{"id":1691,"date":"2011-10-27T16:41:05","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T15:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?page_id=1691"},"modified":"2024-01-23T14:50:40","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T13:50:40","slug":"1691-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?page_id=1691","title":{"rendered":"Esp\u00edritu Pampa: The Last City of the Incas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
cleared section at Espiritu Pampa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago I sat in the middle of the ruins of Esp\u00edritu Pampa and despaired that it would ever be cleared. Dense jungle covered the site. Kapok trees had ripped open the Inca stonework, their roots gripping doorways and niches. Brush obscured the lines of the great Plaza, the kallankas and the ornamental fountains.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

The work of ever restoring the place seemed both Herculean and pointless \u2013 the ruins were too extensive and remote, the vegetation just too dense, for this, unlike most Inca sites, had been built not in the mountains, but in the jungle on the eastern slopes of the Andes as they joined the Amazon.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

The site has enormous emotional resonance \u2013 \u2018the last bastion of Inca resistance\u2019, as a noticeboard proclaims at its entrance, it saw the final dying of the flame after the Spanish conquest in 1532. Having held out in the mountains of the Vilcabamba for some 40 years, by 1572 the last Emperor, the young Tupac Amaru, was on the run, pursued down here into the rainforest by a Viceroy intent on finally wiping out “the pretender across the mountains”.<\/p>\n

Esp\u00edritu Pampa was burnt in the process; the Emperor caught and executed.<\/p>\n

But perhaps because it is such a potent symbol, the Peruvian government have made a superhuman effort and cleared it \u2013 one substantial section just three weeks before we arrived. I can finally appreciate the immense size of the site, radiating out from the central Plaza where they have tactfully left a few of the giant kapok trees.<\/p>\n

Now is the time to visit, before the vegetation returns under a less benign or interested administration; or when someone realises that with just 30 or so visitors a year, the cost of maintaining it cannot be justified.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[NB Later note: \u00a0since writing the above, I returned to\u00a0Esp\u00edritu Pampa in 2015 with the explorer Benedict Allen to record some radio shows for the BBC <\/a>and also write a Kindle Single book, Two Men and a Mule<\/a><\/em>]<\/p>\n

[and useful update in 2024 from Nick Jesson: ‘Road works mean potential closures or delays, particularly on the Santa Mar\u00eda to Huancacalle road. They are developing the road to EP from New Vilcabamba along the Rio Pampaconas; this is big news and could be the shortest vehicular journey to EP. You can still hike this route and one local claimed to do it in 10 hours. I expect with these developments Huancacalle will become more of a tourist hub, and so it should with its proximity to so many amazing sites and trekking routes. Colectivos<\/em> run from Santa Mar\u00eda to Huancacalle. I saw one heading towards EP from Kiteni but with all colectivo<\/em> routes I can\u2019t help with their frequency or schedule.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . . Ten years ago I sat in the middle of the ruins of Esp\u00edritu Pampa and despaired that it would ever be cleared. Dense jungle covered the site. Kapok trees had ripped open the Inca stonework, their roots gripping doorways and niches. Brush obscured the lines of the great Plaza, the kallankas and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":65,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1691","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3861,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1691\/revisions\/3861"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}