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Vargas Llosa, Mario

Vega, Garcilaso

Venezuela

Verano, John

Vilcabamba River

Vilcabamba the New (town)

Vilcabamba the Old (archaeological site)

and Andean place names

and Bingham’s expeditions

and Calancha’s writings

and the Inca Trail

and the Inkarri myth

and Lost City theories

and Savoy’s expeditions

and Spanish refugees

ubiquity of name

Village Voice

Virgins of the Sun

Vista Alegre

Vitcos

and Bingham’s expeditions

and Calancha’s writings

hike to

and Inca road system

and the Inca Trail

and Leivers’ preservation ethic

and Lost City theories

Machu Picchu compared to

and Manco Inca

obscurity of

and orientation of Inca sites

and Pachacutec

proximity to river

religious significance of Inca sites

and route planning

site described

viewed from Phuyupatamarca

The Wall Street Journal

weather of Peru. See also climate of Peru

White, E. B.

White Rock (Yurak Rumi)

Wiener, Charles

wildlife of Peru

alpacas

and the Amazon jungle

Andean geese

Andean spectacled bears

and animal sacrifice

and cloud forests

condors

insects

llamas

peccaries

snakes

and tropical rainforest

tunki bird

Wilson, Woodrow

Wiñay, Wayna

Wright, Kenneth

Yale Corporation

Yale Corps

Yale Political Union

Yale University

and antiquities dealing

and artifacts controversy

Bingham’s hope for an appointment

Bingham’s student career at

and expedition sponsorship

and Indiana Jones franchise

and Machu Picchu theories

positions offered to Bingham

Rare Books and Manuscripts Room

and research on Machu Picchu

Yanacocha

Yanama River

Yanama (town)

Yankihausi

Yaruro people

Yupanqui, Angelina

Yurak Rumi (White Rock)

Zárate, Miguel

About the Author

MARK ADAMS is the author of the acclaimed history Mr. America, which The Washington Post named a Best Book of 2009. A writer for many national magazines, including GQ, Outside, and National Geographic Adventure, he lives near New York City with his wife and children.

1

Among his other achievements, Hiram Bingham I was the first member of the family to inspire a fictional character. The inflexible missionary Abner Hale in James Michener’s Hawaii, later made into a movie starring Max von Sydow and Julie Andrews, was based on the Reverend Bingham.

2

Bingham’s eldest son, Woodbridge, remembered that Hiram III’s father had offered his son $10 if he read Hiram I’s book. Hiram III had repeated the offer to his own seven sons. No Bingham was believed to have ever earned the money.

3

The explorer Percy Fawcett, of City of Z fame, reported erroneously that the secret was a solvent obtained from plants, which softened rock long enough that it could be shaped like clay.

4

Non-Peruvians have been at least as eager as the natives to find this hidden loot. Even the French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau once spent eight weeks trolling Lake Titicaca in a miniature submarine, searching in vain for a two-ton gold chain that, according to legend, had been taken from the Koricancha and dumped in the lake to keep the Spaniards from discovering it.

5

There’s one other possible explanation. Like many Inca sites, the White Rock has multiple names, one of which is Ñusta Ispanan, or “the Place Where the Princess Urinates.” On a follow-up trip in 1912, Bingham noted: “Yesterday a little girl acting on her Indian mother’s orders went and sat and urinated where the Inca princess is said to have done it years before. My examination of the rock today seemed to show that this custom was fairly common.”

6

In 1780, a rebel leader who had taken the name Tupac Amaru II led an unsuccessful indigenous revolt. When captured, he was made to watch the executions of his wife and son in the Plaza de Armas, after which his tongue was cut out and—following a failed attempt to pull him to pieces between four horses—he was beheaded and his body dismembered. Two centuries later, the Black Panther Afeni Shakur was so inspired by this revolutionary that she named her son, soon to gain his own fame as a rapper, Tupac Amaru Shakur.

7

Incidentally, for those who have the time,