Incidentally it is interesting to note that although Sartiges was an enthusiastic explorer, eager to visit undescribed Inca ruins, he makes no mention whatever of Machu Picchu. Yet from Huadquiña one can reach Machu Picchu on foot in half a day without crossing the Urubamba River. Apparently the ruins were unknown to his hosts in 1834. They were equally unknown to our kind hosts in 1911. They scarcely believed the story I told them of the beauty and extent of the Inca edifices. [10] When my photographs were developed, however, and they saw with their own eyes the marvelous stonework of the principal temples, Señora Carmen and her family were struck dumb with wonder and astonishment. They could not understand how it was possible that they should have passed so close to Machu Picchu every year of their lives since the river road was opened without knowing what was there. They had seen a single little building on the crest of the ridge, but supposed that it was an isolated tower of no great interest or importance. Their neighbor, Lizarraga, near the bridge of San Miguel, had reported the presence of the ruins which he first visited in 1904, but, like our friends in Cuzco, they had paid little attention to his stories. We were soon to have a demonstration of the causes of such skepticism.
Our new friends read with interest my copy of those paragraphs of Calaucha's "Chronicle" which referred to the location of the last Inca capital. Learning that we were anxious to discover Uiticos, a place of which they had never heard, they ordered the most intelligent tenants on the estate to come in and be questioned. The best informed of all was a sturdy mestizo, a trusted foreman, who said that in a little valley called Ccllumayu, a few hours' journey down the Urubamba, there were "important ruins" which had been seen by some of Señora Carmen's Indians. Even more interesting and thrilling was his statement that on a ridge up the Salcantay Valley was a place called Yurak Rumi (yurak = "white"; rumi = "stone") where some very interesting ruins had been found by his workmen when cutting trees for firewood. We all became excited over this, for among the paragraphs which I had copied from Calancha's "Chronicle" was the statement that "close to Uiticos" is the "white stone of the aforesaid house of the Sun which is called Yurak Rumi." Our hosts assured us that this must be the place, since no one hereabouts had ever heard of any other Yurak Rumi. The foreman, on being closely questioned, said that he had seen the ruins once or twice, that he had also been up the Urubamba Valley and seen the great ruins at Ollantaytambo, and that those which he had seen at Yurak Rumi were "as good as those at Ollantaytambo." Here was a definite statement made by an eyewitness. Apparently we were about to see that interesting rock where the last Incas worshiped. However, the foreman said that the trail thither was at present impassable, although a small gang of Indians could open it in less than a week. Our hosts, excited by the pictures we had shown them of Machu Picchu, and now believing that even finer ruins might be found on their own property, immediately gave orders to have the path to Yurak Rumi cleared for our benefit.