肖克奎拉奧朝圣之旅

在秘魯安第斯山脈的崇山峻嶺中有一座神秘的古城。西班牙人在長達300年的殖民統(tǒng)治期間對它一無所知，秘魯獨立后的100年間也無人涉足。400多年的時光，只有翱翔的山鷹得以一睹古城的雄姿，它就是馬丘比丘印加遺址。作為馬丘比丘的“姐妹城”，肖克奎拉奧可謂是寂寂無名，但卻有著馬丘比丘無可比擬的孤獨與安靜。本文作者向我們介紹了在肖克奎拉奧的徒步探險經(jīng)歷，巨石壘筑的殘垣斷壁正向我們講述著當年的故事，我們還會感受到懷古的幽思、逝去的光華，以及領略這座古城記載著的印加人無與倫比的智慧。

Halfway down the track， Nixon stops. He 1）thwacks his 2）machete into a stump to free his hands and reaches over a stone wall， 3）groping for something in the vegetation beneath. A moment later he pulls up a clear plastic bag and hands it to me. It is full of human bones. “Incas.”

Since the Spanish never found this place， Nixon， the custodian， is surely right about the bones. They belong to the people who built Choquequirao， one of the most remote Inca settlements in the Andes， and were 4）stashed here by the archaeologists who， over the past 20 years， have been slowly freeing the ruins from the cloud forest. The site that has emerged looks like a film director’s fantasy of a lost city. On the day I arrive a time lapse of cloud is drifting across the ridge， above a 5）geometry of Inca stairways and terraces cut into a steep， jungly 6）spur above the Apurímac river， 100 miles west of Cusco in southern Peru.

Inevitably， it’s been called the “sister” of Machu Picchu. But while Peru’s 7）poster girl is surrounded by the paparazzi crush of up to 2，500 visitors a day， Choquequirao（the Quechua name means “cradle of gold”） is almost entirely deserted.

But it won’t stay that way for long. In what may be the most ambitious tourism project in the world， the regional government is investing $50m in a mile-high cable car that will 8）glide up to Choquequirao in 15 minutes.

A week earlier， I joined a group led by Tammy Leland， of the U.S. non-profit travel company Crooked Trails， walking a dirt track past the colonial church and out into open country. Behind came a 9）straggling 10）caravan of mules and porters， including a couple of teenage boys who watched the college girls with 11）sullen fascination.

12）Stitching these two 13）contingents together was our guide， Juan Carlos. The trail we were on had been his weekly walk to primary school. There was no turn in the track， no stream or tree， that Juan Carlos didn’t know.

We camped that night on hard ground by the river， and crossed at first light in a metal cage strung from a cable above the rapids. On the far side the ascent began： a vertical mile of 14）switchbacks that killed the morning’s chatter and left us strung out along the trail. Around midday we arrived at the hamlet of Marampata， for lunch at Juan Carlos’s childhood home.

I looked back across the valley. Cloud shadows were moving across the grassland and the sun was picking out fields the colour of 15）bracken. Most of them were abandoned now， the terraces softening into the mountain， 16）scrub reclaiming ground from people who had gone to the cities long ago.

Two more hours’ hiking brought us to the terraces below Choquequirao， where we pitched our tents in the fading light. The Milky Way appeared， sharpening until you could see the patterns of darkness that the Inca imagination had stretched into 17）constellations. The llama. The snake. The 18）condor.

We reached the ruins on a track kept open more by machete than footfall. All around were walls and terraces grown over with jungle.

Like its famous sister， Choquequirao seems to have been a kind of royal estate for Inca nobility， built a generation or two before the Spanish arrived. Seeing the sophistication of these ruins—the 19）trapezoid doorway that opened on to the plaza， the 20）gabled kallanka（great hall） halls for ceremony and meeting， the stairways and irrigation channels—I was struck by the question that has long haunted Peruvian history： how did a band of 21）thugs and chancers from the illiterate plains of Estremadura， 22）stranded thousands of miles beyond their supply lines and lost in a mountain terrain unlike anything they’d ever seen， 23）bring down an empire of such reach and confidence？

Towards midday I wandered off alone， letting the 24）conviviality of the group recede into silence. Below me， clouds were drifting through the immense vertical spaces of the Andes. The river was a distant curl of light. The name Apurímac means “the God who speaks” in Quechua， and in the quiet I could hear its voice， millions of years old and patient beyond measure.

When I looked up， the group had gone and it was Nixon， the custodian， who showed me the path. He knows these ruins as well as anyone， so I asked him about the changes that were coming across the valley. After a while he said he’d seen a condor that morning， circling over the terraces. “For us， the condor is a spirit of the heavens. If they build the cable car， it will not come.”

It was almost dark when we got back to the river. Three or four of us left our clothes on the rocks and followed Juan Carlos into the water， letting it wash away the sweat and dust of the trek. By the time I’d dressed and scrambled up to the cable to take us back across the river， it was pitch black. One of the mule boys had waited to push the cage out over the water， but there was no one to pull from the other side so it ground to a halt， swaying above the 25）glint and roar of the river. I didn’t know what the cable car would bring to Choquequirao， or to the people who lived in this valley. But as I took in the slack from the rope and felt the cage move， I was glad to be crossing the Apurímac like this， hand over hand in the darkness.

尼克森走著走著在半道上停了下來。他把手里的砍刀甩插在一個樹樁上，空出手來，伸過石墻，摸索著植被下的東西。過了片刻，他抽出一個透明的塑料袋，并將其遞給我。塑料袋里都是骸骨?！坝〖尤说??！?/p>

因為西班牙人未曾發(fā)現(xiàn)這個地方，這兒的監(jiān)管人尼克森對這些骸骨的說法，無疑是正確的。它們屬于建造了肖克奎拉奧的人們，肖克奎拉奧是安第斯山脈最偏遠的印加人定居點之一，它曾被考古學家所藏匿，在過去的20年間，這片遺跡才漸漸地被考古學家從云霧森林中挖掘出來，展現(xiàn)給世人。這座重見天日的古城就像是電影導演幻想中的“失落之城”。我到達這里的那天，只見隨時間推移的云朵漂浮在山脊上，山脊下是呈幾何圖形的印加階梯和梯田，峙立在阿普里馬克河上的一個陡峭、叢林滿布的山坡上。阿普里馬克河位于秘魯南部的庫斯科以西100英里。……