The View from Middle Spunk Creek
Sexy Woman
“Have you seen sexy woman?”
The question caught me by surprise, since I had just met the Peruvian travel agent, and my wife was standing next to me. After a bit of stammering, I forced out a “no”. Perhaps its a cultural thing, I thought, or maybe I didn’t understand him.
It turned out to be both.
My wife, Kathy, had been in Peru many times in her work with an international NGO, and the travel agent, a native Peruvian, was a friend of hers. I think they set me up.
After a few chuckles at my momentary embarrassment, I learned that what my English-trained ears had heard was Sacsayhuaman, the name of one of the great Incan fortresses.
Correctly pronounced “sock-say-wah-mun” in Quechua, the ancient language of the Incas, the fortress overlooks Cusco, capital city of the Incan empire which now counts about four hundred thousand people as residents. It is also the origination point of a river that provides Cusco’s water supply.
According to archaeologists, the fortress took seven decades and tens of thousands of laborers to build. When complete it was large enough to house 5,000 Incan troups. Its double outer walls are made of massive stones, the largest weighing 125 tons, interconnected so precisely (without mortar of any kind) that you can’t fit the edge of a business card between them. From Sacsayhuaman, the Incans, constructed stone conduits to guide the river down the mountainside, and then underneath Cusco, to provide an uninterupted and unchallengeable water supply to the capital city.
The architecture, and the magnitude and precision of their construction skills alone, were enough to put me in thrall of the Incan civilization, but there is so much more. They terraced the Andes’ mountainsides, with each level of the terraces providing a micro-climate that allowed them to grow, among other things, hundreds of varieties of potatoes. They built observatories and developed knowledge of astrology that is awe-inspiring even today. Their military prowess was unmatched in South America, at one time controlling two-thirds of the continent, encompassing ten million people and hundreds of distinct cultures. They developed social structures (though quite draconian) to amalgamate all those cultures into a single nation ruled by the Inca–god, king, general and moral leader. Their craftsmen, particularly in gold and silver, far surpassed anything that Europe had to offer in the sixteenth century.
And they did it all without a written language.
In short, the Incas were amazing…until Francisco Pizzaro came along in 1532 with his conquistadores, gun powder, small pox and European political guile.
That moment in history is the launching point for Cloud Warriors.
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Cloud Warriors will be available to the public in both softcover and eBook on February 22, 2019. You can pre-order on Amazon or at John Hunt Publishing or through this website.
For recent reviews click on the Cloud Warriors tab in the tool bar, scroll down and click on “read reviews”.
Check back weekly for Rob’s musings from Middle Spunk Creek.
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Blog Index
#17 Quantity or Quality
#16 Who’s in Control of the Keyboard?
#15 Greed: An Aphrodisiac
#14 2018 in the Rear View Mirror
#13 Day from Hell
#12 Deleted.
#11 Kissing Frogs
#10. Reaping Thanksgiving
#9. Fountain of Youth
#8. Curare
#7. Strangers in a Strange Land
#6. Comics Seriously
#5. Words
#4. Monarchs
#3. Who’s Next Saint Paul?
#2 Amore Mio Lily
#1. No longer available.
