We started off in a northwesterly direction, leaving Sacsahuaman on the right. After climbing out of the Cuzco valley we descended gradually to the great plain of Anta, famous as the scene of numerous battles in the wars of the Incas. We crossed it by the ancient Inca road, a stony pathway five or six feet wide, with ditches and swamps on either side. The Peruvians have allowed it to fall into decay, and for a good part of the distance it has disappeared. At noon we reached Puquiura, a village with a plaza very like that of Tiahuanaco. At half past three, after making a long detour in order to avoid the swamps and ponds that in the wet season cover the direct road, we crossed a little stone bridge and rode into the dismal plaza of the old Indian town of Huarocondo. This is only a few miles from Urubamba, and the remarkably interesting ruins of Ollantaytambo, which have been so graphically described by Squier.
Unfortunately we had no time to visit them and took instead the road to the southwest. Skirting the hills north of the plain of Anta, we passed several great terraces a third of a mile long and fourteen or fifteen feet high, and towards evening entered Zurita, a small Indian town. Here we were directed to the house of a hospitable Gobernador where we found that two Peruvian travellers had preceded us.
As in other houses of the better class in this vicinity, the entrance was through a large gate into a courtyard. Opposite the gate was a two-story building with a balcony running the length of the second floor. On another side of the court were smaller structures one of which had a wide stone verandah where the arrieros and the soldiers piled up the saddles and bags and spread their blankets for the night. Two unfortunate parrots, cold, sickly, and bedraggled, had their perches attached to the posts of the verandah.
An hour after our arrival, four Indian alcaldes and tenientes carrying silver-tipped canes as symbols of office, presented themselves in the courtyard in answer to the summons of the Gobernador. When that official appeared on the balcony, they humbly removed their hats and stood in silence while he told them how many bundles of fresh barley straw to bring for our mules. An hour later they returned with other Indians who, acting under their orders, brought the cebada. The conversation was carried on in Quichua, which we were unable to follow, but the Gobernador said that for the fodder the alcaldes wanted one sol, a Peruvian silver dollar worth forty-eight cents. This we cheerfully gave him, whereupon, in a most unabashed manner, he put the sol in his pocket, took out a few small coins worth about half a sol and threw them down into the courtyard where they were gratefully picked up by the alcaldes.
We left Zurita the next morning, accompanied by the Gobernador and our fellow lodgers. They were all well-mounted on excellent horses. The horsemen of this vicinity affect a bit of harness that seems to be a relic of the trappings of Spanish war horses. The crupper is covered with a V-shaped piece of solid leather elaborately stamped and marked. From it hang hip straps supporting very loose breeching that dangles almost to the points of the hocks and actually rests on the ham strings. Although it is of no use whatever, and in fact, actually impedes the horse’s action, the effect is rather picturesque.
Leaving the arriero and his pack mules to follow in charge of our military escort, we pushed on at a good pace with our friends and found ourselves at noon at Challabamba on the divide that separates the waters of the river Urubamba from those of the Apurimac. In marked distinction to the grassy, treeless plain of Anta from which we had just ascended, we saw before us deep green, wooded valleys.
The trail, a rocky stairway not unlike the bed of a mountain torrent, led us rapidly into a warm tropical region whose dense foliage and tangled vines were grateful enough after the bleak mountain plateau. Beautiful yellow broom flowers were abundant. The air was filled with the fragrance of heliotrope. Parti-colored lantanas ran riot through a maze of agaves and hanging creepers. We had entered a new world.
A steep descent brought us to the town of Limatambo where there are interesting terraces and other evidences of an Inca fortress. The valley of the Limatambo River is here extremely narrow and the fortifications were well placed to defend an enemy coming against Cuzco from the west and north.
Rain had been falling most of the day and the river Limatambo had risen considerably. The ford was quite impassable, and we were obliged to use a frail improvised bridge over which our mules crept very cautiously sniffing doubtfully as it bent under their weight. Soon afterwards we crossed the river Blanco and left the old trail, which goes through the Indian village of Mollepata, described by Squier as “a collection of wretched huts on a high shelf of the mountain with a tumbled-down church, a drunken Governor who was also keeper of a hovel which was called the post-house, and a priest as dissolute as the Governor ... a place unsurpassed in evil repute by any in Peru.” Fortunately for us, since the days of Squier’s visit, an enterprising Peruvian has carved a sugar plantation out of the luxuriant growth on the mountain side, at La Estrella. Here we were given an extremely cordial welcome although Sr. Montes, the owner,—the fame of whose hospitality had reached even to Cuzco,—was not at home. Our military escort did not arrive until nearly three hours later, with a sad story of wretched animals and narrow escapes.
We were considerably surprised to find here at La Estrella an excellent piano in fairly good tune. It had been brought from Cuzco on the shoulders of Quichua bearers. This seems extraordinary enough, but before the days of the railroad, pianos were formerly carried by Indians all the way from the Pacific Coast to Cuzco. The next time I saw five stalwart Irish truckmen groaning and shaking under the weight of an upright piano which they had to carry fifty feet from the truck into a house in New Haven, I wondered what they would think of half-starved Indians who could carry it from sea-level over mountains fourteen thousand feet high.