Vitcos the Last Inca City
The last city of the Inca’s isn’t Machu Picchu.
It’s not in Cusco or even in the Sacred Valley.
One of the Inca doorways at the Vitcos archeological site.
On the edge of the rainforest, the Inca retreated to Vitcos when they lost Cusco to the Spanish.
Need to know: The drive from Cusco to Vilcabamba takes about 7 hours on a twisty mountain road that can induce carsickness pretty much the whole way. The last 2 hours are on a dirt & gravel road that you should only attempt in the dry season May-September. I do not recommend visiting Vilcabamba December-March, unless there is an unusually dry week.
Some tour agencies use Vilcabamba & Vitcos interchangeably, but the town is Vilcabamba and the Inca city is Vitcos.
Take with you insect repellent, pants and long sleeves because there are tiny biting flies in the forest.
How to visit Vitcos?
I recommend 3 days/ 2 nights because of how long the drive is. There is plenty to see along the way, so you should stop every couple hours on the first and third days to stretch your legs and give yourself a break from the winding road. The second day you have plenty of time to see the whole Vitcos archeological site and enjoy the town of Vilcabamba.
My trip to Vilcabamba and Vitcos:
This was a rushed weekend trip: 2 days/ 1 night. I don’t recommend this, but the archeologist Óscar Montúfar was only available on the weekend, and I was traveling with a group of tour guides from the Inkari Cultural Center.
Day 1: Cusco to Vilcabamba & Huancacalle
We left Cusco around 7am and drove to Ollantaytambo, where we stopped at the market for a quick breakfast. The road then goes past Ollantaytambo, down the valley in the direction of Machu Picchu, but turns north at Phiry and heads up a steep valley towards Quillabamba. This is the same road that you take to get to Santa Teresa and the backpacker route to Machu Picchu.
The colcas are located where a side valley brings cold wind down from glaciated peaks to meet the wind from the Málaga Pass.
The Peñas colcas
About half an hour from Phiry, stop at the Peñas archeological site, where you can see the walls of what were giant storehouses at 3,572m/11,719ft. It’s always cold and the wind howls here, which was exactly the point. The storehouses, called colca, were naturally refrigerated and dry, in the valley that connects the Sacred Valley to the rainforest. Smaller storehouses near Ollantaytambo stored food but the larger ones at Peñas likely stored wood and animal skins from the rainforest, as well as weapons that the Inca would need for uprisings among the conquered peoples of the Amazon.
The Málaga Pass
Another half hour driving takes you to the Málaga Pass, Abra Málaga in Spanish. There is a small café where you can get a snack and hot drink, if you want to experience 4,323 meters (14,183 feet) above sea level. There’s rustic bathrooms and a small chapel, where you can see how the Andean custom of asking the Apus (sacred mountains) for safe passage has become a Catholic tradition of praying for safe passage.
The Huamanmarca archeological site.
An hour downhill from Málaga Pass takes you to a small collection of homes, almost too small to be called a village. We stopped for lunch here then visited the Huamanmarca archeological site. This was an important checkpoint for the Inca, where they controlled who came and went between the jungle and the mountains that lead to the Sacred Valley.
I saw a Blue-necked Tanager here, my 15th tanager species in Peru.
A note on Quechua spelling
The European alphabet isn’t great at approximating Quechua sounds and most Quechua words have more than one “correct” spelling. Both w and hua are used interchangeably, as are the c and k. Huaman and waman both mean hawk. Marca and marka both are a designation for an area of land, like a county in English or a province in modern Peru.
The road to Vilcabamba
Innumerable streams cross the road, which vehicles have to drive through. There are foot bridges for locals who travel this way on foot.
The road to Vilcabamba
Another half hour from Huamanmarca is the town of Santa María, where one road goes to Santa Teresa and another goes to Vilcabamba. The next two hours are a rough dirt and gravel road, the one that I don’t recommend attempting when it’s been raining.
The white vans on the left are were we stayed in Huancacalle and crossing the stream you’re on the trail to Vitcos.
Huancacalle vs. Vilcabamba
We stayed in the small village of Huancacalle, because it’s closer to the trail to the Vitcos archeological site. Since we had a big group, we reserved rooms and meals with a local family. (Call or text Fiorella to reserve +51 960 895 233). There are restaurants and small hotels in Vilcabamba, which may be better for smaller groups. However, that either adds another half hour to the walk to the archeological site, or an extra taxi ride. If I had 3 days & 2 nights, I’d stay in Vilcabamba and take a picnic lunch with me to visit the archeological site.
The trail to Vitcos and Choquequirao
Just across the stream from Huancacalle, the trail splits. Vitcos to the left in about 15 minutes and Choquequirao to the right in about 4 days. Read my 2021 Choquequirao blog here.
The main part of the city of Vitcos was built on this ridge.
Day 2: Vitcos & Huancacalle to Cusco
The Last Inca City
Machu Picchu gets called a lot of things, including the Lost City of the Incas and even the Last City of the Incas. However, the last city of the Incas was indisputably Vitcos. After the Spanish got control of Cusco and the Sacred Valley, the last Inca royal families loyal to the Inca fled to the Vilcabamba Valley, where they made the city of Vitcos the new Inca capital.
Manco Inca, the younger brother of Huáscar and Atahualpa, was the Inca who led his people to Vilcabamba, where they built Vitcos up into the new capital. (Inca is the title of the leader, though the word Inca is also used to refer to their civilization and culture. Common people were called by the city or region they came from). Huáscar and Atahualpa had just torn their empire apart in a civil war during which Huáscar was killed and Atahualpa took the title of Inca. When they Spanish captured Atahualpa in Cajamarca, they held him for ransom for an obscene amount of gold and silver, then killed him anyway.
Monumental, double recessed doorways like this were only built at very important or sacred sites.
The Last Inca
Manco was the Inca who won the battle of Ollantaytambo, but lost every other battle. By the time he got to Vilcabamba, he and his people were exhausted, but he knew this was a strategic place that his remaining soldiers could defend. Manco died in 1544, but the resistance continued until 1572, when his son Túpac Amaru surrendered. (Not to be confused with Túpac Amaru II, born José Gabriel Condorcanqui Noguera, who led the resistance to colonial rule 200 years later).
The valleys that lead to Vilcabamba are narrow and all have points that are easily defensible against Spaniards wearing heavy armor and riding horses. One route is up and over the Málaga Pass to Santa Teresa, basically the way I got there. The other route goes past Machu Picchu, following the Vilcanota River to Santa Teresa, then turning southwest and following the valley that the modern road now goes through. A third route comes from the southwest, the opposite direction from Ollantaytambo.
Vitcos is a sprawling site with several areas to visit, which is why I recommend having a full day here.
The ceremonial area at Vitcos
The first area we visited has a big, open plaza area and lots of buildings. You can tell it was for ceremonies and rituals because of the fine architecture, including a massive, double-recessed doorway. Unfortunately, the Spanish destroyed everything they could, including any history told from the Inca’s point of view. The area was also heavily looted, so not even archeologists can give us the full picture of life at Vitcos. Some recent archeological digs have turned up interesting artifacts that will give us a better understanding of what life at Vitcos was like after everything has been analyzed.
Yuraq Rumi & agricultural terraces
Most Inca cities have a clear distinction between ceremonial, residential and agricultural areas, but Vitcos is unique. Among the agricultural terraces are several giant boulders, most of them carved in ways that was usually reserved for ceremonial sites.
One of these boulders is called Yuraq Rumi, which means White Rock (or White Stone) in Quechua. The rock itself is impressive, and the carvings and architecture around it make it obviously a very sacred site. Some of the buildings are still being excavated and restored.
My friend Elisa told me to look for a feline carved into Yuraq Rumi, which I found on one corner. All that’s left is two paws and a faint outline where the head and tail were. The rest was probably destroyed when the Spanish sacked Vitcos. Archeologist Óscar Montúfar explained that though most modern historians call all feline images pumas, the Inca more often used jaguars in their iconography.
Yuraq Rumi is white granite
Most of the rock is covered with lichen and a dark patina, but under the side you can see that underneath the stone is white granite.
Yuraq Rumi was made famous for English-speakers by Hugh Thomson’s book The White Rock, about his expeditions in this area in the 1980s and his return in the 1990s. If you’d like to learn more about Vitcos, and the Inca in general, I highly recommend his book. I was lucky to visit with an archeologist, Óscar Montúfar, and a historian Flor. Traveling in Peru with experts is such a different experience than on your own or even with the average guide.
Archeologist Óscar Montúfar at Ñusta Hispana, among the terraces near Yuraq Rumi.
I walked about 8km/5mi from Huancacalle to the main part of the archeological site, then Yuraq Rumi and back to Huancacalle. It’s not a flat hike but also not very steep. The area is beautiful, full of trees and very few people; the perfect spot to spend a leisurely day.
Food is very simple in Huancacalle. Expect chicken and rice or trout and rice or something equally basic.
The return to Cusco
After visiting Vitcos, we walked back to Huancacalle for lunch, then set off for the long drive back to Cusco, which took almost exactly 7 hours. Even with Dramamine both days, I had to keep my eyes on the road to not be carsick. Again, I do NOT recommend going to Vilcabamba during the rainy season or after any big rain storms.
