In the canyon of the Apurimac river, in the Peruvian region of Cusco, a six-century-old work is about to be reborn. As every year, at 28 meters in height, men with tanned skin completely renovate the last Inca suspension bridge.
Thirty meters long and just over a meter wide, the Q’eswachaka bridge is made from a grass native to the Andes which, once dried and beaten to soften it, is braided .
Every year, in June, the native communities of the region of Cusco, capital of the Inca Empire, participate in the renovation of the work, listed as Intangible Heritage of Humanity since 2013. Now that the pandemic is over , the natives are trying to regain the interest of visitors to one of the most outstanding traditions of the region known throughout the world for its citadel of Machu Picchu.
With sickles, women in multicolored skirts cut the fields in the q’oya, the dried grass needed to make the work. Sitting on the edge of a dusty road, they then weave it. In a few hours, they form thick ropes that men will carry on their shoulders. The gods “punish us if we don’t restore (the bridge). Something would happen to us,” says Emperatriz Arizapana, a 54-year-old woman from the Huinchiri community. We do this “from generation to generation (…) since the Pre-Incas”, underlines Alex Huilca, a civil engineer of 30 years, who directs the works.
Under the burning sun of the Peruvian Andes, Cayetano Ccanahuari, a shaman from an indigenous community, sacrifices a lamb as an offering to the gods of the earth and the mountain. This is so that “no accident occurs during the repair” of the bridge, he explains.
The old work is completely replaced. The men begin by passing from one end to the other the thickest ropes which will serve as the basis of the new bridge. The old structure is then dismantled. She falls into the river and is carried away by the current. The renovation process ends with the installation of the two thick ropes that serve as handrails and the thousands of other, thinner ones, tied between them and the deck to create a guardrail.
For three days, from one end of the work to the other, men with their heads covered in the typical Peruvian caps knot the ropes, tighten them and stretch them with the sheer force of their arms. Some chew coca leaves, an age-old practice in the Andes to fight fatigue. Visibly insensitive to vertigo, seven natives barely stagger as they tie the last ropes with their bare hands. “We built this bridge in three days. It’s a great demonstration (of engineering). This bridge is really solid”, assures Alex Huilca.
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Although essential to the restoration of the bridge, women are excluded from the final execution of the work. According to indigenous belief, the river mermaids who accompany the renovation process every year are jealous. “This bridge belongs to the mermaids,” says Gregorio Huayhua, responsible for securing the structure at each end with a system of stones. When the teams on either side of the bridge meet, the shout “Haylly Q’eswachaka” rings out, heralding the rebirth of the age-old bridge.
