Customer Reviews

The White Rock: An Exploration of the Inca Heartland

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Where does an explorer go these days? There is no more "terra incognita" on the maps, and ballooning, sailing, or crossing Antarctica are often reduced to webcasted stunts. If you long to go through jungle, battling snakes and mosquitoes, to find previously undiscovered ancient sites, Hugh Thomson can tell you were to go: Peru. In fact, twenty years ago, he was working in a pub, and a drinker there told him a story involving an Inca fortress that had been discovered, but was so poorly documented, it had gotten lost again. "Not only was it a glamorous idea, it was, unlike most of those told in the pub, a true story." Finding that ruin seemed more attractive than continuing to tend bar: "I had nothing to lose. So I went." This is the start of the story of Thomson's _The White Rock: An Exploration of the Inca Heartland_ (Overlook Press). It is no surprise that in this lively and intelligent exploration memoir, Thomson does re-discover the re-lost archeological site, but it is surprising that this is only the first part of the book, not the climax. By the time the book has finished, he has hiked to many lost cities in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, and reviewed the remarkably complicated Inca history all along the way.

Of course the book is full of recountings of mistakes and scares, from embarrassingly split pants to humorous misunderstandings between the gringos and the natives (including a young girl who precipitously falls in love with the author). This is not a how-to manual, but those preparing to explore the area would do well to heed Thomson's words on snakes, guinea pigs, gnats, pack mules, and especially, guides. Much of the book is not just a history of the Incas, but a history of exploration of Inca sites. There are fine summary portraits here of an assortment of strange characters who have trekked some of these paths before Thomson. A prime one was Hiram Bingham, the discoverer of Machu Picchu, who thought erroneously that it was a religious monument to the Virgins of the Sun. This has sparked a lot of New Age nonsense. It was a winter camp for the Inca court, and Thomson's own view of the exalted position of Machu Picchu is simply that the Incas had a fondness, just as we do, for magnificent mountain views.

Thomson's exhilarating and self-deprecatingly humorous account of his own travels vies with the ancient history and modern history revealed here. All are expertly told. Thomson follows a trail of Inca history to the almost forgotten site of Vilcabamba, still unexcavated and obscured by thick vegetation. It was the last remnant of the great Inca Empire. Digressions of descriptions of the modern towns he goes through, and a welcome appreciation of the great Cuzco photographer Martin Chambi, are easy bypaths on the way. The book has excellent maps, a glossary of terms from the Spanish and the local Quechua language, and an genealogical chart of the Inca emperors. This is a thoroughly enjoyable book to put our currently fashionable fascination with Inca sites in a realistic context.

For a well-written, informative, and painless way to learn a lot about the Inca civilization of Peru and the explorers who discovered it, this may be the best book around.

The writer is a British bartender who mounted an expedition to the Inca country in the early 1980s. Retreating -- as did most foreigners -- from the region during the reign of terror by the Sendero Luminoso he returned in the late 1990s to continue his explorations. The author is refreshingly candid, irreverent, and much less pretentious than most explorers and archaelogists. He avoids the "gee whiz, I was the first white man ever to overcome incredible hardships and discover a lost civilization" claims of many writers.

The subject matter is magnificient. The remains of the Inca include far more than the well-known ruins of Machu Pichu and Sacsahuaman (Sexy-Woman to the tourists). The Inca heartland in Peru and the ceja de la selva (eyebrow of the jungle) is as mysterious, little-explored, and rugged as any chunk of real estate on the planet. The author's accounts of his rediscoveries of long forgotten ruins are fascinating, not least for his tales of hardships and humor (...)his way over 14,000 feet mountain passes and through trackless jungles with a variety of feckless companions. Woven into the narrative is the story of the Spanish conquest of the Incas.

I learned from this book how little is known about the Incas and what an extraordinary civilization they were.

Any young history student can tell you the story of the Incas. Bedazzled by stories of cities built of stone and overflowing with gold, children dream of hidden treasures in South America. Tales of the conquistadors --- the culture they conquered and the riches they took --- are told throughout the world, inspiring young men and women to leave their homes and venture into the South American mountains. British explorer and documentary filmmaker Hugh Thomson was one of those adventurers.

Lured to Peru by the story of Llactapata, a ruin discovered by noted explorer Hiram Bingham but lost again beneath the vines and trees of Peru's jungle, Thomson and his team embarked upon a journey to rediscover the missing ruin. Accompanied by local guides, Thomson hiked the Inca trail through the Andean Mountains to his destination --- encountering entertaining locals, interesting cuisine, swarms of gnats and the occasional snake. Nearly twenty years after his first excursion, Thomson would return to Peru to resume his studies of the Inca ruins.

THE WHITE ROCK is not only the story of Thomson's explorations, but also the history of the Inca culture and the archaeologists and explorers who have recorded it. Thomson never hesitates to give credit where it is due, a notable contrast to the often overblown egos of explorers. True to documentarian form, Thomson offers an unbiased, honest account of his travels in Peru, highlighting various aspects of its culture, arts and inhabitants. He also points out what he believes are discrepancies in the historical chronicle of the Incas and offers plausible alternatives. A combination of a history text and travel memoir, THE WHITE ROCK offers the reader much more than other books in either of these genres. Thomson's balance of humor and scholarship makes for an enjoyable reading experience, and the forty-five black and white photographs beautifully illustrate the mystical draw of the Incas.

--- Reviewed by Melissa Brown

While planning a trip to Peru, I bought a copy of Thomson's book to get a different spin on the place than that offered by the typical guides and histories. I am delighted that I did. Thomson's witty writing stays away from overly PC sentimentality while still demonstrating a deep respect for the culture and the people of the Andes. Thomson also avoids dry academic discourse and gives the reader some insight into the vibrancy of Andean culture and the richness of its history. Although the book will not tell you what hotels to stay in or what time the train leaves for Machu Picchu, I highly recommend it for anyone considering a trip to the region.

Reviewers have noted Thomson's strengths and occasional lapses. I read this after "At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig," John Gimlette's comparable Paraguayan travelogue, and both books feature young British who find themselves returning to a land they happened upon in their youth (circa early 1980s?) in decades since, contrasting the changes and recording that which endures. Thomson's account avoids Gimlette's overwritten prose, but its own lack of adornment may fail to keep all readers excited. He eschews New Age dippiness or "us vs. them" cute encounters for a more workaday narrative. He tells what he saw, who saw it earlier, and what we know about it--given the wide lack of hard evidence. He always relies on the locals, has an admirably nimble way with translating his excellent Spanish as he conveys his conversations with them, and avoids stereotypes on all sides--except for those ubiqitous German tourists we've all encountered ahead of the rest of us in the most remote places!

I wish he had invigorated his account a bit more with less recapitulation of his own often humdrum reactions, but he does this to counter the often romanticised visions of Hiram Bingham, Victor van Hagen, and many others who have explored the terrain before him--and not always as thoroughly as he has. The encounter with the titular White Rock, for example, is nearly subdued, but it sets off the mystery better than purple prose.

"The White Rock; An Exploration of the Inca Heartland," by Hugh Thomson is a probing insight to the heart and soul of the ancient Inca people. The author is an explorer, historian and filmmaker. However, since the Inca civilization left no written records...Thomson constructed his understanding of the Inca piece by piece...step by step and day by day. Consequently he is now arguably one of the world's foremost experts on Peru's early society.

The author is modest. He acknowledges that luck played a large role in his successful find of Llactapata. First discovered by the legendary explorer Henry Bingham in 1911...(but he was never able to find it again.) Hence it was lost for over a half century until the remarkable discovery by the young tenderfoot from England. Moreover, Thomson playfully admits in the early portion of the text that luck was evident throughout his humble early beginnings in Peru.

The author took twenty years to write this book and provides a seasoned eye to help the reader understand why the Inca build where they did. I was particularly impressed with the meticulous research from beginning to end of this book. To this end, the text has a scholarly quality to it but Thomson's irreverant writting style keeps the narrative lively. Overall, Thomson brilliantly manages to document the Inca people's dramatic civilization and the terrible annihilation of the vast empire by the 16th century Spanish Conquistadors. Recommended.

Bert Ruiz

If you are looking for a book that will entertain, educate, and take you on a trip all at the same time, this is the book for you. Thomson has that dry British wit that is understated and very funny, and his writing is superb. He fills the book with interesting details about Incan life and culture. I am not usually fond of travel books but this and books by Tony Horwitz are great reading.

_The White Rock_ by Hugh Thomson is a fascinating, well-written account of both the author's travels to Inca sites in Peru and Bolivia and his efforts to address the big discrepancies between popular conceptions of the Incas and the actual evidence of what they were like, an effort complicated by the fact that the Incas left no written record and much of what know about them comes from the often biased accounts of Spanish conquistadors and from the supposition of archaeologists.

Though Thomson visited a number of Inca sites throughout the book, Machu Picchu clearly dominates, as it is most famous Inca site, the one most likely known to the average person. The very familiarity of the place he wrote can lead to misleading impressions of the Incas and Thomson regretted that few visitors to Peru traveled beyond it.

The author recounted a number of misconceptions regarding the site. Many suppose that it is a major site for archaeologists; it is not, as the site was thoroughly excavated by the famous (and some say "over-enthusiastic and cack-handed") Hiram Bingham in the early years of the 20th century, who acted "with the over-confidence of an age of certainty" and so thoroughly excavated the site that little was left for later researchers. In addition, later restoration efforts to prepare the site for tourists were often done with little thought for archaeological preservation.

Speaking of Hiram Bingham, he is famous for having discovered the site. Thomson wrote that it would more accurate that he should be famous for having publicized the site. A geographer by the name of Antonio Raimondi had a site labeled as Cerro Machu Picchu on a map made in 1875 and in 1902, a full ten years before Bingham visited, Don Enrique Palma of Cuzco visited the site and left an inscription on its walls.

Tour guides and many popular books on Machu Picchu speak of the city's great religious significance, but Thomson interviewed archaeologists who said that the site was not a religious shrine at all. Occupied for less than a hundred years, largely forgotten after it was abandoned (something the Incas would not have done if it was a religious or especially a pilgrimage site), it was basically a winter quarters for the Inca emperor (known as the Inca), a country estate or leisure complex, a "gigantic hunting folly" that was "both too impractical and ostentatious" to maintain, basically an old country house and pleasure resort built on a grand scale at the height of the Inca Empire and then "left to fade away as royal tastes and fashion moved on." While the site was attractive both for its milder and warmer climate that Cuzco and its abundance of game, it was an expensive locale to live in.

Those who maintain the notion that the site was religious point to the great number of female skeletons unearthed at the site, labeled by many as "Virgins of the Sun." In fact later studies showed that the proportion of male and female remains was about equal; this misconception dates back to one of Bingham's colleagues, George Eaton, who in 1912 wrongly identified most of the remains as female.

Another misconception (albeit one that the Incas themselves promoted) was that they were the only or the first Andean or South American civilization. Incan rulers like the famous Pachacuti (originally known as Inca Yupanqui but who took the title Pachacuti or "Transformer of the Earth") promoted within their own society powerful origin stories, as Pachacuti, though important as he led the first wave of Inca conquests to Bolivia and Lake Titicaca, bringing an area from Colombia to Chile, some 3000 miles and about the size of continental Europe, under Inca control, carefully promulgated official versions of Inca history.

In reality, the Incas were adept at incorporating whole tribes into the Empire, as large numbers of people or even whole populations were taken away from their homelands to serve as tribute labor elsewhere in a system called mitamayo (the workers were called mitimaes). Thomson compared the Incas to Stalin in the way that they moved around client peoples, shipping them from one part of the empire to another to do jobs, moving potentially difficult peoples into new, uninhabited (and distant) areas, even splitting towns into upper and lower sections and having them compete in providing services to the State and the town itself.

The Incas were noted for appropriating the ruins of previous civilizations, altering them as they saw fit, manipulating and distorting the meaning of the ruins and of history. In reality, the Incas, "[f]ar from imposing order on an unruly bunch of savages, ...were merely the latest dominant tribe (and a short-lived one at the that) in a series of Andean civilizations" that had existed for over 2000 years previously. The Incas built their achievements on earlier civilizations such as the Moche of the north of Peru (noted for their magnificent pottery), the Huari, and the Tiahuanaco culture (who produced magnificent stone buildings) near Lake Titicaca.

Thomson also recounted many other aspects of the Incas. He noted their careful uses of terraces and canals, giving them the ability to support thousands where only dozens now live today. I had heard of Peruvian mummies before, but I had no idea of their role in Inca society; when each Inca died, his estate or panaca continued to maintain his palace as if he were still alive, with the Inca's mummified form resident in the old palace and brought out for feast days and coronations (Thomson wrote that the"mummy lobby" was very powerful towards the end of the Inca empire and was a system open to much abuse). Other interesting topics covered include the building, planning, and maintenance of Inca roads, Inca architectural methods and styles, and the course of the Spanish Conquest, particularly the struggles of the last Inca Emperors.

The book is also a great and witty travelogue particularly of Peru, with maps and many photos.

If you are going to Peru... get this book.

I live six months a year in the Andes, in Peru. My house overlooks the beautiful valley of Cachora, and from my porch I can look up at the mountain where the newly excavated ruins of Choquequirao are (a "must see"). Now, when my friends come to Peru, to see Machu Pichu and/or the ruins of Choquequirao, I give everyone a copy of "The White Rock".

Hugh Thomson has done a great service to all those visiting these ruins. He has not only written an engaging, and often funny travel log, but he has given us a history of the Incas. He shines a new light on Inca life and customs. Their principle cities: Machu Pichu, Choquequirao, Vilcabamba and Chuquipalta [the White Rock] are discussed in the book..

But, this book isn't just about Cusco, Machu Pichu or Choquequirao - but it really is. It isn't about the Inca's culture and their vast empire (c.1438-1572) - but it really is. It's not about various unique, brash, daring, larger-than-life individuals who Thomson encountered, but it is. Nor is it about Hugh Thomson and his extraordinary journeys through the Inca heartland - but, then again, it really is. This Book is an incredibly accomplished blending of all of these, as well as a lively, dauntless travel log of an exception explorer.

Thomson's pendulating writing has the unique ability to freely swing back and forth between various perspectives. He writes as an anthropologist, a historian, an archeologist, an explorer, and a traveling bum. He weaves these perspectives together while never losing the story line - The White Rock.

Thomson's ultimate destination (Chuquipalta [the White Rock]) takes him on the famed Inca Roads, transversing the Inca empire, yet all the while gathering information and simultaneously reflecting on the beauty and uniqueness of their culture. He reveals how the Incas were brilliant administrators, masters at constructing roads and stone cities while never discovering the wheel, the arch, or developing a written language. Thomson clearly chronicles the conquest of the Incas from the time of Francisco Pizzaro (and his murder of the Inca Atahulpa) through Pedor de Cieza de Leon and the execution of the last Inca, Tupac Amaru, in the main square of Cusco.

Bottom line, If you want to journey though the lost world of the Incas, then this book, matched with a solid guide like `Let's Go: Peru, Bolivia & Equador' (see my review), will enrich you as you explore the Inca heartland. Highly Recommended.

I read this book some years ago and as a fan of travel literature placed it near the top. However, I did not write a review at that time. Now, having recently returned from a two week vacation in Bolivia and Peru, I can see what a fine book it is. The Incas were the last of the world's great civilizations to be "discovered." Since they developed in isolation and were not literate, we must try to interpret their mind set from what has survived these 500 years. Mr. Thomson manages by observation, rigid scholarship, many miles on the trail, along with canny speculation to get inside the mind of the Inca as well as anyone. For all of you romanticists out there this book comes as close as is possible to the modern possibilities of adventure.