I stared at the large sunken stone-lined bath: you could fit a whole rugby team in it, maybe even both sides. Empty now but with the lifting of two wooden gates hot mineral rich water from deep underground would race through stone cut channels and fill it to the brim. A bath fit for a king, as indeed it was on the 16th November 1532 when the Incan Emperor Atahualpa was soaking away the cares from administering to an empire that extended for over two thousand miles either side of the massive spine of the Andes in South America. Continue reading →