Paucartambo

Paucartambo stands beside the Mapacho River east of Cusco, where the highlands descend toward the forested eastern slopes of the Andes. During Spanish rule it served as the center of a district that supplied Cusco with maize, coca, wheat and other produce. In the eighteenth century a stone bridge named for King Charles III replaced an older wicker bridge, joining the town across the river and giving the mountain settlement one of its most distinctive landmarks.