Exploring In The Highlands Of Peru

We are outside of the city of Cusco, Peru, and what you can see are fine examples of ancient Inca terracing that are in the process of restoration. We're on our way to a little town that is seeped in mystery and ancientness called Paucartambo, whose correct name is Paucartampu. And a lot of legends of the Inca come from this little town. We've wanted to go for about five years, but for some reason we just haven't made it, so today's the day, and we wish to share the experience with all of you. The standard history of the Inca is that they came from Lake Titicaca, but local stories from the Cusco area are that they actually came from the area of Paucartambo, which is more or less where we're heading now. So, going through small towns made of adobe, here up in the highlands of Peru, handing out candies to the local children, and now we're above the tree line, as you can see, and stopping and handing out more candy to the children. And now we're going to stop at a very interesting location. So, we are up in the middle of nowhere, above the tree line, and have a look at this. These are either chulpa burial towers, or they're storage houses for food. This is what's called the Qhapaq Nan, or the Royal Inca Road, that goes from Cusco all the way into the jungles of the Amazon. What an incredible sight. So, sorry, could you say that again? This building has mummies inside, but this is covered. It's under reconstruction about, I think, about ten years ago. It's under reconstruction. Because in the Inca times, probably this area had a fire, an old mountain fire, because in this area had a lot of old men. The mummy is the most important person, I think, for the Inca family in this area. But with this fire, the fire of the old mountain, that's the name, the Nina Marca, this fire place, this place in this area. So, here's a close-up view. So, the small ones are funeral towers, probably for nobility, and the larger ones that are higher up on the hill, which are mainly damaged, are called colcas, which are storage places for food. So, it's likely that the storage was for people traveling on the royal Inca road called the Qhapaq Nan. Most of the chulpa towers that we've seen in Peru are actually located near Lake Titicaca. So, it was quite interesting to discover these as we were on our way to Pocartambo. And the local guide, who you just heard speaking, was actually our taxi driver. So, someone quite knowledgeable about this area around Pocartambo, which was a pleasant surprise. You can see that they're not incredibly well made as compared to those that we find at Silustani and Kutimbo near Lake Titicaca. But still, that's one of the great things about doing an adventure like this is that you encounter things that you have never seen before on your way to something else that you've never seen before. So, we are on part of the Inca road called the Qhapaq Nan, which means the royal way or the royal road. And supposedly, there are some petroglyphs up here somewhere. Another great look at the chulpa funeral towers and what's left of the colcas, which were the storage houses for grain. So, here we are in a different section of the same area of the so-called fire towers. And there has been some recent restoration of these structures. There's actually quite a few of them here as compared to, again, near the Lake Titicaca area where we find four or five bunches of possibly six to ten of them per location. And now we're starting to drive down into the little town of Pocartambo, which is colonial, but also has possibly some Inca elements, which are what we're going to be exploring for. Crossing the river, there you see a very nice colonial Spanish bridge in the background. So, it very much looks like a colonial town. Likely, the earliest Spanish were here in the 16th century. But we're going to see if we can find some Inca or older culture remains. There's a big festival that happens here once a year. And these are some of the costumes involved in the celebration. So, from a paved road to a dirt road. And we're heading towards some ancient structures that we just heard about, thanks again to our taxi driver slash guide. What we're going to be looking at is a site called Huatochto. And it was an Inca construction, but we're also going to be seeing some megalithic elements, as in pre-Inca work that the Inca did discover and decided to rebuild. And you're going to see, like you've seen in many of my videos, the vast difference between Inca style of construction and that of the much, much older megalithic builders. So the village itself is called Huatochto. And we didn't find out the name of the Inca structures themselves, so we simply refer to them as being Huatochto as well. Now this Inca site, you will have never have heard of. It's called Huatochto. And it's about five hours on rough roads outside of Cusco. And here is your first glimpse. Now this was an Inca trading place because here you have an ancient Inca trail that goes to different parts of the highlands of Peru. And then this one here, which goes all the way to Cusco. So this is another classic example of the Inca reusing an older site. Because you see the Inca work on the left, and you see the beautiful megalithic no-mortar construction. And then here above, you have the Inca work with mortar. So that is what we see at all of the significant Inca sites. As you see that wherever you find the megalithic aspect, it means that the Inca found it, knew that the place was important, and therefore built their own construction. In this style, with mortar and rough stone, embracing the older work, which is typical at Ollantaytambo, Sacsayhuaman, Machu Picchu, and the city of Cusco. Again, you see the difference. Here we have the Inca style of construction, and then the remnants of the older work. Another key point is it's not even the same type of stone. Because when we look at the Inca construction stone, you see how it fractures easily. So it appears to have been layered when it was formed, originally. But then when we go into what we call the megalithic aspect, you see it's all homogeneous. This is volcanic, likely basalt. And again, the transition from this beautiful basalt stone to the Inca work. And the Inca work is on top of the megalithic work, so obviously it's older. The Spanish did no construction in this area. It was abandoned at the end of the Inca civilization in the mid-16th century. So again, like many of the other ancient sites we see in Peru, especially in the highlands, we see that a very advanced megalithic culture existed not only in Cusco, but in a vast area here way up in the highlands. And these sites were found by the Inca. The Inca were astonished at what they saw, and so what they did is they constructed on top and around the older work. For more information, please look at my book called Aftershock, available at Amazon.