Peru Guide
The Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu
Vitcos
In 1911, after discovering Machu Picchu, Hiram Bingham set out down the Urubamba Valley to Chaullay, then up the Vilcabamba Valley to Pukyura, where he expected to find more Inca ruins. What he found – VITCOS (known locally as Rosapata) – was a relatively small but clearly palatial ruin, based around a trapezoidal plaza spread across a flat-topped spur. Down below the ruins, Bingham was shown by local guides a spring flowing from beneath a vast, white granite boulder intricately carved in typical Inca style and surrounded by the remains of an impressive Inca temple. This fifteen-metre-long and eight-metre-high sacred white rock – called Chuquipalta by the Incas – was a great oracle where blood sacrifices and other religious rituals took place. According to early historical chronicles, these rituals had so infuriated two Spanish priests who witnessed them, that they exorcized the rock and set its temple sanctuary on fire.
Getting to Vitcos requires expedition-type preparation, the hire of local guides (best done through Cusco tour agents) and possibly even mules. You'll need a week or more even to cover the nearer sites. There are no services or facilities here and the site is not is staffed by permanent onsite guardians, so they are free and open as long as you have permission from the Instituto Nacional de Cultura.
To visit the ruins at Vitcos independently, you can get there via the villages of PUKYURA and HUANCACALLE, in the Vilcabamba River valley. These settlements are reached in six hours by trucks which are usually easily picked up (small fee charged) at Chaullay on the Ollantaytambo– Quillabamba road.