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Piquillacta is a large mass, nearly five miles long and two miles wide, rising to a point of 2000 feet above the Huatanay and Vilcanota rivers, it has no streams, brooks, or springs. It is an isolated, extinct volcano surrounded by igneous rocks, lavas, andesites, and basalts.
We stayed seven days in Arequipa, making our last preparations for the work that lay before us and then we went on again by train to Sicuani, in the valley of the Vilcañota.
Bedlam is not pleasant to one's ears; yet to see the staid mountain herdsmen, attired in plumes, petticoats, epaulets, and goggles, blowing mightily with puffed-out lips on bamboo flageolets, is worth a long journey. The Vilcanota Country and the Peruvian Highlanders
It is conceivable that some great chieftain built the rough wall in the days when the highlands were split up among many little independent rulers, and that later one of the Incas, no longer needing any fortifications between the Huatanay Valley and the Vilcanota Valley, tore down part of the wall and built a fine gateway.
In places the wall has been kept in repair by the owners of grazing lands, but most of it can be but dimly traced across the valley and up the neighboring slopes to the cliffs of the Cordillera Vilcanota. It was built of rough stones. Near the historic wall are the ruins of ancient houses, possibly once occupied by an Inca garrison.
The imperial city of Cuzco is situated near the eastern extremity of this knot, which comprehends, in an area of 3000 square leagues, the mountains of Vilcanota, Carabaya, Abancai, Huando, Parinacochas, and Andahuaylas.
In the northernmost part of the Titicaca Basin are the grassy foothills of the Cordillera Vilcanota, where large herds of alpacas thrive on the sweet, tender pasturage. Santa Rosa is the principal town. Here wool-buyers come to bid for the clip. The high prices which alpaca fleece commands have brought prosperity.
Yet Piquillacta is in the midst of a populous region. To the north lies the thickly settled valley of Pisac and Yucay; to the south, the important Vilcanota Valley with dozens of villages; to the west the densely populated valley of the Huatanay and Cuzco itself, the largest city in the highlands of Peru.
Collins sulked a short time and then nodded toward a great peak which rose above all the others in the distance. "That may be Vilcanota," he said. "Old Vilcanota seems to be a whale," Ned observed, looking up at the snow cap. "Over 17,000 feet high," was the sullen rejoinder. "Well," the boy went on, "if that really is Vilcanota, we are still in the land of the living.
A large number of its houses have extraordinarily high walls. A high wall outside the city, and running north and south, was obviously built to protect it from enemies approaching from the Vilcanota Valley. In the other directions the slopes are so steep as to render a wall unnecessary. The walls are built of fragments of lava rock, with which the slopes of Mt. Piquillacta are covered.
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