Pucara is the Quichua word for fortress and it needs but one glance at the little hilltop crowned with a rectangular fortification to realize that the term is justified.  The walls are beautifully made of irregular blocks closely fitted together.  Advantage was taken of small cliffs on two sides of the hill to strengthen the fortifications.  We noticed openings or drains which had been cut in the wall by the original builders in order to prevent the accumulation of moisture on the terraced floor of the enclosed area, which is several feet above that of the sloping field outside.  Similar conduits may be seen in many of the old walls in the city of Cuzco.  Apparently, the ancient folk fully appreciated the importance of good drainage and took pains to secure it.  At present Pucara is occupied by llama herdsmen and drovers, who find the enclosure a very convenient corral.  Probably Pucara was built by the chief of a tribe of prehistoric herdsmen who raised root crops and kept their flocks of llamas and alpacas on the neighboring grassy slopes.

A short distance up the stream of the Lkalla Chaca, above Pucara, is a warm mineral spring.  Around it is a fountain of cut stone.  Near by are the ruins of a beautiful terrace, on top of which is a fine wall containing four large, ceremonial niches, level with the ground and about six feet high.  The place is now called Tampu Machai.  Polo de Ondegardo, who lived in Cuzco in 1560, while many of the royal family of the Incas were still alive, gives a list of the sacred or holy places which were venerated by all the Indians in those days.  Among these he mentions that of Timpucpuquio, the “hot springs” near Tambo Machai, “called so from the manner in which the water boils up.”  The next huaca, or holy place, he mentions is Tambo Machai itself, “a house of the Inca Yupanqui, where he was entertained when he went to be married.  It was placed on a hill near the road over the Andes.  They sacrifice everything here except children.”

The stonework of the ruins here is so excellent in character, the ashlars being very carefully fitted together, one may fairly assume a religious origin for the place.  The Quichua word macchini means “to wash” or “to rinse a large narrow-mouthed pitcher.”  It may be that at Tampu Machai ceremonial purification of utensils devoted to royal or priestly uses was carried on.  It is possible that this is the place where, according to Molina, all the youths of Cuzco who had been armed as knights in the great November festival came on the 21st day of the month to bathe and change their clothes.  Afterwards they returned to the city to be lectured by their relatives.  “Each relation that offered a sacrifice flogged a youth and delivered a discourse to him, exhorting him to be valiant and never to be a traitor to the Sun and the Inca, but to imitate the bravery and prowess of his ancestors.”