The day before they left, the rain had stopped, and it was nice and sunny. No-one had had showers for two days; I was torn between the need for boiling water and having a sponge bath, flushing the toilet, and providing the same amenities for our two guests, all with water that we would have to cart up the hill in plastic tubs. The water had mysteriously started to run for a while at night, but stopped after only about twenty minutes. By mid-morning, however, there was a trickle of water going into the below ground tank from the city water supply, so I kept my fingers crossed that the reservoirs would fill without as much effort from us as we had to supply yesterday.
We did manage to fill the upper reservoir from the rainwater and the primary reservoir, and Gregorio kept the flow choked off so that the taps work, but at not much more than a trickle, until we knew whether our crisis has actually passed or not. We did refill the upper reservoir again at dusk, and finally managed to take short hot showers, which was a relief. Now we're watching to see if any more water comes to us mysteriously overnight; certainly the aqueducts and ditches have begun to run again, and they were dry even as we collected rainwater from a fairly strong rain, which is something to puzzle about. Gregorio and Carlos dragged out a hose from which I believe they intended to fill the emergency tank, but the water is as thick with mud as liquid chocolate, so they left the hose sitting out on the lawn for now, since we'd gathered enough water by other means for the time being. Maybe that will be an "emergency, emergency back-up".
One disappointment was that I discovered that the emergency reserve tank has no valve and bypass line from the supply pipe rising from the pump to the upper reservoir, which would be an awfully cheap and simple thing to add. Cesar told me he thinks that tank was originally filled by hand from the river water that flows down an aqueduct just above the garden, out a water spout and into a fish pond, so it was pretty old and dirty. Without the extra valve and short bit of pipe, we can't fill the emergency reserve with the pump from the primary tank. I tried to fill it from the roof with rainwater yesterday - we got it half full by collecting buckets for hours and tipping them in, but a permanent rainwater capture system with a hose from the corner downspout would be more ideal. Better still would be to make it an integral part of a clean water, three tank system, with the rainwater bypass fill system as an emergency option in case the town supply ever fails again. Perhaps once the town supply line is repaired, three tanks would be overcapacity; but that kind of redundancy is always nice to have in reserve, like a healthy bank balance.
Deb hauled me out of my chair (where I was studying my Ollantaytambo hosting info) to go and buy a couple of bottles of wine to share with Gemma and Cesar. I got even by detouring her upward to the storehouse ruins on the vertical rock face above the lodge. It was difficult going up but we stopped frequently to catch our breath (why did people with such short legs make such high steps?), and dangerous coming down on sixty year old rubber legs, but I went slowly and always found myself a handhold. The photos are worth it, although Cesar tells me a man tumbled to his death from that path only a year ago.
There are many theories and fanciful stories about the reasons for various structures that were built 500 years ago. One is that crop storage was cooler and dryer up on the slopes; some researchers have posited that soil samples show that the soil on the stone walled terraces came all the way from the Amazon and some of the guides claim that it was used to grow flowers, not crops (but why right next to crop storage houses?). They certainly did travel and trade with the Amazon region, but that's an awful lot of soil to fill thousands of hectares of terraces, so I'm pretty skeptical of that claim. The rich soil built up on the terraces could also be explained by simple composting techniques with manure, and gathering good soil from more local sources (river valleys and microclimate areas).
They also claim that circular platforms on the steep hills were where musicians would sit and play to the workers, and could be heard throughout the valley. It's true that sound carries well between the rock walls of this valley, but the one I photographed had a tiny house with a little door that only sheep and a crouched down shepherd could have squeezed through, so I suspect it was simply for shelter, and maybe a look-out for unwelcome arrivals to their valley.
In the valley there are flat, fertile fields for growing, much superior to the terraces on the hills, but "In 1536, on the plain of Mascabamba, near Ollantaytambo, Manco Inca defeated a Spanish expedition" (coming from Cusco, which they had already taken) "blocking their advance from a set of high terraces and flooding the plain. Despite his victory, however, Manco Inca did not consider his position tenable so the following year he withdrew to the heavily forested site of Vilcabamba."
The buildings I photographed would have served as high forts, food growing and storage areas, and places to safeguard your animals. The Spanish, encumbered by armour, weapons, heavy supplies and equipment, would have had a very difficult time climbing the path we followed today - Spanish horses could not have managed it, but llamas and llamingos probably could - and the Spanish would have had spears and rocks raining down on them as they tried to fire upward on people who could dodge behind any boulder.
The Inca soldiers didn't have arrows, except those from the Amazonian tribes doing their compulsory Imperial service , but they had slings, and lots of rocks to put in them. These heights are extremely defensible. Incredibly, however, it took many years before one of the Inca generals, General Quisquis, realized that the steep escarpments were the one and only thing that gave the Incas the upper hand, so to speak, against the Spanish horses. Just as he began employing the technique of using height to their advantage, his men finally became so fed up with being defeated by the tiny group of Spanish soldiers that they "fragged" him with a lance so that they could all go home to their families.
Manco Inca used his techniques again in 1536, but I wonder whether water storage and access for a large guerrilla army became a problem for the defenders. Maybe that's why he concluded that campaigning from the heights was untenable and switched his base of operations to a lower, heavily forested location.
We've heard from Alan Harman, and it appears we'll be doing the same sort of accountancy review of at least one of his projects that we did for Pam Gilbert in Ecuador. I'm beginning to suspect that this is a common need of charitable foundations throughout S. America and probably throughout any part of the third world we choose to travel.
I'm enjoying the profusion of flowers, both those in the lodge garden and the wild flowers up the hillside, as well as the half dozen hummingbirds that live and feed from the rock wall behind the house. One came to hover in front of the window panes in the front door this morning; I'm wondering if we could locate a hummingbird feeder to put up in the back yard so that they'd be close enough for visitors with cameras to take photos. There might be other types of feeders that one could mount all along the rock wall at the back to attract other birds. Most visitors to an area like this are eager photographers and some are avid birders as well.
Next: Peach Festival
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