Spanish historian and journalist Santiago del Valle’s book “Vilcabamba: The Sacred Refuge of the Incas” looks back at the 16 expeditions carried out since 1997 to locate Hatun Vilcabamba, the last capital of the Incas, a site in the southern Peruvian region of Cuzco that is to be excavated in earnest beginning next year.

Del Valle told EFE that archaeologists have excavated just 1 percent of the settlement, which is nestled amid rugged, jungle-clad slopes at a height of more than 3,000 meters (9,835 feet) and located 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Machu Picchu.

“It’s a tremendously steep area, with waterfalls, very humid and abandoned for centuries. The city is covered by vegetation. We were walking over one building and you couldn’t see what was underneath,” he said.

The writer said the Incas fled to Vilcabamba from Ollantaytambo, just a few kilometers from their imperial capital in Cuzco, after the failure of Manco Inca’s 1536 rebellion against the Spanish conquistadors. ...