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(zhǎng)達(dá)300年的殖民統(tǒng)治期間對(duì)它一無所知，秘魯獨(dú)立后的100年間也無人涉足。400多年的時(shí)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(dú)與安靜。本文作者向我們介紹了在肖克奎拉奧的徒步探險(xiǎn)經(jīng)歷，巨石壘筑的殘?jiān)珨啾谡蛭覀冎v述著當(dāng)年的故事，我們還會(huì)感受到懷古的幽思、逝去的光華，以及領(lǐng)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 thwacks his machete into a stump to free his hands and reaches over a stone wall， 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 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 directors fantasy of a lost city. On the day I arrive a time lapse of cloud is drifting across the ridge， above a geometry of Inca stairways and terraces cut into a steep， jungly spur above the Apurímac river， 100 miles west of Cusco in southern Peru.

Inevitably， its been called the “sister” of Machu Picchu. But while Perus 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 wont 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 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 straggling caravan of mules and porters， including a couple of teenage boys who watched the college girls with sullen fascination.

Stitching these two 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 didnt 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 switchbacks that killed the mornings chatter and left us strung out along the trail. Around midday we arrived at the hamlet of Marampata， for lunch at Juan Carloss 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 bracken. Most of them were abandoned now， the terraces softening into the mountain， 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 constellations. The llama. The snake. The 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 trapezoid doorway that opened on to the plaza， the 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 thugs and chancers from the illiterate plains of Estremadura， stranded thousands of miles beyond their supply lines and lost in a mountain terrain unlike anything theyd ever seen， bring down an empire of such reach and confidence？

Towards midday I wandered off alone， letting the 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 hed 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 Id 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 glint and roar of the river. I didnt 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(gè)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(gè)透明的塑料袋，并將其遞給我。塑料袋里都是骸骨。“印加人的?！?/p>

因?yàn)槲靼嘌廊宋丛l(fā)現(xiàn)這個(gè)地方，這兒的監(jiān)管人尼克森對(duì)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(yuǎn)的印加人定居點(diǎn)之一，它曾被考古學(xué)家所藏匿，在過去的20年間，這片遺跡才漸漸地被考古學(xué)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(dǎo)演幻想中的“失落之城”。我到達(dá)這里的那天，只見隨時(shí)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(gè)陡峭、叢林滿布的山坡上。阿普里馬克河位于秘魯南部的庫(kù)斯科以西100英里。

肖克奎拉奧難免會(huì)被稱為馬丘比丘古城的“姐妹城”。但是盡管馬丘比丘每天被多達(dá)2500名看似狗仔隊(duì)的游客所包圍，肖克奎拉奧（在蓋丘亞族語中的意思是“黃金的搖籃”）卻幾乎可以說是空無一人。

但是這樣的景況不會(huì)持久。這可能是世界上最雄心勃勃的旅游項(xiàng)目，當(dāng)?shù)卣疁?zhǔn)備投資五千萬美元建造可以在15分鐘內(nèi)滑行至肖克奎拉奧城的高空電纜車。

一個(gè)星期前，我參加了由塔米·利蘭德領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的一個(gè)小組，來自美國(guó)非牟利旅游公司“曲徑通幽”。小組活動(dòng)是沿著泥土小道走過殖民教堂，走進(jìn)開闊的曠野；我們后面來了一個(gè)掉隊(duì)的大篷車車隊(duì)，隊(duì)里有幾匹騾子和幾個(gè)搬運(yùn)工，包括幾個(gè)十幾歲的男孩，癡癡地看著路上的女大學(xué)生們。

把我們這兩批人集聚起來的是我們的向?qū)Ш病た逅?。此刻我們正在走的這條小道曾是他上小學(xué)時(shí)每周一次的必經(jīng)之路。這里的每一個(gè)轉(zhuǎn)彎岔道，每一條河流或是每一棵樹木，胡安·卡洛斯都了如指掌。

那天晚上我們?cè)诤舆厛?jiān)硬的地面上露營(yíng)，然后在破曉時(shí)分乘坐激流之上的凌空懸在纜線上的金屬小籠子穿過河流。纜線的另一端開始上升：垂直的之字形上升中斷了清晨的閑聊，大家一路上都心有余悸。晌午時(shí)分，我們到達(dá)瑪拉姆帕塔村莊，在胡安·卡洛斯的老家用了午餐。

我回望整個(gè)山谷。云層的影子在草原上掠過，陽光給田野挑染出一片青綠色。這些田野大多數(shù)都被荒廢了，梯田逐漸變形，與山融為一體，矮灌木叢崛地而起，仿佛在向許久前就搬進(jìn)城里的人們收復(fù)失地。

經(jīng)過兩個(gè)多小時(shí)的徒步行走，我們來到了肖克奎拉奧下方的梯田，我們?cè)诨璋档墓饩€下搭帳篷。這時(shí)，銀河出現(xiàn)了，愈來愈亮，直到你可以看到夜空中的圖案，那些由印加人的想象力創(chuàng)造而成的星座：駱駝、蛇和禿鷲。

我們沿路用砍刀開辟出一條道路，才終于走到了遺跡廢墟。周邊都是墻壁和梯田，叢林密布。

正如其著名的姐妹城一般，肖克奎拉奧似乎曾是印加貴族的皇家莊園，為西班牙人到來之前的一兩代人所建立。目睹這些結(jié)構(gòu)復(fù)雜的遺址——廣場(chǎng)入口的梯形門道，作儀式和會(huì)議用的人字形大廳，那些樓梯和灌溉渠道——我此時(shí)也被這個(gè)秘魯歷史上的千古之謎所困擾：一群來自埃斯特雷馬杜拉這個(gè)文盲平原的暴徒和投機(jī)者，遠(yuǎn)陷于運(yùn)輸路線外的山嶺地帶中，是如何推倒這樣一個(gè)疆域遼闊、自信無比的帝國(guó)的？

晌午將至?xí)r，我獨(dú)自漫步，離人群喧囂越來越遠(yuǎn)。腳下，云霧正飄浮在安第斯山脈巨大的垂直空間中。河流是遠(yuǎn)處一道曲旋著的光。阿普里馬克河在蓋丘亞族語里的意思是“說話的上帝”，靜謐中我仿佛可以聽見他的聲音，穿越幾千年的歷史，帶著無可估量的耐心。

等我抬起頭來，人群都散了，只有監(jiān)管人尼克森還在給我?guī)贰Ｋ瓦@里的每個(gè)人一樣，極其熟悉這些遺址，所以我問他在不久的未來這座山谷會(huì)有什么變化。他沉默了一會(huì)兒，然后說那天早上他看見了禿鷲，盤旋在階地上?！皩?duì)我們來說，禿鷲就象征著上帝的精神。如果他們建造起電纜車，禿鷲們就不會(huì)再來了?！?/p>

我們回到河邊的時(shí)候，天已經(jīng)黑了。我們?nèi)膫€(gè)人把衣服脫了放在巖石上，跟隨胡安·卡洛斯走進(jìn)河里，讓水沖洗掉長(zhǎng)途跋涉所出的汗和沾染的灰塵。等我穿好衣服，爬到帶我們返回河對(duì)岸的纜車時(shí)，周圍已是漆黑一片。其中一個(gè)趕騾的男孩在岸邊等著將籠子推出去，但是另一邊沒有人拉動(dòng)，所以籠子慢慢地停了下來，在閃爍和咆哮的河上搖晃著。我不知道電纜車會(huì)給肖克奎拉奧城，或者是生活在這個(gè)山谷里的人們帶來什么變化。但是，當(dāng)我拉緊松弛的繩子，感覺到籠子在滑動(dòng)時(shí)，我很高興自己是以這種方式渡過阿普里馬克河的，在黑暗中用左右手輪流交替地拉拽著繩子，使纜車滑動(dòng)前行。