The Cordillera Vilcapampa is a climatic as well as a topographic barrier. The southwestern aspect is dry; the northeastern aspect forested. The gap of the canyon, it should be noticed, comes at a critical level, for it falls just above the upper border of the zone of maximum precipitation. The result is that though mists are driven through the canyon by prolonged up-valley winds, they scatter on reaching the plateau or gather high up on the flanks of the valley or around the snowy peaks overlooking the trail between Ollantaytambo and Urubamba. The canyon walls are drenched with rains and even some of the lofty spurs are clothed with dense forest or scrub.
Farther down the valley winds about irregularly, now pushed to one side by a huge alluvial fan, now turned by some resistant spur of rock. Between the front range of the Andes and the Cordillera Vilcapampa there is a broad stretch of mountain country in the lee of the front range which rises to 7,000 feet (2,134 m.) at Abra Tocate ([Fig. 15]), and falls off to low hills about Rosalina. It is all very rough in that there are nowhere any flats except for the narrow playa strips along the streams. The dense forest adds to the difficulty of movement. In general appearance it is very much like the rugged Cascade country of Oregon except that the Peruvian forest is much more patchy and its trees are in many places loaded with dense dripping moss which gives the landscape a somber touch quite absent from most of the forests of the temperate zone.
The fertility of the eastern valleys of Peru—the result of a union of favorable climate and alluvial soil—has drawn the planter into this remote section of the country, but how can he dispose of his products? Even today with a railway to Cuzco from the coast it is almost impossible for him to get his sugar and cacao to the outside world.[10] How did he manage before even this railway was built? How could the eastern valley planter live before there were any railways at all in Peru? In part he has solved the problem as the moonshiner of Kentucky tried to solve it, and from cane juice makes aguardiente (brandy). The latter is a much more valuable product than sugar, hence (1) it will bear a higher rate of transportation, or (2) it will at the same rate of transportation yield a greater net profit. In a remote valley where sugar could not be exported on account of high freight rates brandy could still be profitably exported.
The same may be said for coca and cacao. They are condensed and valuable products. Both require more labor than sugar but are lighter in bulk and thus have to bear, in proportion to their value, a smaller share of the cost of transportation. At the end of three years coca produces over a ton of leaves per acre per year, and it can be made to produce as much as two tons to the acre. The leaves are picked four times a year. They are worth from eight to twelve cents gold a pound at the plantation or sixteen cents a pound at Cuzco. An orchard of well-cultivated and irrigated cacao trees will do even better. Once they begin to bear the trees require relatively little care except in keeping out weeds and brush and maintaining the water ditches. However, the pods must be gathered at just the right time, the seeds must be raked and dried with expert care, and after that comes the arduous labor of the grinding. This is done by hand on an inclined plane with a heavy round stone whose corners fit the hand. The chocolate must then be worked into cakes and dried, or it must be sacked in heavy cowhide and sewed so as to be practically air tight. When eight or ten years old the trees are mature and each may then bear a thousand pounds of seed.
| Fig. 47—The Urubamba Valley below Paltaybamba. Harder rocks intruded into the schists that in general compose the valley walls here form steep scarps. It has been suggested (Davis) that such a constricted portion of a valley be called a “shut-in.” The old trail climbed to the top of the valley and over the back of a huge spur. The new road is virtually a tunnel blasted along the face of a cliff. | Fig 48—Coca seed beds near Quillabamba, Urubamba Valley. The young plants are grown under shade and after attaining a height of a foot or more are gradually accustomed to sunlight and finally transplanted to the fields that are to become coca orchards. |