I dried off the tent before rain began to peck away. It all made for a late start but the road ahead looked the best for some days. When I saw it close up, I felt like turning round and going back. No matter how much use is made of the old roads, no one lifts a finger to maintain them. Repairs stopped in 1532. With unlimited native labour at their disposal, the Spanish neglected everything without an immediate cash value, including agriculture and the roads. The young Spanish chronicler Pedro de Cieza de León, who came here when he ‘had scarcely rounded out thirteen years’, lamented:
It is a sad thing to reflect that these idol-worshipping Incas should have had such wisdom in knowing how to govern and preserve these far-flung lands, and that we, Christians, have destroyed so many kingdoms. For wherever the Spaniards have passed, conquering and discovering, it is as though a fire had gone, destroying everything in its path.
On the stretch before me, small streams coming down the hill had reached a blocked drain and spilled out over the road. It would take half a day for two men to lay a new drain. No one has. Instead the streams have stripped off the turf and cut up the paving beneath. Then horses have tramped the mud to slurry. It looked like rocks dropped in a swamp. But the land below was marsh and the land above was dense scrub. So I had to stumble and slither over the road. An hour later I was a little over half a mile away, in pouring rain, telling a solitary cow that I didn’t need any of this. The cow nodded.
The swift streams in the main valley had merged to form a stately river meandering in silver scimitars over brown marshes. It was a fantasy landscape, bare, unreadable; the colour of sorcery. The path began to rise as I approached the main lake, sullen and brooding, below. It steepened but the ground was now walkable. Long views opened up down the tunnel of a valley lidded by cloud clamped to the peaks on either side. The road now changed character. It had unbroken stone paving and clearly defined edges: an original Inca section. I made my way up to a ruin on the horizon. It looked like a well-preserved tambo. When I got close, I found I was right. Some shepherds had re-roofed and thatched a small storeroom. It was bone dry. I stepped gratefully into the dusty darkness.
Almost Nothing Remains
The chroniclers of the conquest were united in one thing: their breathless admiration for the highways, like the Royal Road, constructed throughout the length of empire. Over difficult, often dangerous terrain, they laid the arteries of government, the means to launch their armies on distant lands. Mountain ascents were hair-raising; a saying was current: ‘Our roads are for birds, not for men.’
The Spanish built nothing as good for their sovereign. Every year the Kings of Castile and their court followers crossed a mountain pass going to and from Toledo. It was just six miles long, but they were incapable of keeping the road in good repair. Every year, wheels were broken and carriages upset. Meanwhile a ‘barbarian’, the Inca, was carried in his litter over smooth roads strewn with flowers and fragrant leaves. When he paused at specially constructed viewpoints to look down on his kingdom, his subjects called out so loudly in praise of their lord and god that birds fell stunned to the ground, and could be picked up in the hand. ‘Today,’ lamented Garcilaso de la Vega, son of a conquistador and an Inca princess, ‘almost nothing remains.’ He wrote this at the end of the sixteenth century after just half a century of neglect.
At regular intervals along the road were tambos such as this: storehouses, with accommodation for travelling officials. The riches dazzled the Spanish: huge reserves of essentials for the army, and luxuries for the elite. There were chests of iridescent blue-green hummingbird feathers, used to decorate cloths. Sometimes, for the finest work, they used only the tiny chest feathers. The most precious commodities, like bat skins, were reserved for the sole use of the Inca. One Spaniard picked up a garment so fine it folded into the palm of his hand.
This tambo’s walls were made of two skins of roughly dressed stone with the cavity filled with rubble. Parts were intact up to the eaves, but other sections had collapsed to within a few feet of the floor. The main building was a rectangle with two small lean-to stores at either end of the front elevation. I was in one of these. Inside, there were stones for seats, and the ashes of a recent fire. The new roof was made from bamboo poles, brought many miles up from the rainforest to these cold grey heights. The thatch was made from the wiry, almost nylon-like, moorland grass called ichu, tied to split bamboo laths. I was admiring how waterproof it was, apart from a single drip, right above my head, when a tenant made his presence known. A bird like a large wren put its head out of a hole in the wall over my head, looked down and decided to bolt. His wings brushed my hair as he flew out, a youngster, still uncertain on the wing.
When the downpour lightened a little, I went on my way. Rain punctured the puddles, their surfaces like cloth drawn up by rising needles. I emerged onto a high plain dotted with low, small-leafed woody shrubs. Slabs of bare rock like small tors protruded through thin peaty soils. A valley to my right was a lake of undulating cloud. I stopped for bread and more cheese. I had stopped picking up the pieces I dropped, to be rid of them sooner. My stomach was shrinking and I found it hard to put away the calories and fluid I knew I needed. I had to make myself down a flask of cold chemical water before moving on. I was soon glad I did. The uncomfortable conditions were just about to become appalling.
The cloud in the valley to my right began to rock like swift tides. Suddenly the tide kept coming in. The air went very cold. I could see that in less than a minute I would be walking blind. It was easy to discern the general line of the route running away, but a yard in front of me no particular path was obvious. I had noticed that Inca roads often aimed at particular landmarks on the horizon; a nick in the skyline, a prominent rock. There was no time for the GPS to find satellites; I took out the compass. Half a mile ahead was a large tor with its right side cut away to allow the Inca road to pass without deviation. I took a bearing on it just before the wave swept over me. In the middle of the day, it was as dark as dusk; like Dartmoor, but two miles higher.
Rain soon followed in cold drops the size of marrowfat peas. My jacket was soaked in two minutes. Icy water ran down the stick onto my hand. My leather boots had not dried out for two days and were now sodden. I could see no more than twenty feet ahead, my path guided solely by the compass bearing. The distinctive rock arrived slowly, as things tend to, when your life is partitioned into twenty-foot sections. Soon after it, according to the map, the path took a kick to the right. But I was learning not to treat the map as a literal representation of the land. It was not gospel truth, more gossip and hearsay. I was not optimistic about finding the turn in this murk, nor did I fancy huddling beneath a rock waiting for it to pass over. When I got to the spot where I expected the turn, there it was. I looked at the new bearing: it was just right. I found a little shelter behind a tor, to use the GPS. I also had to take another toilet stop. I couldn’t help thinking what I looked like, clad head to foot in red waterproofs with my backside a white moon in the middle. The path would be invisible for a while; then I would meet three, coming in from all sides. I decided to make my own path and rely on the compass, walking the right bearing on the map, ignoring the paths, if necessary. After an hour the rain and cloud eased and I saw a broad turf road running clear ahead of me up to a nick in the hill. A shepherd on horseback rode along the ridge to look at me, decided I was harmless, and disappeared. I envied his swift movement. On a rock astride the crest stood a bird of prey, a mountain caracara, black wings folded. The wind ruffled the ripples of black and white feathers on his chest. His yellow and white beak opened silently. He waited until I was no more than twenty yards off before peeling away onto the currents of the wind.
On the other side of the ridge was a welcome sight. The moorland gave way to short-cropped sheep pasture, and, two or three miles off, there were adobe houses and cultivated fields. There were more caracaras, digging up the turf for grubs, and, as it had stopped raining, I dropped my pack on a rock and stopped to wa
tch them. They stand about twenty inches high, and have crisp neat striations on the chest, contrasting with long, bright yellow legs. They live only above 6,500 feet, and can be found over 13,000 feet: true birds of the high Sierra.
I was looking down a fertile valley leading away from the wild remote moors. I couldn’t be sure how far away Ingapirca was; there were too few landmarks to pinpoint my position. But I guessed that with a smooth path, I could make Ingapirca, a bed and a hot meal. The pasture gave way to arable fields and the turf path turned to a smooth gravel lane. On either side, deep red clay was worked for potatoes, which a cheerful group of villagers, from teenagers to old men and women, were fertilising with chicken manure dried to brown splinters, like old pine needles. They asked me, ‘Where have you walked from?’ Instead of saying from Achupallas, I said proudly, ‘From Quito!’ Each face wore a different mixture of astonishment, admiration, disbelief and pity: including mine, I expect.
The sky was overcast. By five o’clock, it was so dark I thought something was wrong with my eyes. My knees were complaining at the hardness of the surface, and the road went through a section like a roller-coaster track. I arrived at the top without a wisp of oxygen in my lungs. While I was recovering I admired the winding valley ahead, lush with eucalyptus, and richly coloured lozenges of red earth and green crops or pasture; and, best of all, a mile and a half ahead of me, was a village which had to be Ingapirca. I walked three-quarters of a mile and saw the road disappear left. There was a hidden valley to be crossed, a five hundred foot descent, and a similar climb out on the other side. In compensation the cloud lifted a little, but the sun was setting and Ingapirca seemed to be slipping away from me. The shoulder of the hill ahead was silhouetted against the sunset. Then the road went beneath an avenue of trees and plunged me into darkness. Deprived of sight, my mind busied itself reminding me of exhausted leg muscles and aching shoulders, but my spine was in good shape. In gaps between the trees, I glimpsed the few village streetlights hanging in the air like candles. They were just a quarter of a mile ahead, until the path veered left and into another side valley.
Twenty minutes later my torchlight caught something to one side: fine masonry. I was in the middle of strings of Inca walls standing in short turf. I had blundered into the middle of the ancient ruins of Ingapirca. Stars peppered a clearing sky. I walked slowly along touching the stones, finding the old Inca roadway restored to near perfect condition, including the lined stone ditch which carried freshwater for the travellers to refresh themselves. In front of me was the Temple of the Sun, its dark stones flecked with starlight.
2. To Kill a King:
Ingapirca to Cajamarca
Ingapirca
During the night I enjoyed being woken by the rattle of rain on the roof, and curled up tighter, happy to have more than two slender skins of fabric between me and the sky. In the grey morning, I was lying on the hotel room floor in my long-johns doing back exercises when the maid walked in, blushed and walked out. I hope it didn’t put her off marriage for good. My spine was holding up well, though my body felt generally exhausted. After two breakfasts I strolled round the village, feeling light as air without the backpack. The town was a rough gridiron just four or five blocks long. Street vendors fired up oil-drum stoves with logs to cook stew, or blew on coals under iron grills. In the lanes, a boy whistled a clear melodious tune, and stalked songbirds with his catapult. A large sow scratched herself luxuriously against a frayed steel cable supporting a telegraph pole. It danced and swayed to her rhythm. A blind beggar came up the hill blowing a yellow plastic whistle, feeling his way with two long and slender white poles, like a rescuer after an avalanche, probing for life. He stopped precisely opposite the shrine of the Virgin, crossed himself and moved on.
There is little written in English about Ingapirca, and not much more in Spanish; yet its existence has long been known; it wasn’t a hidden mystery like Machu Picchu. Young Pedro de Cieza de Leon saw it less than twenty years after the conquest. The La Condamine expedition visited it in 1748, and Humboldt in 1801. They all looked at its terracing, massive stonework and powerful defensive position, and concluded it was a military fortress. But now we know the truth is both more complex and more interesting. Ingapirca was not founded by the Incas; they had conquered the area just three generations before the Spanish Conquest, defeating the Cañari nation, who put up fierce resistance before recognising they would not win, and negotiating peace. The Cañari had been here a long time. Recent linguistic studies have suggested they came from central America, and shared origins with those mighty masons, the Toltecs. They were dark-skinned, said Leon, and much given to shouting. They had a southern capital at modern-day Cuenca, but here, for their northern base, which they called Hatun-Cañar, they selected this fascinating site where the natural route from the highlands curled down into old and rich volcanic soils. Here a promontory commands all the rich farmland below where the Cañar River begins its long fall to the sea. On the end of that promontory stands the Inca temple, and, on the connecting neck of land, the houses of the rich, and the storehouses of the wealth of empire. Descending from it, into the little valley, is a ladder of stone-lined baths for bathing and ritual cleansing. All this is surrounded to the north by tall hills with rippled flanks.
There is no intact Cañari architecture, here or anywhere else. A waist-high holy stone stands by an oval of river boulders that mark a Cañari tomb. These meagre remains are now flanked by circular Inca storage pits, where wealth was collected and distributed. But the Cañari themselves were adventurous traders, acquiring alluvial gold from the Amazon, and trading with rainforest tribes, including the infamous Jívaro, who measured prestige by the number of shrunken heads a man possessed, struck from enemies taken in battle, their lips sewn together, the threads pulled out through the nostrils. The Cañari submitted to Inca rule but did not forget, becoming willing allies of the Spanish against Atahualpa.
Beautiful llamas grazed the site, their coats a deep brown with hints of purplish black. Some noise, inaudible to me, came from the village. The dominant male ran to the highest terrace and stood there, all courage and concern for his family. The others followed, stayed respectfully behind him and stared past his quivering flanks. I walked towards the temple. The Incas organised space to express and wield power. I wanted to explore the core in order of increasing sacredness, finishing at the small temple of the sun, on the very top of a feature like a low oval keep. Firstly, I entered the gridiron precincts of the apartments of the elite; then I crossed a small square, where the public would be admitted only on great feast days, to a ten-foot high trapezoidal door. The lintel stones had been drilled to take locking bars. Each step I took was a greater sacrilege. Had I, as a poor scribe, five hundred years ago, tried to enter, I would have been killed. These were the quarters of the sun virgins. When girls reached nine or ten years old, the prettiest and most personable were selected and taken into convents (using the equivalent Christian terms, for convenience) such as this, where nuns would educate them in religion and all manner of domestic duties. When they reached thirteen or fourteen years of age, inspectors came from Cuzco to select the most beautiful and accomplished to go to the capital, and be presented to the Inca. He would choose those he wanted for his own household, as servants or concubines. Others would go to reward his supporters in the same way; the remainder would enter the religious houses, especially the Temple of the Sun, and some would be trained to be the next generation of teaching-nuns.
A father could only refuse to let his young daughter go into the nunnery if he could prove she was not a virgin; no help, since the punishment for adultery or fornication was death. If found guilty of either, she would end her life next to her lover, both hung naked by the hair to die from thirst or attacks by birds of prey. Despite the terrible punishments, lovers still spurned the rules. One lament comes down to us; a poem sung by convicted fornicators:
Father condor, take me,
Brother falcon, take me,
/> Tell my little mother I am coming,
For five days I have not eaten or drunk a drop,
Father messenger, bearer of signs, swift messenger,
Carry me off, I beg you: little mouth, little heart,
Tell my little father and my little mother, I beg you,
that I am coming.
I looked round the simple rooms, where the girls served and waited below the temple wall, in hope or fear, for the call to the Inca’s bed.
The site was plundered up until 1966, when the Government and the Museum of the Bank of Ecuador created a local commission to care for the site. Today it gets little or no state money, and the five-dollar entrance fee for foreign tourists does much to keep it secure. The building which dominates the site is a rare thing in Inca architecture: an oval structure. They are usually sacred spaces, and this 140 foot long enclosure was no exception. Its wall has the best stonework on the site: better than the temple itself, above. There had been subsidence, but the resulting rise and fall of the courses had the elegance of the brim of a well-turned hat. From the end view, it looked like the base of a powerful lighthouse, curved to take the buffeting of the endless waves of the passing years: time’s injury. The face of the rock was spalling slightly, flakes coming away, but there were still many places where you could not get a penknife blade between the stones.
On the opposite side to the house of the sun virgins, the land was close to being a cliff. It descended in four tall terraces, each just three feet wide, sloping outwards to a fall of 150 feet. On the highest, an old gardener with a small sickle, its split wooden handle wired together, was unconcernedly weeding. Back near the entrance to the house of the virgins was a broad stair, which turned right to face another trapezoidal doorway. Passing through it, I was faced by a narrower stone stair, leading to the oval’s flat summit, and, in the centre of it, a small rectangular temple, now plain, once weighted with gold. The holy of holies was just large enough for the priests to make their sacrifices and pin down the mystery of the turning seasons, the fleeing years.
Cloud Road Page 10