Tipón

Tipón is where the Inca show what they could do with water. A spring at the head of the site feeds a system of stone channels that runs down through a series of broad terraces, splitting into symmetrical falls, crossing under walls, dropping through carved chutes into basins and reuniting - all of it built with a gradient control precise enough that it has kept working for five hundred years with essentially no maintenance. Engineers study it: the American Society of Civil Engineers designated Tipón a historic civil engineering landmark. Above the main terraces there are further sectors, an aqueduct cut along the hillside, and residential remains, and the site is much larger than the photographed section. It is thought to have been a royal estate. Being off the main Sacred Valley circuit, it gets a fraction of the visitors of Písac or Ollantaytambo, and it is often nearly empty.

History

People lived at Tipón from about 1000 BCE, through the Chanapata, Qotakalli, Huari and Killke periods to the Inca. Its original name was Muyna, the seat of the pre-Inca Pinagua people; reading Garcilaso de la Vega, the historian Víctor Angles Vargas held that Viracocha Inca built it as a residence for his father Yawar Waqaq, and the name Tipón first appears in the 16th-century will of Doña Tomasina de la Vega (Wikipedia, Tipón).

What you'll find

• The water channels - a five-hundred-year-old system still running through the terraces.
• The fountains - symmetrical falls and carved chutes into stone basins.
• The terraces - broad platforms built around the hydraulic design.
• The upper sectors - aqueduct and remains well above the main enclosure.

When to go

April to October for dry ground, though the channels run all year. One to two hours; longer to reach the upper sectors. Quiet compared to the Sacred Valley sites.

What to expect

The climb through the terraces is steep at 3,400 metres. Little shade. The upper sectors involve a proper walk and most visitors never see them. Interpretation on site is limited.

Nearby

Piquillacta and Rumicolca are further along the Urcos road; Cusco is west.

Key facts