Sunday 20 April 2014

Leaving Northern Peru


Wednesday 26th June, 2013

As I leave Northern Peru I have a lot to reflect on. It's gradually dawning on me that, since I left Quito, only my volcano guide in Ecuador has mentioned and been proud of the fact that one side of his family are descendants from the Incas. Other people that I've talked to don't seem to be that interested in the Inca history, especially in Peru, and certainly don't seem to consider the Incas to be Peruvian even though the history books say that they originated in the highlands of Peru. Peruvians are much more proud of their pre-Inca civilisations, and the more I discover about these, the more I realise that this should not be particularly surprising. Although the first thing that generally comes to mind when people mention Peru is the Inca Empire and Machu Picchu, Northern Peru shows that there was a rich and extensive history long before the Incas arrived.

When I first thought about coming to Peru I was eager and excited to learn about the Incas, and even more so when I realised that, purely coincidentally, my route from Quito in Ecuador to Santiago in Chile covers more or less the extent of the Inca Empire from North to South. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the pre-Columbian history of Peru known by tourists (and certainly myself before I made this trip) often goes no further than the Incas, when in actual fact their reign was comparatively short-lived. However, a great deal more is now known about the many other fascinating civilisations that existed prior to the Incas, including the fact that they were actually significantly influential in many aspects of Inca society which it seems often assimilated practices and knowledge of other cultures into its own. The lack of knowledge in previous years is largely and simply due to the fact that there are no written records before the Incas and most archaeological sites of previous civilisations have only been discovered relatively recently. When the Spanish arrived, they came upon the Inca Empire and everything that came before was as good as lost.

The Peruvians do have a point. At the end of the day, the Incas were only around for a hundred years at the most. That said, it cannot be denied that it was still the largest empire in pre-Columbian America, as large, or even larger than, the Roman Empire, and expanded rapidly without the use of wheels or a written language. So I have to conclude that I'm still looking forward to finding out much more about this somewhat enigmatic civilisation of the Incas, but I'm excited to have another perspective on this country that holds so much more than first meets the eye.