pisac - Robert Scheer's Blog

Although Machu Picchu is the highlight of most trips to Peru, it is certainly not the only destination. When my wife and I went on a “Sacred Mysteries of Peru” tour several years ago, three of our 12 days were spent at Machu Picchu, and any more would have been too much of a good thing. Besides the “Lost City of the Incas,” there are many more sacred sites in Peru that are conveniently located enough to be included in an itinerary.

Centuries ago, Cusco was the center of the Inca empire. Today it’s the jumping off place for most Peru trips, because it is where you get the train to Machu Picchu. Cusco was built in the shape of a stylized puma, and at its head is the ancient fortress of Sacsayhuaman. The name, Quechua for “satisfied falcon,” refers to a terrible battle fought in 1536 between Spanish invaders and the defending Incas. After the natives were annihilated, carrion-eating falcons feasted on the bodies. Sacsayhuaman is acclaimed for its walls that are built from enormous blocks of stone, weighing up to 300 tons and precisely fitted together without mortar.

One of many amazing sights at Sacsayhuaman is the so-called “serpent stone” pictured above. It is located alongside the entrance to an area believed to have been a ceremonial temple. The carvings in the stone are the same size and shape of a human head and spine. Our guide said the seven indentations were once filled with crystal spheres, representing the seven chakras. Is it possible that the Inkas had the same knowledge of kundalini energy that is so fundamental to the Ayurvedic medicine of India? Our tour host, Mark Amaru Pinkham, author of Return of the Serpents of Wisdom said this was because both the Inca and Indian civilizations gained their knowledge from ancient Mu or Lemuria. I suspect that Giorgio A. Tsoukalos would say it was “aliens.”

If Sacsayhuaman represents Cusco’s head, then its heart is the Coricancha. The Temple of the Sun was the primary temple of the Incas. According to Brother Philip in his book Secret of the Andes, it was the repository of a magical golden disc that originated in the lost continent of Mu. When the Spanish came, the disc was taken away and hidden near Lake Titicaca. A 17^th century convent, the church of Santo Domingo has been built on top of the Inca stonework. Earthquakes have caused the Spanish-built church to require significant repairs over the years, but the Coricancha has so far been impervious, although the sheets of gold which once adorned its walls have been missing for centuries.

About five miles outside of Cusco is Tambomachay, the site known as the sacred Inca baths. There is a remarkable system of beautifully carved aqueducts in the rocks where the sights and sounds of clear, trickling water have led many experts to believe this is a site where water was worshipped as the source of all life on earth. Tambomachay is a popular place for spiritual tour groups to hold cleansing ceremonies.

If ever I were to return to Peru, the one place I would most like to re-visit is Pisac. Located in the Sacred Valley about 20 miles out of Cusco, Pisac is the name of both a delightful village and the Inca citadel above it. Situated on the top of a small mountain, but surrounded by much higher peaks, Pisac is very much like a miniature Machu Picchu. Although my visit was on one of the three days when there is a lively public market held in the village, our tour group had the sacred temples and terraces all to ourselves. Similar to Machu Picchu, Pisac has an intihuatana, a “hitching post of the sun” carved out of the bedrock and seemingly in communication with the spirits of the powerful mountains that surround it. Although the day had been mostly sunny and warm, as we were leaving it suddenly began to rain very heavily for a few minutes. Then the rain stopped as quickly as it had started, leaving us with a vision of a dramatic, double rainbow glowing above the Sacred Valley.

Less than 40 miles from Cusco, and also in the Sacred Valley, is Ollantaytambo, another Inca complex that rivals Machu Picchu with its dramatic architecture. The site is most famous for the six stone monoliths in the Sun Temple at its top. The cyclopean stone wall, over 12-feet high, is made from pink granite that was quarried many miles away and on the other side of the Urubamba River. Carved into the wall were the animals that represented the three worlds of the Incas, a condor, puma and snake. The conquering Spanish erased all but a faint trace of these pagan images, but the citadel is magnificent nevertheless.

We toured the Machu Picchu, Cusco and Sacred Valley areas of Peru in 1997. I am very glad that we were part of a small group tour, organized by Body Mind Spirit Journeys, as the logistics of making travel connections, planning the itinerary, getting admission tickets to attractions, booking accommodations and identifying appropriate restaurants would have been much more exhausting and frustrating without professional help. Of course, an added bonus was sharing the experiences with like-minded people.

Browse Cusco and Sacsayhuaman Tours Now Available

Photos by Robert Scheer

Can You Keep A Secret?

It’s risky to write about little-known sacred places. I worry about bringing them to the attention of people who don’t respect Mother Earth. Hordes of careless tourists have nearly loved Stonehenge to death, and I’d hate to see that happen to other sites. Already, the mystical atmosphere of two places near Sedona, Arizona is at risk from commercialization, as is Newgrange in Ireland. If a proposed cable car and luxury hotel development at Machu Picchu are not stopped, Peru’s greatest Inca sanctuary may soon become an exclusive playground for the wealthy.

It’s not a new phenomenon. During the Middle Ages, pilgrims to Jerusalem had to be warned against “chipping off fragments from the Holy Sepulchers.” Today’s vandals include not only hooligans who paint graffiti, climb over barriers and jump on top of fragile megaliths, but also well-meaning souls who bury foreign crystals, hoping to “heal the Earth” or light candles, not realizing that soot and wax are as harmful as spray-paint.

I share the following information in hope that the readers of this publication can be trusted to honor and respect Mother Earth’s most precious treasures.

My closely-guarded secret place is Pisac, in Peru’s Sacred Valley. It’s hard to get to and the meager infrastructure can barely cope with the handful of tourists who now find there way there. But for me it was the most moving of all the sites I visited in Peru, including Machu Picchu.

The village of Pisac (or Pisaq) is about 20 miles northeast of Cusco, and the bus trip takes less than an hour. Markets are held in Pisac’s main square on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and those are the days when you’re most likely to encounter other tourists at the Inca citadel high above the village. There are two routes up. One is on a rough, steep, narrow path, that takes about half an hour. The other is even steeper, rougher, longer and more scenic. As you hike up the grassy trail you may see a Andean hawks or condors soaring overhead. Looking across a steep gorge, you can see distant hillsides honeycombed with ancient Inca burial sites. Eventually, you arrive at a trapezoid-shaped arch whose massive stones were precisely cut and fitted together without mortar. Once only priests and the Inca royal family were allowed through this magnificent portal. Before going in, we paused for a moment, respectful of the sacred space we were entering.

The narrow path continues with dramatic views down to the Urubamba river. After you pass through a small tunnel, the main temple area appears in the distance, a triangular, terraced plateau surrounded by even higher mountains. Beyond the complex of roofless stone buildings, an outcropping of bedrock is carved into an Intihuatana, a “hitching post of the sun.” Pisac is much like a miniature Machu Picchu. As I sat near an ancient stone wall, in the clear air of the Sacred Valley, I began to understand why such an elaborate citadel had been built here. The Inca name for a mountain spirit is Apu, and at Pisac I felt the power of the Apus. No matter which direction I faced, each of the surrounding mountains seemed to be beaming its energy down toward the Intihuatana as if it were a satellite dish. Perhaps that’s what it is, a kind of mystical link between the terrestrial and celestial forces, built more than five centuries ago. Whatever its purpose, in Pisac’s highly charged atmosphere I felt as if I were nestled in the palm of an enormous hand which could easily crush me, but chose instead to nourish, inspire and love me!

If you travel to Pisac or any other sacred places, if you should feel moved to give thanks in a tangible way, please heed the advice of Britain’s Save Our Sacred Sites organization. They suggest honoring ancient sites by picking up litter. If you must leave something behind, let it be a prayer of thanks.

This column was originally published in February, 2000. I wrote in greater detail about Pisac in Power Trips magazine, and I re-published it in this blog at: https://robertscheer.net/pisac-earth-mother-temple-in-perus-sacred-valley/

The photo at the top of the article is a picture I took in 1997 of one of the stone burial towers, known as chullpas, in the pre-Inca cemetery, Sillustani, located near Lake Umayo and Lake Titicaco not far from Puno, Peru. There are several chullpas in the area, and all have been quite badly damaged, probably by tomb robbers. An even more fascinating site, Aramu Muru’s Portal, is only a short distance away.

Peru Beyond Machu Picchu

Secret Sacred Sites