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Confident in his strength and in the efficacy of his firearms, and anxious to enjoy the spoils of a successful raid against a chief reported to be traveling surrounded by his family "and with rich treasure," he pressed eagerly on, up through a lofty valley toward a defile in the mountains, probably the Pass of Panticalla.
So, bidding farewell to Señora Carmen, we crossed the Urubamba on the bridge of Colpani and proceeded down the valley past the mouth of the Lucumayo and the road from Panticalla, to the hamlet of Chauillay, where the Urubamba is joined by the Vilcabamba River. Both rivers are restricted here to narrow gorges, through which their waters rush and roar on their way to the lower valley.
He decided to go down the valley and look for these ruins. According to his text he crossed the Pass of Panticalla, descended the Lucumayo River to the bridge of Choqquechacca, and visited the lower Urubamba, returning by the same route. He published a detailed map of the valley. To one of its peaks he gives the name "Huaynapicchu, ele. 1815 m." and to another "Matchopicchu, ele. 1720 m."
On the other hand, the Incas had an elaborate system of tax collecting. Two thirds of the produce raised by their subjects was claimed by the civil and religious rulers. It was a reasonable provision of the benevolent despotism of the Incas that inhospitable regions like the Panticalla Pass near Mt. Veronica should be provided with suitable rest houses and storehouses.
That he failed was due to there being no road through the canyon of Torontoy and the necessity of making a wide detour through the pass of Panticalla and the Lucumayo Valley, a route which brought him to the Urubamba River at the bridge of Chuquichaca, twenty-five miles below Machu Picchu. Detail of Exterior of Temple of the Three Windows, Machu Picchu Detail of Principal Temple Machu Picchu
The other company, under General Martin Hurtado and Captain Garcia, marched from Cuzco by way of Yucay and Ollantaytambo. They were more fortunate than Captain Villadiego whose force, thirty-five years before, had been met and destroyed at the pass of Panticalla. That was in the days of the active Inca Manco. Now there was no force defending this important pass.
He must have been a very good administrator. To his people the magnificent megaliths were doubtless a source of pride. To his enemies they were a symbol of his power and might. Mt. Veronica and Salapunco, the Gateway to Uilcapampa A league below Ollantaytambo the road forks. The right branch ascends a steep valley and crosses the pass of Panticalla near snow-covered Mt. Veronica.
Before the completion of the river road, about 1895, travelers from Cuzco to the lower Urubamba had a choice of two routes, one by way of the pass of Panticalla, followed by Captain Garcia in 1571, by General Miller in 1835, Castelnau in 1842, and Wiener in 1875; and one by way of the pass between Mts.
It was hazardous for Hannibal and Napoleon to bring their armies through the comparatively low passes of the Alps. Pizarro found it impossible to follow the Inca Manco over the Pass of Panticalla, itself a snowy wilderness higher than the summit of Mont Blanc. In no part of the Peruvian Andes are there so many beautiful snowy peaks. Near by is the sharp, icy pinnacle of Mt.
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