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Updated: May 20, 2025
"The condor, unlike the vultures of most countries, is not under the protection of the law. His destructive habits among the lambs, and young lamas and alpacas, render him an object to be persecuted rather than protected. He is, therefore, either killed or captured, whenever an opportunity offers.
Modern Vilcabamba is on grassy slopes, well suited for flocks and herds. On the steeper slopes potatoes are still raised, although the valley itself is given up to-day almost entirely to pasture lands. We saw horses, cattle, and sheep in abundance where the Incas must have pastured their llamas and alpacas. In the rocky cliffs near by are remains of the mines begun in Ocampo's day.
The guanaco still exists in a wild state and is always of uniform coloration. Llamas and alpacas are extremely variegated. The llama has so coarse a hair that it is seldom woven into cloth for wearing apparel, although heavy blankets made from it are in use by the natives.
Cotahuasi itself lies in the bottom of the valley, a pleasant place where one can purchase the most fragrant and highly prized of all Peruvian wines. The climate is agreeable, and has attracted many landlords, whose estates lie chiefly on the bleak plateaus of the surrounding highlands, where shepherds tend flocks of llamas, sheep, and alpacas.
In the afternoon we began to descend from the plateau toward Lampa and found ourselves in the pasture lands of Ajochiucha, where ichu grass and other little foliage plants, watered by rain and snow, furnish forage for large flocks of sheep, llamas, and alpacas. Their owners live in the cultivated valleys, but the Indian herdsmen must face the storms and piercing winds of the high pastures.
Apparently, the ancient folk fully appreciated the importance of good drainage and took pains to secure it. At present Pucará is occupied by llama herdsmen and drovers, who find the enclosure a very convenient corral. Probably Pucará was built by the chief of a tribe of prehistoric herdsmen who raised root crops and kept their flocks of llamas and alpacas on the neighboring grassy slopes.
It seems that Lampa is famous for its weavers, who utilize the wool of the countless herds of sheep, alpacas, and vicuñas in this vicinity to make ponchos and blankets of high grade, much desired not only in this locality but even in Arequipa.
The variety of foulards, of gauzes, of alpacas, of camlets, of poplins, poplinettes, and Japanese silks, and even of silks themselves, which vary from three shillings to eight and nine shillings the yard, of satins, of velvets, and velveteens, have brought dress within the scope of moderate incomes.
Boyds and Burnses and Smythes tripping the light fantastic with them, and not half a dozen dresses better than alpacas in the crowd, and the men many of them in drilling trousers and half of them with hayseed in their hair from the load on which they rode to the party!
Vilcamapata, however, had a remedy for both evils, for he killed three alpacas and stripped off their skins to serve as wraps for himself and his companions, to protect them from the cold; while, as soon as the first symptoms of mountain sickness declared themselves, he produced from his pouch a quantity of leaves of the marvellous coca, and bade the Englishmen chew them, which they did; whereupon not only did the sickness disappear, but they felt no further need of food, while their strength was restored to them in a manner that seemed absolutely miraculous.
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