The Inca quadrant of Chinchaysuyu northwest of Cuzco featured the most
elaborate stretches of road anywhere in the empire. Here, a section of road near
Huánuco Pampa in northern Peru. Ricardo Espinosa/Guías del Caminante.Chinchaysuyu included important religious sanctuaries and oracles, as well as
several of the largest societies to contest Inca expansion and, along the spine of
the Andes, some of the most elaborate stretches of paved road featuring more
Inca centers than any other stretch of road in the empire. In northernmost
Chinchaysuyu lay Ecuador, the focus of late Inca conquests and source of the
sacred Spondylus shell. Harvested from deep coastal waters, Andean peoples
imbued the shell with prestige and status and regarded it as the single most
valuable commodity derived from nature. The Incas and their forebears believed
that this coral-colored, spiny oyster was the favorite food of the gods, and that it
brought rain, and thus fertility.
As it left the outskirts of Cuzco, the Chinchaysuyu road headed west and at the
important junction of Vilcashuaman connected the capital with the principal
highland road leading north to Quito, in Ecuador, and a lateral road heading west
to the coast (see Roads). Scholars believe that many of the sites on or near this
westward route marked shrines on a long-distance ceque some 400 kilometers
(250 miles) long that mirrored the path of the setting sun. The Incas incorporated
scores of natural and carved rocks as well as ushnu platforms into the cities,