First published: 10/09/24.

Ilya Burlak 1.0

Qhapaq Ñan

Qhapaq Ñan (Inscribed)

Qhapaq Ñan by Ilya Burlak

This hardly qualifies as a review, since my experience with Qhapaq Ñan is limited to the central Cuzco in May of 2024. But since this experience contains a couple of relative mishaps, recounting it could prevent someone from making the same mistakes.

First of all, the Cuzco central area location is not listed among the 137 components of Qhapaq Ñan on the site's official page on whc.unesco.org. I was questioning previous reviewers' contentions that it was included until Els stressed to me the "273 components" number found in the official description and directed me to take a look at the nomination file instead of the location listing. And yes, the component "Plaza Inca Hanan Haukaypata (PE-HH-01/CS-2011)" is basically Cuzco's Plaza de Armas with four roads leading from it in four directions.

I found myself in the exact geographical location that was included in the serial property. I took hundreds of pictures of the main square of Cuzco but none of them by themselves could serve as photographic evidence for Qhapaq Ñan. So I spent probably an hour scouring every square meter of the main square in search of the central road network marker that Clyde referenced in his review. And could not find it. I even asked a couple of policemen for help – they directed me to the small garden in front of the Companía church where you can find a number of commemorative stones, just not what I needed. They probably did not understand what I was asking for - and I overconfidently relied on my limited command of Spanish instead of typing Qhapaq Ñan into my phone to show them what I was seeking.

The marker exists - Clyde later sent me its picture and, of course, you can easily find it online. It's just somewhere off the main square - and I somehow never registered it in my wanderings about the central precincts. However, I did register individual directional markers on those streets that are part of this component. And that is enough for me to count the site as "visited" according to my personal loose definition. I am reading the other reviews of this site as saying that there is hardly anything to see in various rural components, but if I find myself in the future in their vicinity, I will make an effort to visit and to make this non-review into something that is more like a review.

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