Turn Right at MacHu Picchu 12-Copy Floor Display - Mark Adams [72]
Tupac Amaru was dragged up the steps from Vilcabamba with a golden chain around his neck and led to Cusco for a brief show trial, at which he was sentenced to death. Before a crowd of curious Spaniards and wailing natives in the Plaza de Armas, Tupac Amaru lay his neck on the chopping block. The executioner severed his head with a single blow.
The Spaniards then made a grave tactical error by placing Tupac Amaru’s head on a pike in the main square. Rather than take the gruesome display as a warning, natives began to worship the head. Over time, the deaths of Tupac Amaru and his uncle Atahualpa merged into what became known as the Inkarrí myth. This story, passed orally through the generations, foretold the resurrection of a great Inca, whose severed head would join his buried body to overthrow the conquerors and return Tawantinsuyu to its former glory.6
John was convinced that when the Spaniards approached Vilcabamba, the sun king’s treasure had been carried off by Indians into the woods surrounding Espiritu Pampa, to be kept under guard until a new Inca returned. He pulled out a satellite map of the area and pointed to a spot near where we were sitting. It was Gene Savoy’s secret mountain. Savoy never made it.
“Do you think anyone’s ever been up there?” I asked.
“I’ve been up there,” John said.
“And?”
“That’s serious country. There’s nothing up there. You have to bring your own water in. I was carrying eighty-five pounds on my back. I remember taking off my pack and almost going into shock from the stress.”
“So was the old lady telling the truth?”
“I don’t believe there’s any major ruins up there—it’s too miserable. That was quite a trip down, though.”
“What happened?”
“The day I decided to leave I could see the clouds coming in. Uh-oh. I started plowing through the grass, which was shoulder high. I cut across a ridge, thinking I’d save a day. The drop-off was almost a thousand feet. I was cutting brush, just barely hanging on sometimes, and it started to rain. I was carrying a lot of weight, of course. The slope must have been seventy degrees. And there was a moment when my foot started to slide. I knew that if I didn’t stop it, I was going to die.”
“What’d you do?”
“I shoved my stick into the ground with as much force as I could and used it to arrest my foot. Then I very slowly tied my daypack and backpack to a bush, gathered my strength, and worked my way back up the slope.”
“Did your life flash before your eyes?”
“No, no. You have to keep your cool, Mark. Without discipline, you’re dead. I can tell you this, though. At the moment my foot started to go, I did think of that old lady and her curse.”
A normal person—let’s use me as an example—might take such an experience as a sign that it was time to dial back on exploring for lost ruins. John disagreed.
“There are no more Machu Picchus to be found—probably—but there’s still a lot to be found out there. There was a city full of people here until July 24, 1572. When the Spaniards arrived no one was left—the city was burning! Where did everyone go? The Campas had run into the forest.” John looked longingly in the direction of the Indians’ no-go zone. “I bet they’re still guarding things if they haven’t forgotten them.”
In the morning, the muleteers broke down camp for the last time, amid plenty of giggling and practical jokes. Mateo, who was a very good actor, briefly convinced me that he’d lost a mule. Justo, who couldn’t keep a straight face at his mother’s funeral, was less successful when he slapped