November 2003 - Perpetually shrouded in misty, mysterious clouds, the ruins of Puncuyoc are said to be the best-preserved and elaborate examples of Inca architecture in existence.

These ruins stand almost as the Incas left them, and this preservation undoubtedly is due to their extreme isolation on a little known route high in the Vilcabamba ranges.

Vilcabamba remains remote to this day, though only one hundred or so kilometres from Cusco as the crow flies. To arrive in the area by road is a tortuous 15 hours over muddy tracks.  This is what attracted us. It was way off the gringo trail and we had found that part of the joy of visiting Inca ruins was getting there.

It was to Vilcabamba that the Inca (Emperor) and his followers retreated after their unsuccessful uprising against the Spanish conquerors in 1536.  He established a miniature of his previous empire – which was not penetrated by the Spanish for nearly forty years. The reason – sheer inaccessibility.

It is thought that Puncuyoc was a highly ceremonial site, perhaps built in haste when the Incas retreated to Vilcabamba. However, its purpose and history are shrouded in mist like the fog that swirls around these ruins. Like Machu Picchu, what role did it play, why did it remain undiscovered until the 1950’s?

Our hike began in the Vilcabamba valley where life in these villages is largely unchanged – people eke out a subsistence with a couple of pigs and a small patch of soil. Our climb begins through small cleared plots where cows gaze at us curiously.

False passes are insidious, at least to these hikers, and several hours tortuous climb is rewarded by more uphill.

A one kilometre ascent in the rarefied air made breathing difficult and climbing a chest burning ordeal.  The clouds parted for a moment and amongst the sharp teeth like peaks, we had a tantalizing view of the silohuette of a building. It was Puncuyoc.

Clouds gathered around the mountaintops ominously, cottonwool like in their density and rumbling “storm” in their demeanor.  A crack that opened the skies sent us to our knees in fear and instinctive prayer.

It was ear-splitting, ferocious and frightening and we assumed that altitude somehow brought us closer to the heavens. The jungle had long given way to the treeless mountainside of the altiplano, making us prime targets for lightening. We rationalized that the peasants walked these trails frequently without harm.  Our muleteer later told us the local peasants did sometimes fall casualty to lightening.

 We camped by a tiny lake and peasants’ hut high on the dry, grassed altiplano, perpetually engulfed in damp heavy clouds. It was bitterly cold, a bleak harsh existence for these subsistence farmers. 

A small dung fire that filled the bare hut with smoke, its flames throwing long mysterious shadows on the walls provided a little heat. These people are the descendants of the Incas, the shadows of an empire that was created at the end of the earth.

Puncuyoc is little visited and the peasant recounts a recent visit by American explorer Vincent Lee, whose book “Forgotten Vilcabamba” had inspired us to visit Puncuyoc.

In the bleak altiplano morning, when it’s impossible to feel numb fingers on hot coffee cups and a permeating misty rain falls silently, it’s difficult to be enthusiastic about following in a genuine 20th Century explorers footsteps. 

A second cup of coffee does the trick, and dawn rewards us – we discover we are surrounded by spectacular snow capped peaks –before the clouds begin to roll in once more.

Walking blindly in the fog, we follow our muleteer-come-guide through wet grasslands. After several hours we begin to lose faith in his ability in this weird white world. Then, after we have trampled through a particularly muddy patch, he stamps his feet proudly on some stones and proclaims, “Inca Road.”

Indeed it is, and our hike becomes much easier as we following the paving, still flat and secure after centuries.  Masters of construction, Inca roads make it easy to traverse difficult terrain.

The route fades out in places that are practically impassable, and then we slip and slide thoroughly drenched and battling encroaching trees on this god-forsaken mountain.

Finally, we emerge from the grasses at the head of the valley  clambering along a foot wide path with nothing between it and the cliffs of a waterfall below.

A three metre wide perfectly preserved ceremonial staircase indicated that we had arrived at Puncuyoc and indicate this was a place of importance.  Though the altitude is pressing down and the clouds engulf us once more, the workmanship of this stairway gives us reason to go on – we are somewhere very special.

As the Inca Huasi oscillates in and out of view it provides tantalizing inspiration to keep climbing.  All of a sudden, it’s there, a precise and beautiful piece of Inca workmanship.

Alone, at an abandoned Inca temple high in the Andes we are worshipful and reverent.  Excitement takes over as clouds clear and reveal us perched in a craggy half moon of peaks. At noon, when we are standing in the doorway of the Inca House, the great white rock opposite us is reflected perfectly in the small lake.  The Incas chose all their sites for their holiness and this was no different.

However, explorers propose that Puncuyoc was built well after the Inca prime and the evidence of building stones and pegs lying around the site unused confirms this. Perhaps there weren’t enough workers left in the diminished empire of Vilcabamba, perhaps time ran out?  

We had a sense of doing something that few have done before – that we were in a highly sacred ceremonial place, close to the Gods. We absorbed its enchantment, appreciated its purity, and then had to retrace our steps through that disorienting land, so that we were in camp before the pervading darkness.

We had visited a place that had not been touched by the hand of man for centuries – not for reconstruction, not for deconstruction, and not for the indiscriminate gaze of the multitudes of tourists that swarm over sacred Machu Picchu that has somehow lost its sanctity.

Copyright Ariana Svenson, 2005 - Comments and enquiries, please email us.