Fifty miles north-west of Cusco, where the Andes crumple into the Amazon, lies Espíritu Pampa: the last capital of Inca resistance against the Spanish invaders. Colossal strangler figs have taken root atop ruined doorways. Crumbling yellow paint coats the walls. Decades after the conquistadors landed in Peru, four Inca emperors held out here, stirring up rebellion.
The explorer Hiram Bingham bushwhacked his way down here in 1911, but another lost Inca city had already caught his eye. “Few romances can ever surpass that of the granite citadel” — he later wrote — “of Machu Picchu, the crown of Inca Land.” Mistakenly proclaiming it the last city of the Incas, he helped ensure its fame: today more than a million visitors cram into the soaring mountaintop city every year, making it the country’s top attraction.
Espíritu Pampa, meanwhile, has yet to capture the attention of the tourist industry. Its caretaker, Ángel Chilla, swings a petrol strimmer to keep the jungle off a labyrinth of cobwebbed chambers. Asked how many visitors turn up in the average week, he stops to ponder. “Between one,” comes the eventual answer, “and zero.”