Our party setting out for Machu Picchu across the high plains about Cuzco
Our party setting out for Machu Picchu across the high plains about Cuzco
Our party setting out for Machu Picchu across the high plains about Cuzco
Ollantaytambo, the end of the first day’s journey, in the valley of the Urubamba. In the upper left-hand corner is seen the bright-yellow “school” of Inca days
Ollantaytambo, the end of the first day’s journey, in the valley of the Urubamba. In the upper left-hand corner is seen the bright-yellow “school” of Inca days
Ollantaytambo, the end of the first day’s journey, in the valley of the Urubamba. In the upper left-hand corner is seen the bright-yellow “school” of Inca days
But more striking even than prehistoric ruins is the view of Cuzco from the foot of the inevitable wooden cross at the summit of Sacsahuaman. So steep is the hill on this side, and so close to the town, that it seems almost to bulge out over it, and all the Imperial city lies spread out beneath, as from an aeroplane, its every plaza and patio in full view to its very depths, the activities of every family as plainly visible as if some magic wand had lifted away the concealing roofs. Here and there, even on a Sunday, an Indian in crude-colored garments and his pancake hat crawls along the fortress hill behind his oxen and wooden plow, with the Imperial city of his forefathers as a background. Beyond, the greenish valley of the Huatenay stretches away southward between velvety-brown, wrinkled hills, the four royal highways diverging from the main plaza as principal streets and sallying forth to the “Four Corners of the Earth” as directly as the configurations of the Andes permit. But always the eye drifts back to the city below, spread out in every slightest detail. Under the Incas it may have been “bright and shining with gold and gay with color, its long and narrow streets, crossing each other at right angles with perfect regularity, adorned with beautiful palaces and temples”; even to-day, under the rays of the unclouded Andean sun, it is a scene no mere words can bring to him who has not looked down upon it in person. The soft red of its aged tile roofs and the rich brown of its bulking churches leaves no need for golden adornment. The Sunday-morning noises come up distinctly,—school-boys playing in the patios of monasteries, fighting-cocks haughtily challenging the world to combat, a weary bell booming a belated summons, the half-barbarous, half-inspiring screech of trumpets rising as a regiment of the garrison that keeps Cuzco loyal to “those degenerate negroes of Lima” sets out on a march; yet all blending together into a sort of pagan music that carries the imagination bodily back to the pre-Conquest days of long ago.