The Times Weekend - UK (2021-11-20)

Travel 45

‘We drank tea on the banks of

the Jawai Dam while crocodiles

basked on rocks’

Gabby Deeming takes a road trip through Rajasthan

My wild adventures in Peru

The country has

pre-Inca sites that

even rival Machu

Picchu plus thrilling

surf and exquisite

cuisine, says

Simeon Tegel

B

eneath the intense Andean

sun the dusty avenue lined by

the jagged remains of once

imposing stone and adobe

walls stretches over the undu-

lating valley floor into the

distance.

The purpose of this prehistoric thor-

oughfare remains a mystery. Andean

cultures never developed writing and the

dozens of surrounding crumbling houses

were not just abandoned a millennium ago

but even had their doors and windows

filled in by their fleeing owners.

Yet the scale of this heavily eroded forti-

fied outpost of the once-great Wari empire

— a culture as ancient for the Incas as the

Incas are for us — leaves little doubt that

in its heyday, around AD600, it would

have been one of the largest settlements

in the Americas.

Archaeologists have so far found

traces of human activity across more

than 50 acres of a site known as

Pikillacta, or “the Place of Fleas”.

But that may be just a fraction of

its true extent.

Their task has not been

helped, my guide Diego tells me,

by graverobbers, or huaquea-

dores as they are called in Peru.

They ransacked Pikillacta long

ago, including, it is thought, whisk-

ing away the embalmed remains of

several former residents. “What would

you even do with a mummy?” he shrugs.

Pikillacta was once home to perhaps

10,000 people and also used to host feasts,

but the riddles remain, not least the source

of its name. Had it been the scene of a pre-

Colombian infestation? Or does it have

a more metaphorical origin?

Scrambling around the site, just

a 30-minute drive southeast of

Cusco, leaves more questions

than answers. But it is also a

breathtaking reminder of how

the Incas’ short-lived civilisation

dominates our imagining of

Andean life before the conquista-

dors crashed in. After surging out

of the Lake Titicaca region, the

Incas were only around for the last

two fleeting centuries before, by pure

chronological chance, coinciding with

the Spaniards’ violent arrival.

That is to the detriment of the myriad W

Travel

Page

48

GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY

Llamas at Machu Picchu

Andahuaylillas church