Those looking for the Indiana Jones adventure should visit Llactapata, which is an important landmark on the Inca Trail, located at the confluence of the Cusichaca and Urubamba rivers in the Department of Cusco.
Llactapata - Llaqta = Pueblo, Pata = High place, is an Inca town, located at 2,840 m. / 8,136 ft. at the confluence of the Cusichaca, Urubamba rivers in the mountain called Patallaqta, province of Urubamba, department of Cusco.
These are constructions with several well-defined sectors, enclosures, platforms, plazas, stairways, canals, etc. Highlight, especially the agricultural terraces and their drainage system. This archaeological site should not be confused with another place of the same name, located west of Machu Picchu, which can be visited on the trek to Salkantay, which was a ceremonial center.
Llactapata Inca Trail was an eminently agricultural town, it was probably the place where the products of the Valley were concentrated. It has constructions separated from the platforms that could be barns.
It is an impressive ruin that is made up of the ceremonial center of Pulpituyoq, the urban sector, the agricultural area and the cemetery. There you can also admire an immense and complex system of terraces or terraces of culture, dedicated since ancestral times to the cultivation of food at more than 2,800 meters of altitude.
Hiram Bingham rediscovered the ruins of the buildings of Llactapata in 1912, above Huaquina, but it was not until much later that they were properly studied and it was concluded that these buildings were a resting point on the old road to Machu Picchu.
It is not only the way these ruins are decorated or their astrological alignment, which suggests a Machu Picchu connection, or the fact that they are only about four kilometers from the main headquarters, Llactapata is also linked to the route by a system of shared drainage.
In 2003, Hugh Thomson returned to Llactapata accompanied by Gary Ziegler, with who had collaborated and participated in several previous expeditions, including the first cleaning and description of the Coca Cota set (Thomson 2001, Thomson & Ziegler 2002). The primary work began with two flights made separately over the area, at the beginning of May 2003, using a Palm IR 250 camera to carry out the process of remote sensing by infrared thermal imaging (thermal infrared final sensing). This was partially successful, due to the impossibility of achieving conditions optimal. So that the data of the thermal images can be registered, the stone and vegetation require several hours of exposure to sunlight. However, after the At noon, layers of clouds tend to obscure this area of the Vilcabamba region. turned out thus difficult to locate a "window" for a sufficiently advanced moment in the day to be able to produce differential thermal data and, at the same time, sufficiently early to avoid the cloud cover.
More traditional methods of site recognition, on land, were more effectiveness. The use of thermal imaging techniques in the Vilcabamba region could be problematic (Ziegler 2004).
The archaeological complex of Llactapata Machu Picchu is located above, and immediately below a long orogenic ridge that descends from the Nevado Sal ~ ntay, the peak highest in the region, to the Urubamba Canyon in a northerly direction. The complex looks towards Machu Picchu and towards the two hills on both sides of that set, the Machu hill Picchu and the Huayna Picchu hill. This parallel ridge in which is the set of Machu Picchu, is located about 5 kilometers to the east and separated from the ridge of Llactapata through the deep valley of Aobamba, whose river transports waters produced by melting of the glaciers of the Nevado Salkantay.
The archaeological zone consists of diverse groups -related to each other- of buildings of high rank, agricultural areas, urban remains of lower category and an inter connected roads or driveways, all arranged through a surface that covers several square kilometers. The area has five different sectors. The characteristics and features. of each of these have been determined and diagrammed in site plans individual Structures and isolated elements are indicated, in the General Site Map, as "scattered ruins" or "others." Some individual site plans are less detailed than others, indicating the need for additional information and research. The area that we designate as archaeological zone of Llactapata measures approximately 4 km long by 2 km. wide, containing more than 80 structures and elements constructed by man, which we have organized into five sectors. The area, in its central part, 4.5 km away. of Machu Picchu.
Salkantay is one of the highest mountains in Peru, in this Tour we will have the possibility of going a different way, but not different, and we will go through a town called Llactapata, considered an agricultural town, where many claim that the city preserved its products of the sacred valley, of the antiquity, also they conserve platforms that could be granaries to supply with resources all the Inca Empire.
This Llactapata Salkantay Inca road will really be exciting, where you will get all your adrenaline to get to the lost city of the Incas, called "Machu Picchu", these 5 days and 4 nights, without a doubt will leave you enchanted by its wonderful landscapes and exuberant fauna and flora, I invite you to take a look at what this tour offers.
