by Jim Goodman
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| highlands pasture near Chinchero |
While Peru can
boast of many distinct ecological zones, the country can be divided into three
basic geographical areas. The east
consists of the lowland jungles and rivers of the Amazonian region. The west coast is mostly desert, with
cities and towns sited in the narrow strips of fertile land along the rivers
that tumble down from the highlands.
Dividing this very arid region from the lush vegetation of the Amazon
River system is the longest mountain range in the world, crossing the borders
of six countries--the Andes. For
most travelers, the main attraction in Peru, where they will spend the most
time in their journey, will be the mountains.
That’s where cities have the
most scenic locations; such as Puno, next to Lake Titicaca, Arequipa, very near
the volcano El Misti, and Huaraz, in full view of the highest peaks in
Peru. Besides scenery, the
Peruvian Andes are also famous for cities associated with the Inca Empire, like
Cusco, Cajamarca, Ollantaytambo, Pisac and Machu Picchu. Moreover, in the mountains travelers
can observe the lifestyles of the Native Americans, descendants of the people
who were living here long before the Spanish Conquest.
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| Huascarán, Peru's highest peak |
Three of the five highest
mountains in Peru stand just north of Huaraz, 407 km north of Lima, on the
Santa River after a slow ascent across a barren, dry set of foothills, with snow
peaks towering beyond them. Huaraz
is a small, quiet city at 3091 meters altitude, all but bereft of old
buildings, for it had to be completely rebuilt after a devastating earthquake
in 1970.
The central market square is
the most interesting part of town, especially in the mornings, when Indians
from nearby villages come to shop.
On a clear day one can easily see the two peaks of Peru’s highest
mountain—Huascarán. The southern
peak, the nearer one, rises to 6768 meters (22.205 feet), while the north peak
is only slightly smaller, at 6654 meters.
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| crafts shop in Chuquibambilla |
Peru’s third highest
mountain—Huandoy—reaches 6428 meters.
It stands north of Huascarán, due east of the town of Caraz, 67 km north
of Huaraz. Yet another massif—Alpamayo—is just a
little further north. At 5947
meters, it is the country’s fifth tallest peak. Huascarán Mountain is a World Heritage Site and national
park, containing 296 lagoons and 663 glaciers, offering plenty of hiking and
climbing routes, with the bonus of condors flying overhead and wild vicuñas
scampering on the slopes.
For those with more limited
time and ambition, a popular day trip is to Llanganuco, an easily accessible
picturesque lagoon between Huascarán and Huandoy. The excursion includes a stop at Yungay, also on the Santa
River, directly west of Huascarán, famous as the site of one of the greatest
natural disasters to befall the country.
In 1970 a violent earthquake
at Huascarán caused an avalanche that unleashed 80 million cubic feet of ice,
mud and rock hurtling down the mountain at speeds of 280-335 km per hour,
burying nearly all of Yungay and a nearby village. About 20,000 people died. The same number perished in Huaraz that day, as the
earthquake demolished 90% of the city.
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| ruins of the Viracocha Temple in Raqchi |
Earthquakes are a common
nemesis in Peru. The major ones
make international headlines, but there are tremors somewhere in the mountains
quite regularly. However, they are
not so frequent as to scare off tourists.
Cities like Arequipa, Puno and Cusco host crowds all year round. And bus journeys through the Andes from
Puno to Cusco give travelers a view not only of the majestic scenery, but the
lifestyle of its inhabitants, past and present.
The distance from Puno to
Cusco is 380 km, about five and half hours by car. The bus takes longer, for it
stops at several places of tourist interest. The first, 152 km from Puno, is Chuquibambilla, an
experimental breeding station for alpacas and vicuñas. It is also a handicraft production
center, full of shops selling locally made textiles, ceramics, stone carvings
and silver jewelry.
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| Quechua woman, Raqchi |
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| village near Ollantaytambo |
Another 50 km further the road
comes to La Raya. At 4335 meters
altitude, it is the highest point on the route, with a clear view of Chinboya,
a snow peak of 5489 meters height.
From here the road begins a slow descent following the Vilcanota River,
which later, as it flows closer to the Inca heartland near Cusco, becomes the
Urubamba River. In contrast to the
rather drab, barren landscapes of the route until La Rasa, the scenery turns
greener, with more forests on the slopes and long stretches of farms along the
river.
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| the Urubamba River Valley |
The next major stop is Raqchi,
125 km from Cusco, 3475 meters altitude, and the first site on the journey
representative of Inca culture.
Raqchi was a major Inca administrative center, featuring a spacious
temple to the Creator God Viracocha.
The temple was 92 meters long and 25.5 meters wide, with walls 15 meters
high. It also had the largest roof
in the Inca Empire.
The Spanish
destroyed most of the temple when they conquered the city. The roof is gone, but sections of three
of the walls remain. The lowest
meter or so consists of stone blocks of irregular shape, fitted together to
make a solid base resistant to earthquakes, a technique also employed in Cusco
and other Inca cities. The rest of
the walls are made of adobe. Subsidiary
buildings, stone storehouses and royal baths lie in the vicinity, along with
circular buildings with conical roofs that the Incas used to store corn and
quinoa, to distribute in times of shortages.
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| the rooftops of Cusco |
Raqchi’s other attraction is
its inhabitants, predominantly Quechua Indians, descendants of those who lived
there in Inca times. The women
dress in the traditional ensemble:
long, bulky black skirt, long-sleeved red jacket, with bands of largely
blue appliqué and embroidery on the lower sleeves, lapel and cuffs, and a
large, circular, flat hat.
The last major stop on the
route is at Andahuaylillas, a colonial era village 45 km from Cusco. A quiet and pretty mountain village,
its fame is due to its church. The
Jesuits built it from 1570-1606, deliberately choosing a traditional Inca
sacred site. On the outside it is
just a modest village church, with whitewashed walls and a bit of decoration
around the entrance. Step inside
and it’s the most spectacular and richly decorated church interior in the
country, featuring baroque murals on the walls and a lavish use of gold leaf
and silver on the altar, ceilings and rafters. The furnishings are so valuable that local villagers volunteer
for guard shifts 24 hours a day.
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| woman with her llama in Cusco |
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| village woman in Limatambo |
The final stop is Cusco, the
most beautiful city in the mountains and most popular tourist destination in
Peru. It lies in a valley at 3360
meters altitude, surrounded by hills, and is home to 350,000 people. It is justly renowned for its colonial
era churches, plazas and houses with carved wooden balconies. But traces of its original Inca
identity remain in some walls and foundations that feature the interlocking
stone boulders Inca architects devised as defense against earthquakes.
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| the Inca city of Pisac |
Descendants of the Incas still
live in villages near Cusco and some live in the city and work in the
markets. Others come to visit or
shop, bringing their llamas to carry the goods. The women dress similarly to those in Raqchi, but wear a
smaller hat, also round, but shaped more like an upturned saucer. Indian women
in towns north of Cusco also favor this style, but to the east, as in
Limatambo, women favor a very different, and mixed, style of hat—derbies, tall
top hats, and hats resembling those worn by Canadian mounted police.
For those who can tear
themselves away from the charms of Cusco, the next excursion will be what’s
called The Sacred Valley of the Incas.
The route goes northeast of Cusco 32 km to Pisac, 3040 meters, on the
river at the point where its name changes from Vilcanota to Urubamba. The town holds market day on Sundays,
Tuesdays and Thursdays, largely consisting of stalls selling handicrafts and
souvenirs for the tourist crowds.
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| the ruins of Pisac |
The town dates its founding to
1570, after the Spanish destroyed the original Inca city on the adjacent
mountain. Residents tend farms
along the river, but originally the people constructed a long line of terraces
climbing up the mountain, moving topsoil from the lower levels to the higher
ones. The terraces are still
there, but too many recent earthquakes have rendered then too unstable to use
anymore.
On the slopes above these
terraces, around the mid-15th century, the Incas built a fortified
city. A road takes visitors up to
a point where it’s a short walk on a narrow mountain trail to the biggest set
of ruins. No intact buildings are
left, but lots of foundations, walls, streets and gates, plus an extensive palace
on a lower spur, indicating that Pisac was an important city back then.
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| Quechua boys in Ollantaytambo |
From Pisac the road continues
along the Urubamba River another 55 km to Ollantaytambo. Unlike contemporary Pisac, whose
inhabitants live far from the historic city, Ollantaytambo was not destroyed
and its original layout, of straight streets intersected at right angles, is
still intact. So are the ancient
stone terraces flanking the city, though no longer in use. The mountain next to the town features
a huge carving of the head of the god Viracocha, as well as a few temples on
the cliff.
The road up the Urubamba
Valley ends here and day-trippers then return to Cusco via Chunchero. Further up the valley, but only accessible
on foot or by train (the usual option), 80 km from Cusco, is Machu Picchu, the
fabled Lost City of the Incas.
Starting near Ollantaytambo, the trek takes four to five days. The early train from Cusco gets there
in an hour and a half, but from the station along the Urubamba River one has to
take a vehicle up a zigzag road, with a dozen sharp turns, that itself is an
engineering achievement.
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| Machu Picchu in the morniung |
Whether on foot or by road,
the entrance is slightly above the ruins, which lie at 2430 meters height, on a
flat spur next to the cliffs of Machu Picchu Mountain and its smaller companion
Huayna Picchu. To the Incas who
first built the city in the 1440s, the site had obvious security
advantages. The sides were very
steep, affording a clear view of anything approaching it. Access was only by a couple of
suspension bridges between mountains, which could be dismantled if
necessary. The mountain behind the
city was virtually impassable.
Springs above the city provided the water sources and terraces along the
mountainsides grew more than enough food to feed its population.
Other, more mystical
considerations influenced the choice.
To the Incas, the shape of Machu Picchu Mountain resembled a crouching
puma. The hill jutting out
slightly from the face of the mountain appeared to have a pair of ears at the
top and a snarling mouth below, like the head of the puma. To make the resemblance even more
obvious, Inca stone masons crawled up the mountain and chiseled out of the rock
a pair of eyes.
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| stairway and water channel, Machu Picchu |
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| valley view from Machu Picchu |
The long spur in front of the
mountains seemed to be in the shape of a cayman—a South American reptile
similar to a crocodile. The Incas
built their temples and administrative buildings on this stretch of land. The peasants lived outside this area,
near their terraces, in simple one- or two-story houses with sloping thatched
roofs, models of which have been recreated in recent decades.
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| houses and terraces, Machu Picchu |
Enemies never tested Machu
Picchu’s defenses. The city stayed
aloof from the Spanish Conquest wars, but was abandoned around 1572, possibly
because of a smallpox epidemic.
The Spanish never found it and vegetation swept over the ruins
undisturbed until discovered by the American explorer Hiram Bingham in
1911. He actually misidentified it
as the Lost City of the Incas, meaning Vilcabamba, the hastily constructed last
capital of the Inca emperors, further upriver.
The Spanish destroyed
Vilcabamba but Machu Picchu, far more sophisticated a settlement, was soon
recognized as something quite different. Excavators cleared away the jungle, partially restored about
30% of the buildings and so now the city is easy to explore. It became a World Heritage Site in 1983
and has been Peru’s major tourist attraction for decades. Visitors numbered 400,000 in 2000.
That’s a lot of people walking
on paths in an area that is seismically shaky to begin with. Worried that the area could not
withstand such pressure indefinitely, authorities in 2011 restricted the number
of visitors to 2500 a day.
Hopefully, this will help preserve the area. After all, it was not built anticipating the presence of ten
thousand people a day treading on its trails. As for the lucky 2500 each day, they can continue to revel
in what is the gem of the Andes, with a blend of scenery and mystery and an
example of how man can transform even the most rugged, remote environment into
a viable place to live.
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| ruins of the Inca city, Machu Picchu |
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for more on Puno and Lake Titicaca, Ollantaytambo and Cusco,
see under Peru in the Online Articles page
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