May 11 2025
Today I went on a hike to Naupa Iglesia (Choquequilla). From what I was told it was only a 3 hour round trip hike. It’s turned out to be 5.5, including exploring the site, but it was an easy and pretty hike, so that was fine.
To get there you head south down the valley, I chose to cross the river and hike on the other side of the valley. You start off on a dirt road running at the base of some Incan terraces.
Eventually I came to an Incan site that I haven’t seen on a map and don’t know the name of. It’s small, but cool looking:
From there you continue south on the road until you come to a junction with an old Incan road. On the way out I took the wrong fork, so I didn’t hike the Incan road (did on the way back). The roads roughly parallel each other, so it wasn’t a huge deal.
Following the road it almost seemed like I walked into a John Steinbeck novel. If you ignore the giant mountains it reminded me a LOT of the salinas valley in Northern California. And the imagery of the people and houses looked like something Dorothea Lange would be taking pictures of.
Eventually I arrived at the town of Pachar, and followed the railroad tracks up into the canyon until I came to the archaeological site:
It’s not a large site. Some crumbling terraces on a mountain side. But when you climb to the top there’s a cave, and inside the cave is an altar carved in stone:
It was once significantly larger. Large pieces broken off of it are strewn around the ground outside the cave. I’m assuming it has some sort of religious significance, and there were recent offerings of food and flowers left in the cave. And as I was leaving a woman with her son and father were climbing up with flowers and corn to presumably leave there.
Heading back I again followed the railroad tracks to Pachar, and from there I caught the southern end of the Incan road and hiked that back to Ollantaytambo, basically hugging Incan terraces, some of which are still in use, the whole way.
The trail was mostly flat, and the part where there is uphill is a railway grade, so it’s not steep. So it was a nice relaxing hike for the day where I saw lots of cool stuff.
Anyway, tomorrow I’m off to Santa Teresa. And hopefully there’ll be no mishaps in getting there.
