After the mines which attracted Ocampo and his friends “petered out,” or else, with the primitive tools of the sixteenth century, ceased to yield adequate returns, the Spaniards lost interest in that remote region.  The rude trails which connected Pucyura with Cuzco and civilization were at best dangerous and difficult.  They were veritably impassable during a large part of the year even to people accustomed to Andean “roads.”

The possibility of raising sugar cane and coca between Huadquina and Santa Ana attracted a few Spanish-speaking people to live in the lower Urubamba Valley, notwithstanding the difficult transportation over the passes near Mts.  Salcantay and Veronica; but there was nothing to lead any one to visit the upper Vilcabamba Valley or to desire to make it a place of residence.  And until Senor Pancorbo opened the road to Lucma, Pucyura was extremely difficult of access.  Nine generations of Indians lived and died in the province of Uilcapampa between the time of Tupac Amaru and the arrival of the first modern explorers.  The great stone buildings constructed on the “Hill of Roses” in the days of Manco and his sons were allowed to fall into ruin.  Their roofs decayed and disappeared.  The names of those who once lived here were known to fewer and fewer of the natives.  The Indians themselves had no desire to relate the story of the various forts and palaces to their Spanish landlords, nor had the latter any interest in hearing such tales.  It was not until the renaissance of historical and geographical curiosity, in the nineteenth century, that it occurred to any one to look for Manco’s capital.  When Raimondi, the first scientist to penetrate Vilcabamba, reached Pucyura, no one thought to tell him that on the hilltop opposite the village once lived the last of the Incas and that the ruins of their palaces were still there, hidden underneath a thick growth of trees and vines.

A Spanish document of 1598 says the first town of “San Francisco de la Victoria de Vilcabamba” was in the “valley of Viticos.”  The town’s long name became shortened to Vilcabamba.  Then the river which flowed past was called the Vilcabamba, and is so marked on Raimondi’s map.  Uiticos had long since passed from the memory of man.

Furthermore, the fact that we saw no llamas or alpacas in the upland pastures, but only domestic animals of European origin, would also seem to indicate that for some reason or other this region had been abandoned by the Indians themselves.  It is difficult to believe that if the Indians had inhabited these valleys continuously from Inca times to the present we should not have found at least a few of the indigenous American camels here.  By itself, such an occurrence would hardly seem worth a remark, but taken in connection with the loss of traditions regarding Uiticos, it would seem to indicate that there must have been quite a long period of time in which no persons of consequence lived in this vicinity.