The Last Inca Rope Bridge, Q’eswachaka, Is Rebuilt Yearly

Every year, high in the Andes Mountains in Peru, a man builds a bridge. The bridge is strong enough to hold the weight of more than one hundred men. But it isn’t made of iron or steel. It’s made of grasses and fibers. It hangs 60 feet above a thundering river.

And the man is not a construction worker or a structural engineer—but he is the only person on earth who knows how to build this particular bridge. That man’s name is Victoriano Arizapana, and he is the heir to a tradition that is over 500 years old.

  • some_guy
    7·
    14 days ago

    I don’t have time to read the article before my partner and I have movie time together. I tried to scan for the answer but might have missed it. Does the article say how the Inca initially traversed the valley with material for the bridge? I’m super interested in what hypotheses we’ve got. I’m sure it’ll sound pretty obvious when I find out, but I genuinely can’t solve this in the few minutes I’ve thought about it. All I’ve got is shooting an arrow with a light string.

    • addie@feddit.uk
      7·
      14 days ago

      It’s not such a massively high bridge as the description makes out, and the valley looks a lot calmer a little downstream. Prepare a thin rope, long enough to span the gap. Cross over downstream, either in a little boat or on foot when it’s dry, with one end of the rope. Walk back up the valley with your end, and your mate carrying the other. Tie the thin rope to a strong rope, pull that over. Tie the strong rope to the bridge, pull that over. Fasten both sides. Done.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
      6·
      14 days ago

      You get one guy that can scale the cliff, probably, and hope for the best.

      A lot of these old engineering marvels have the secret ingredients of a lot of work and danger.

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
      58·
      14 days ago

      they tie the rope to a drone and fly it over.

      the drones were given to them by aliens that had a vested interest in helping humans out because they lost a bet with the bigger aliens of alpha ceti 3.

      all this is true, my dad’s uncles cousins brother heard it from a friend that used to live in Incaville.

      they also had cures for autism that were the opposite of our current day vaccine for autism.

      edit: 🤣