Nothing is said about the appearance of “Vilcabamba Viejo” and it is doubtful whether the monks were ever allowed to see the city, although they reached its vicinity.  Here they stayed for three weeks and kept up their preaching and teaching.  During their stay Titu Cusi, who had not wished to bring them here, got his revenge by annoying them in various ways.  He was particularly anxious to make them break their vows of celibacy.  Calancha says that after consultation with his priests and soothsayers Titu Cusi selected as tempters the most beautiful Indian women, including some individuals of the Yungas who were unusually attractive.  It is possible that these women, who lived at the “University of Idolatry” in “Vilcabamba Viejo,” were “Virgins of the Sun,” who were under the orders of the Inca and his high priests and were selected from the fairest daughters of the empire.  It is also evident that “Vilcabamba Viejo” was so constructed that the monks could be kept for three weeks in its vicinity without being able to see what was going on in the city or to describe the kinds of “abominations” which were practiced there, as they did those at the white rock of Chuquipalta.  As will be shown later, it is possible that this Vilcabamba, referred to in Calancha’s story as “Vilcabamba Viejo,” was on the slopes of the mountain now called Machu Picchu.

In the meantime it was necessary to pursue the hunt for the ruins of Vilcabamba called “the old” by Ocampo, to distinguish it from the Spanish town of that name which he had helped to found after the capture of Tupac Amaru, and referred to merely as Vilcabamba by Captain Garcia and his companions in their accounts of the campaign.

CHAPTER XIV

Conservidayoc

When Don Pedro Duque of Santa Aria was helping us to identify places mentioned in Calancha and Ocampo, the references to “Vilcabamba Viejo,” or Old Uilcapampa, were supposed by two of his informants to point to a place called Conservidayoc.  Don Pedro told us that in 1902 Lopez Torres, who had traveled much in the montana looking for rubber trees, reported the discovery there of the ruins of an Inca city.  All of Don Pedro’s friends assured us that Conservidayoc was a terrible place to reach.  “No one now living had been there.”  “It was inhabited by savage Indians who would not let strangers enter their villages.”

When we reached Paltaybamba, Senor Pancorbo’s manager confirmed what we had heard.  He said further that an individual named Saavedra lived at Conservidayoc and undoubtedly knew all about the ruins, but was very averse to receiving visitors.  Saavedra’s house was extremely difficult to find.  “No one had been there recently and returned alive.”  Opinions differed as to how far away it was.