Secret citadel of the last Inca: lured by history and myth this author trekked through dense Peruvian jungle to a remote stronghold once occupied by Manco Inca.

• Author: Stuparich, Ricardo Carrasco
• Position: Column

CUZCO CREATES AN IMMEDIATE IMPRESSION: the cradle of the Inca empire, where every street, every corner, every house bears witness to what was once the great city founded by Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, children of the sun god. Their father had sent them to save mankind when he saw men living like animals, without law or order. The city and its environs bear the stamp of inspired Inca master builders, yet, despite this concentration of imperial magnificence, one can still discover lost citadels and marvelous treasures far from the well-traveled routes.

I am sitting in a restaurant in front of the Plaza de Armas in Cuzco, where hordes of tourists, who have come to visit the fortress of Machu Picchu and the sacred valley, stroll by. Sipping my bitter coffee, I browse through the yellowing pages of a book about the great revolt and the siege of Cuzco by Manco Inca, the brave young prince who was the son of Mama Runtu and Huayna Capac, twelfth monarch in the royal line that began with the founding of that great empire. The young Inca is famed for his skill and cunning in manipulating the Spaniards and for his hard-fought battle against them. Riding at the head of hundreds of thousands of warriors, he launched the great rebellion of 1536 by laying siege to Cuzco, an unprecedented and glorious moment, of resistance against the Spanish invaders.

At that time, arrows, clubs, and lances were the weapons used by Inca warriors. Amid the bonfires surrounding the city, these weapons, lit by burning tinder, rained down on the unfortunate conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro. Gradually, over the course of months of fighting, a lack of food and the arrival of new Spanish soldiers began to weaken the Inca army, which was finally defeated at the fortress of Sacsahuaman and forced to flee, taking refuge in the cordillera of the Upper Urubamba.

Manco Inca and his men plunged into the deepest, most uncharted jungle of Peru, far from the Spanish blockade where he established a center of resistance known in Quechua as Vilcabamba, or sacred pampa. From that remote region he resolved to attack the Spanish positions in Cuzco. Yet, within a decade, he would be assassinated by seven Spanish fugitives to whom he himself had given refuge.

Hidden in the jungle fastness, the stronghold occupied by the last of the royal Incas, the remote and mysterious `Espiritu Pampa, still survives. Reputed to contain over four hundred structures, most of which are buried, the fortress...