Quillarumiyoc – “the place of the moon stone” in Quechua – was an Inca ceremonial site dedicated to the worship of water and, more importantly, to the moon goddess “Quilla”.

The site lies about 45 minutes along a good, paved road west of Cusco, some 18 kilometres beyond the village of Anta at Kilometre 44 of the highway (2 km beyond the village of Antahuasi). During the drive one passes a number of highland communities dedicated to livestock herding, including the village of Huarocondo, which is famous throughout the region for its roasted suckling pig. Near the village of Zurite, just off the highway, the longest agricultural terraces left to us by the Inca culture are currently the focus of an important farming project.

Quillarumiyoc itself is a fascinating site about 1 km off the highway along a dirt track accessible by road. The complex comprises a series of water channels following the course of a narrow gulley which descends from the sombre mountain overlooking the site to the valley below. These water channels flow past sacred rocks, including the great stone, carved with a geometric representation of the moon herself, which has given the site its name.  

To truly understand a site like Quillarumiyoc one must begin to see it as the Incas did, and look beyond the clumsy “restoration” of the INC (National Institute of Culture) at the lower part of the complex.  

The entire valley occupied by Quillarumiyoc and cut by the stream which feeds its water channels is littered with limestone outcrops – “huacas” or sacred stones – which when one looks at them as the ancients did appear to have landed there not so much from another geological region, but from another time. They stand there, enormous and imposing, some with their bases carved into simple altars and others left entirely in their natural state – for they needed no alteration from the hand of man to denote the mysterious nature one senses today and which for the Incas imbued them with religious significance.