After resting for some years, Tupac Yupanqui departed on the Chinchaysuyu road to visit his dominions and peoples along the route to the north, seeing to the organization of his states and verifying the administration. Therefore he passed through Vilcashuaman, Jauja, Huaylas and Cajamarca and entered the lands of the Chachapoyas. Continuing on his way, he was confronted with Cañaris who had been allied to the Quitos. After achieving a victory, he rested in Quito and ordered the region to be populated with numerous mitimaes, which is to say people moved from other regions. There he left an old lord named Chalco Mayta as governor. This governor had license to use a litter and was obligated to send him a chasqui every moon with news from Quito.

Thus, he arrived at a place called Surampalli where he ordered built a town which he named Tumibamba, the name of a royal panaca. This pleasant sit pleased the Inca who spent long years in it, making war on neighboring peoples and annexing them to the State.

On a certain day, being in Manta, some merchants arrived, traveling by sail in reed rafts. These merchants declared they came from some islands named Auachumbi and Nina Chumbi. This story of Sarmiento de Gamboa is a little strange because of the mysteriousness of the trip and stranger still because the Inca becomes enthusiastic with the news and embarks with an army toward the islands. It is not known if all that was fiction or if he really sailed to the Galápagos or even farther to the Marquesas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It could be about a vision produced by hallucinogens.

The expedition lasted for nine moons and on their return after a long absence, the Inca took the road to Cuzco. Tupac chose the coast road, heading to Catacaos, Pacatnamu and Chimu. He advanced slowly visiting the different towns and thus arrived at Pachacamac from where he pressed inland through Pariacaca and Jauja. At the same time another army advanced by the road from the highlands inspecting the ethnic groups.

The arrival of Tupac Yupanqui was celebrated in a grand manner in Cuzco. Never had the capital seen such rich plunder or so many prisoners. For the occasion military shows and ritual battles were given. They say that little Huayna Capac, just five years old, commanded a splendid army taken by assaulting the fortress of Sacsayhuaman before the eyes of thousands of spectators and the three Incas Pachacutec, Amaru Yupanqui and Tupac seated on their golden tianas and luxuriously decked out.

In the plaza of Aucaypata, the mummies of the past governors presided over the most important ceremonies. On one side the members of Hanan Cuzco and on the other those of Hurin Cuzco sang long, rhythmically accompanied verses which narrated heroic feats of the past. For a people who had no system of writing it was important to be able to hear, see and admire the former Incas and know their feats. They were like a living genealogy inasmuch as they conserved their palaces, women, and servants. With these ceremonies the past was recovered for a people eager for joy.

The festivities and ceremonies over, the very elderly Inca Pachacutec suffered a grave illness and, feeling he was dying, called to his kinspeople and the royal panacas. According to Sarmiento de Gamboa, he said "Son, you have already seen the battles and great nations which I leave you and you know how much work they have cost. No one raises his eyes against you who live, although they are your brothers. To these relatives I leave you for fathers, so they can counsel you. Look out for them and they will serve you. When I am dead, you will cure my body and put it in my houses in Patallacta. You will make my statue of gold in the house of the Sun and in all the provinces subject to me you will make solemn sacrifices and at the end of the celebration of Purucaya so I can go to rest with my father the Sun."

These words finished, the chronicler says, he began to sing in a low, sad tone words in his language which in Spanish sound like "Born like the iris in the garden and thus I was raised and how my age came, I grew old and how I had to die, therefore I dried up and I died."

After a silence he laid his head back and expired. Thus one of the greatest personages in the history of Peru and America died.