
with
buildings
square windows were
covered with orchids, and about the outside a
fret design coursed its

rounded

sides.

Tambo Colorado from

the air

lies

Detail of decorative frieze and rooms

with step windows within Tambo Colo-

on the Pisco River

Details of windows,

rado.

Unliving Desert
and Incahuasi and
lies in the next valley south of Canete
Pisco River and is a
connected by the coastal road. It is built on the
and a sacred Inca bath. A lateral
a

Tambo Colorado
is

garrison
planned official highway stop,
road also ran up this valley and connected with Vilcas-huaman

high

sierra.

the

^
fc*_

The

'>*W^|lhUJ&fc*<*;

**;*

desert about lea.

Unliving Desert
On the coast rams never come. In the northern desert nothing grows; in
the south, date palms were introduced by the Spaniards. In the Canete
lateral road which connected coast and
Valley are the remains of an Inca
ff
Cuzco."
near the ruins of Huasi or Incahuasi, the Incas'
Andes
entire
the
ruin
on
Inca
coast,
the
was
This
adobe.
It is built of
city
largest

New

and

lies

back 40 miles from the sea.

j&v&r\
*&2sfe**3*

aaihi^fcMS***.

The lateral road moving between coastal road and

Andean road In the Canete Valley.

View of

royal

the storage chambers of IncahuasI used for

storing corn and sea food.

The Tres Graces

or Tree of Life at Paracas.

Its direction is true

north-south.

The Nasca

lines,

found between the Ingenio and Nasca Valleys,

at an altitude of 10,000 feet.)

(Taken

by the Peruvian Air Force

Marked Desert
The southern desert, which is eternally rainless, has many surface mysThe dead are fully preserved from the desiccating sands. On a hill

teries.

(t

the- Tree of Life" buried in the sand. It is

old. And father south, in the Nasca

facing the bay of Paracas

is

602

2000 years

feet high

and

at least

Valley, are mysterious radiating lines in the form of platforms, animals

abstractions. They fill hundreds of
square miles of desert.

and

Skeletal

dead pulled from graves

textiles in

museums

which the bodies

treasure

them

as

are

Caverns of Paracas. The 2000-year-old

wrapped are of such imaginative beauty that
at the

some of the

finest

weavings in the world.

Silvia

von Hagen looks down

to the sea, the beach

and

to the ruined

tampu

station

coastal road.

Chala
Chala lies at the edge of the sea in the south desert. It is the terminus of
the Cuntu-suyu (coast) road coming out of Cuzco. It is from this
place
that' the Inca had fish
fresh from the sea. It has excellent roads, stone stairways,

tampu road markers, and immense

official

storage areas,

on the

vij^?&??*&'
:...--..

-,

.:$-..'.,

^^;r>^?4i^:'^v^
The road

An
all

which run Indians in chdsqui dress.

leading to Chala, on

of the many on the coastal road. As with

ascending stone stairway, one
von Hagen ascends.
in
laid
are
Inca work, they
dry masonry. Silvia

Chala
Inca fishing village at Quebrada de la Vaca, where the
Expedition
?und the skeletal remains of those who
fished for the seaweed and sea food
estined -for Cuzco, two days distant
by runner over this road made with
'he

>ckfill.

11
8

*^^&<.*'***

..

*******

4
'

yj$^&$ffi

Kingdom of
The northern

".'

<V

'\V-^^

the M.oon

coast belonged to the Moon, the deity of the Kingdom of

Chimor, but in time (1460) if was eclipsed by the Sun and the Inca ran
his ubiquitous road directly through the conquered lands. Beyond the preInca Mochica pyramids at Chiquitoy in the Chicama Valley runs the
High^vay. Chan-chan, capital of the Chimu, was built between 12001400. It ruled a kingdom of 600 coastal miles. The Chimu medium was
mud cast in molds, colored. Rain and Man have brought it to its amor-

phous

state.

Kingdom
The Mochicas, who were centered

of

in the

the

Moon

Chicama Valley, were the

finest pot-

the world, Their time: 1 B.C. to A.D. 800, when they were
tery makers of
Inca times.
overwhelmed by the Chimu. Their pottery techniques reached into
a portrait; (b) sea birds, a study in bird observallamas shown with eye
tion (note the young birds, and their wings) ; (c)
a coastal house:
to keep away glare from the sun; (d) the house jar is
fringe
made during Inca occupation after 1450,
round, thatched, made of mud. It was
(a)

The head

of the

man

is

Inca Artifacts
The Incas were a disciplined, almost Spartan, people living within the
his own artisan.
framework of a society in which almost everyone was
Their artifacts are practical: a large aryballus which falls on its side when
a long-necked
empty of drink; a gold llama to propitiate the gods;
drinking vessel used for ceremonial occasions.

it is

Acknowledgments
The Expedition was successful in its quest. It found what it
sought, and more. But all of this could never have been done withindividuals and organizations whose material aid gave us the tools to make these discoveries possible. Foremost of those who aided us was Herr Sigmund Gildemeister of

out the aid of the

many

Bremen and Sao Paulo,

Brazil,

whose death

just a

few months be-

him to see what his interest

him homage, and to thank
and organizations who made this ex-

fore the Expedition's end did not allow

had wrought. And so we wish to give
also the

following individuals

pedition possible:

His EXCELLENCY, THE PRESIDENT OF PERU

THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION OF PERU
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE OF PERU
DR. WENDELL C. BENNETT
DR. JOHN H. ROWE
SR.

RAFAEL LARCO HOYLE

DR. ALBERT GIESECKE

MR. RODERICK RAWLINS
MR. JUNIUS BIRD
LT. COL. JOHN MILES, U.S. ARMY
CAPT. HENRY LEIGHTON, JR., U.S. ARMY
COL. TRUMAN SMITH, U.S. ARMY (RETIRED)
MR. GORDON MACDONALD

MR. TAGE NIELSEN

MRS. HARRIET GIBNEY
DR. G. H. T. KIMBLE

307

Highway of
DR. CHARLES

B.

the

Sun

HITCHCOCK, DIRECTOR, AND RATE PLATT, OF

THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY

MR. JOHN SCHELL
MR. FREDERICK

HAHN

ABBOTT LABORATORIES
ANSCO

THE

COLLINS COMPANY
A. EDISON COMPANY
FAUCETT AIR LINES
GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY INC.
GRAFLEX INCORPORATED
HOMELITE CORPORATION
INTERNATIONAL PETROLEUM Co. LTD. (Esso)

THOMAS

JOHNSON & JOHNSON

LIFE MAGAZINE

LAURITZEN LINES, COPENHAGEN

NESTLE'S INCORPORATED

THE NEW YORK TIMES

THE NORTH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER ALLIANCE
PAILLARD PRODUCTS INC. (BOLEX)
PARKE DAVIS & COMPANY

REMINGTON ARMS COMPANY, INCORPORATED

WEST COAST LINE INCORPORATED
CARL ZEISS INCORPORATED
The maps and end papers were drawn by
Hunt and Victor B. Harris, Jr.

Messrs. Lee

308

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las

Diccionario Geografico Historico

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(1906)

Ciudad de Lima a

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ciudad de la Plata, Cuzco

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otros pueblos del

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ANONYMOUS

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Relacion general
BANDERA, DAMIAN DE LA (18811897) (Corregidor)
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314

INDEX

Index

ACARI, 230-233, 234, 235, 240, 246-249,

CACHA-MARCA,

37

Cahua-rnarca, 235-237, 238-239, 240, 241,

251
Acosta, Father Jose, 48

Aguaruna

251

n,

260-261,

(also Caxas), 284-285, 300

Candia, Pedro de, 279-280, 282, 299

Cajas

Alvaredo, Alonzo de, 201-202

American Geodetic Survey, the, 221
Society, the,

189,

285, 289, 292, 293, 298-299, 302-303

Allin-Capac, 62, 67
Almargo the Blinkard, 102, 240, 279

American Geographical

128,

88,

82,

Cajamarca,

Indians, 293

12,

Canete, 209
Carabajal, Francisco de, 96-97

Carabaya, (also Kara-waya), 56-80

32, 57, 117, 170, 233, 245

Andachuaylas, 136, 137, 176

Casma, fortress

Anti-suyu quarter, 84, 98

Cassamarca, 231

Apurirnac River, 103, 105, 117, 120, 121-

Chachapoyas, 139, 170, 189190, 200, 201

135, 138

203

Arequipa, 8

Chala,

Asia,

Chancas,

59-60

Atiquipa, Hills of, 235, 236

Ayacucho, 139-141, 160

Poma

de, 35, 152, 185,

272273, 288-289,
Chiclin

Ayaviri, 28, 59

Chimbote, Desert

no in,

91,

111114,

of,

258

176,

254256, 259,

Chimus, 206, 253274, 290

Chincha, 240
112, 124,

134
Henrik,

of, 257,

Chimor, Kingdom
261, 262

BANNISTER, DR. ROGER, 179

Barrios, Juan de, 220
Bellevista, 123, 126
Bingham, Hiram, 106,

177-181,

300, 303

Chicama Valley, 264, 265, 268269

Museum, 269275

225

Ayapata, 57, 70

Blohm,

249250

(also Yachas),

Chan-Chan, 259-260, 262265

Chasqms, 18, 84-86, 87, 132,

Atahualpa, 82, 122, 285, 292, 299-304

Ayala,

241-244, 245,

95-96, 137139,
176, 191-192, 200, 2ii 212

208209

Asillo,

178,

256

of,

125-126,

140

Bonbon, 26, 182-185

Bridge of San Luis Rey, 120, 122, 129

Chinchas, 212, 213

Chinchay Lake, 161, 182

Chinchay-suyu quarter, 83, 93, 168, 182
Choque-quirao, 113, 123, 124
Choquillo,

197200.

Chupas, Battle

317

of, 141,

145

Index
Cieza, Pedro de Leon,

3, 4,

23, 25, 26, 37,

ICA, 216, 217-220, 224-226

44, 45> 59, 68, 93, 128-129, 131, 133,

Ichocan, 293, 294

138, 144, 150, 151, 167, 171, 179, 180,

Inca-Huasi, 124, 211-212

Inca Roca, 129, 135
Ingapirca, 10

213, 219, 234, 256, 274-275, 304-305

Colla-suyu quarter, 84

Inti-raymi Festival, 78, 92-93

Contay, 149

Cuntu-suyu quarter,

84,

241242, 243

Ituata,

Cuntur-marca, 190, 192

Cuzco, 3, 6, ii, 26, 35,
79, 80,

57,

70

Izcu-chaca, 165

244, 251

8197, IO2 >

50,

I2 J

60,

55,

*3 8

7r

78,
24 r

JAQUI, 234, 238

285, 300, 305

66, 167, 168, 170,

Jauja,
Juli,

174

34

Juliaca, 56, 58

DAUGHERTY, CHARLES, 15-16,

53, 64, 77-78, 91,

30, 34, 41,

KARMENKA, HILL op, 81, 88, 93

Kontiki Virachoa, 79, 299, 300
Kuelape, 200

Desaguadero, 3740, 44
Deza, Francisco, 5253

Don

6466

Luis,

183

182,

161,

Junin,

112-114, 140

LA VENTA,

225, 230
Lawrence, Richmond, 16, 30, 34, 42, 77

ESPINOSA, FATHER VASQXJEZ DE, 232-233

78,

FRIAR GABRIEL, 105-106

91,

111114, 126128,

141,

164,

165, 212, 218, 252, 265, 267, 293, 294

Leighton, Capt. Henry,

GELDEMEISTER, SIGMUND, 14, 15, 307

Gob, Wffii, 56-57, 62

Levanto,

221229, 241

201203

Lima, 31, 33, 102, 105, 206, 220, 253

HAGEN, VON,
31,

158,

SILVIA,

47, 7i-74

34,

163164,

8,

13-14,

114-120.

18,

I4i~i43,

MACHU

165, 169, 182, 196, 197

198, 293, 294

Hanco-Hualla, 138, 176, 191-193
Haqui, 19, 23, 44, 50
Herrera, Senor Rafael, and Don

Larco,

Lucanas, 150

30,

Manco Capac

Marquez, Don Felipe, 220

Mayoc, 162, 163, 166
Mendoza, Pedro de, 234

Sun, 165, 166

Mesapata, 177

111112

Moche

Huambacho, 257

Huampu,

Valley, 262, 264

Mochicas, 258, 259, 268, 269-275, 290

Molina, Alonzo de, 279
Mollepata, 119, 126

105

Huancabamba, 286-287, 293

Huancas, (also Yanchas), 167, 168
Huancayo, 163, 166167, *97
Huanchaco, 265
Hudnuco, 170, 184, 186-189
Huara, 253

Montaro River, 161163, 166, 183

NASACARA, 40, 41
Nasca (Nazca), 125, 218, 223, 224, 226
229. See also end paper.

Huaymango, 104, 105

Huayna Capac, 132, 147-148

Nascas, 247250
National Archives (Lima), 187, 220
New York Times, 14, 33, 50, 76, 112, 165,

Huayxia Picchu, no
Huayuri, 225226, 230

Humboldt, von, Alexander, 275

101105
138, 170, 190, 293

Marcavalle, 166

Rafael

Huaca-punca, 93
Huadcjuina,

II,

Maranon River,

269270, 272

Highway of the

PICCHU, 106-111, 215

Macusani, 62

228-229, 243-244, 294

286-287

North American Newspaper

318

Alliance, 14

Index
OCAMPO, FRANCISCO

DE,

190,

Road, Royal, of Conquest, 169172, 176,

189-203
Roads, Old World, 5, 6, 130-132, 237,

193 154,

199

Old Cuzco, 280, 281, 289

Ollachea, 70

276, 287,

295296

Ollantay-tambo, 103

Oma-suyu

SACSA-HUAMAN, FORTRESS

quarter, 28, 59

Ordinance for Roads and Tampus, 169

170, 304

Salcantay Mountain, 103,

Saminez, David, 120, 121

San Pedros de

PACHACAMAC,

167,

206207, 2*4

296297

254, 282,

Soras, 150
1 1

Soray,

293>
Squier,

in, 113114

122

8,

Hernando

Soto,

E.

Paramonga,

303

George, 38, 40, 41,

119,

122,

133-I34

254256

TAMBELLO,

6870

Pariabamba, 151
Pariacaca, 48
Parinacochas Lake, 242, 244

Tanaca, Desert

Paulla-Inca, 90

Tanquihas, 146

Tambillo River, 201

Tarnbo Colorado, 214215, 216

Pisac, 98
Pisco, 218; Desert of, 216; River,

Pizarro, Francisco,

168, 206, 240,

290291,

Pizarro, Gonzales,

8283, IOI IO 4 I J I
276281, 282, 283284,
>

292,

of,

234, 236

Tawantin-suyu, 84
Tiahuanacan Empire, 227228, 247, 259

214
>

301304

Titicaca, 7,

43

Topa

96

50

8,

10,

n,

53, 5 6~J7

18, 28, 34, 37, 42,

*8, 59, 79>

Inca, 147, 185, 188, 200,

"7 M9

211212

Torre Pukro, 195197

Tres Cruces, 221223

Hern an do, 185

Pizarro,

8188., 284285, 287,

de,

30, 3*>

221224, 227

Paracas,

287,

Incas, 281

Sancho, Pedro, 127, 150, 152

Pachacutic, 146
Pampaconas River, 103, 106
Pampas River, 151, 152
Pan American Highway, 216, 225, 235,

Pancorvo, Pepe de, 107,

los

OP, 90, 92

114117, 123

Plain of Blood, 138, 176

Tucuman, 1 1
Tumpiz (also Tumbes), 204, 244, 252,
276282, 300
Tupac Amaru, 105

283284
Pornacocha, 153160
Poechas,

Pomata, 35, 36

Pompo, 184

UCTUBAMBA RlVER, 195, 2OO

Uran-marca, 150, 152153
Urcos Lake, 79

Pucara, 151

Pukuta, 72, 75-76

Puncuyoc, 112, 113
Puno, 8, 1 8 21, 24, 29, 45, 50,

5354

Urumbamba

QUITIMBO, 46
Quito,

3,

6,

176, 305

REICHE, FRAULEIN MARIA, 227, 229

Dorothy and Fritz, 16, 18, 206

218219,

23 Q>

232233,

241, 245-252, 293

(Huayna Capac 5jan), 93,

147149, 152, 167169, 172, 184,
206, 211, 215, 231, 257258, 264,

Road, Royal
132,
189,

106107

VALLEY OF VIRU, 258-259

Vega, Garcilaso de la, 129, 133, 200
*
Vilcabamba, 98-120
Vilcanota River, 79, 98

Riddell,

207, 211, 212,

River, 100, 103,

284-285, 289, 293-294, 297, 300, 303,

305. See also end paper.

Vilcas,

143148

Vilcas-huaman, 139148, 153, 184

von Hagen, Silvia. See Hagen, von.

WANKAS,

167,

172

Wellman, Frank, 263-264

Wilder, Thornton, 120, 122, 129, 133-134

319

Index
XAQUI-XAHUANA, 94-95, 9*
YAHXJAN HUACAC, the Bloody Weeper, 152
Yucay, 100
Yupanqui, 138, 147

Zaran (*ko Serran), 284, 285, 287

Zepita, ^6
Zufiigo, Don Inigo, 187-188
Zurite, 94

3*0

THE ROYAL UOAD 07

THE 1NCAS
Coastal road TumbeStoTalca

Andean road Quito- Cuyo-Taica

2^20
,

2$

Milt*

Miles

128926