Sangarara

The legend says* that a talented and well-known Inka general named T’ito Qosñipa fell in love with the Waqrapukara hill (without the fortress at that time**) SO HARD that he not only decided to switch over to the rivaling clan to which the hill belonged, but also worked his way up in this clan to become their new clan leader! (Sneaky). After our Inka general built his completely extraordinary fort - one may even call it exaggerated, but who are we to judge - which we now know as Waqrapukara, he seemed to have suffered a serious case of megalomania (how could he not living in Waqrapukara?!) and ordered ‘his’ clan into open rebellion against the Inka king. Even though they resisted the attacks by the kings army for quite a while by retreating into the generals impossible-to-conquer residence of Waqrapukara, the kings army soon found and cut off their water supply, forcing them to give up their resistance and rebellion. Interestingly, our general and his crew did not get executed by the king - on the contrary, our general got employed by the Inka king and soon enough rose to a high position within the kings army (how undeserved), while his former clan subjects merely lost one of their ears each. What a generous act, especially considering that inka kings usually were super bloodthirsty and unforgiving - the general really must have something on him. 😉
Unfortunately, we did not find out what use Waqrapukara served after our treacherous general got humbled by the king, but due to the placement and structures of the temple ruins we assume that it was used further for religious ceremonies (call us inka experts 💁🏻‍♀️). Anyways, we are very happy that - unlike most other Inka structures in close(r) proximity to Cusco - the spanish conquerors did not reach and destroy Waqrapukara. It truly was one of the most magical and impressive remnants we’ve encountered so far!! And we have to admit that we fully understand why our general fell in love with this place - the views of and from Waqrapukara are unmatched ❤️
If you’d like to visit Waqrapukara, note the following tips:
1) Camp overnight. The camp has water, a sheltered small kitchen area and costs 10 soles per person including the entry to Waqrapukara. Seeing the sunset in the deep rugged valley is an unique and beautiful sight! And you’ll very likely have it by yourself in the early evening (we had it all to ourselves the whole day, night AND morning, same with the camping).
2) The way to and especially from Waqrapukara is a mess. It turned out that all agencies we asked for information and that told us ‘it is all on the internet’ did not have any idea how to get there and back themselves 😂 Getting there took us three hours and a ride with a very cute local man in his very rusty car we would have never thought to make the narrow and steep dirt-and-gravel road to the trailhead (props to our driver for getting us there alive! 🤚🏼). For the way back we chose one of the two tiny villages said to have taxis - the one we chose had not, but they did have a bunch of supercute tiny humans running around instead 🤷🏻‍♀️ We still got a random guy to drive us to Acomayo, where there was supposed to be a bus back to Cusco, but according to our driver leaving 3 hours after our arrival. Well, after walking 10km in the blazing sun, we then agreed to the generous offer (and the not-so-generous price) of our driver to take us all the way back to Cusco. While we were driven through Acomayo, it turned out that there were multiple buses from Acomayo to Cusco as seen from our windows, but at time we’ve already been too comfortable to cancel the offer 🤷🏻‍♀️. So we arrived back in Cusco in the evening after a hot 3 hour private drive, with a hole in our stomach (we prepared lunch for the bus, but not for a private car 🙃) and a hole in our wallet, but very very happy with the whole experience and we would definitely do it all over again! Waqrapukara for life ❤️❤️
Final note: We do not guarantee for the correctness of abovementioned story about Waqrapukara as it differs from source to source. We just told you the story we liked the most to be honest 😉

*Another theory of the origin of Waqrapukara - which is way less interesting that our story above - is that the site was created as a kind of astronomical observatory, together with a sanctuary to the creator god Illa Teqci Pacha Kamaq Wiraqocha.

**The inkas actually conquered and rebuilt the site which is said to originally have been a small citadel called Llaqta Pukara built by and for the Qanchi people, dating way before the inkas.Read more