renown in Thornton Wilder’s novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (later made into
a movie), for the beauty of its setting and the fear it struck in the hearts of
travelers. The approach is an extremely steep, zigzagging trail, while on the
opposite bank the trail passed through a tunnel carved into the living rock and
pierced by light shafts. The bridge had stone platforms on either side of the river,
where the cables were attached, and stone towers to support the side cables.
When Squier crossed the bridge in 1865 (it was abandoned two decades later),
he noted that it measured 45 meters (148 feet) in length and at its lowest point
loomed 35 meters (115 feet) above the thundering river (Apurimac means “the
lord who speaks,” alluding to the roar of the river). He observed five, 10-
centimeter-thick (4-inch-thick), braided cables of cabuya (a natural fiber derived
from the leaves of the fique plant, Furcraea andina) and a floor made of small
sticks and canes fastened with rawhide. The five braided cables were attached to
abutments on either side of the gorge.
An earlier eyewitness, Garcilaso de la Vega, writing in the late sixteenth
century, noted that the materials used in the braided cables depended on local
availability—cabuya, as in the case of the Apurimac bridge, or queshua, a
species of grass that grows in the puna (above 3,500 meters). Other fibers were
also employed. (In fact, a bridge on the upper Apurimac known as
Queshuachaca, or bridge of queshua, is still rebuilt every year by villagers using
technology and principles of labor organization similar to those of their Inca
forebears). The single strands of rope, remarked Garcilaso, were braided into a
rope and three of these larger ropes, in turn, braided in an even larger rope, and
so on, “in this way they increase and thicken the ropes until they are as thick as a
man’s body or thicker.” They swam the cables across the river or hauled them
across on rafts. Then the ropes were heaved by a “great crowd of Indians.” Once
all five ropes were across the chasm, they mounted two large cables—which
supported the walkway—over the tops of the stone towers, and attached them
through holes carved into the natural rock behind the platform, or around stone
beams or anchors.
Further Reading
Bauer, Brian S. “Suspension Bridges of the Inca Empire.” In Andean Archaeology III: North and South,
edited by William H. Isbell and Helaine Silverman, 468–93. New York: Springer, 2006.
Hyslop, John. The Inka Road System. New York: Academic Press, 1984.
Squier, E. George. Peru: Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas. New York: Harper,
1877.
■ADRIANA VON HAGEN