Machu Picchu
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‘Machu Picchu’Located on a ridge top, high up in a Peruvian mountain range, Machu Picchu is an awe-inspiring and well preserved stone ruin of a Columbian Inca city. Recent archaeological study has revealed that Machu Picchu wasn't a conventional city, but more like a country retreat for Inca royalty. It is thought that only 750 people would have lived at Machu Picchu at any one time. The site has 140 constructions, comprising a large palace and temples dedicated to Inca deities around a central courtyard. The city was built in about 1440 and was inhabited until about 1532.
Locals knew of Machu Picchu's existence, but it was rediscovered by the outside world in 1911 at which point thousands of artefacts were removed form the site. It's now one of the most popular destinations in South America, though the long distances needed to travel to get there means it's still the preserve of the more intrepid tourist.
Best way to arrive here? Take the Hiram Bingham train from Cuzco - a fabulous experience.
5 / 5
Review by editor ‘Arriving at Machu Picchu at sunrise’A lot of trek groups try and time their arrival at the Sun Gate for sunrise but most don't quite make the logistics work for some reason. Looking out over the valley through the gap in the Sun Gate peak as the yellow orb comes up is breathtaking. After you recover from a spiritual adrenalin rush, there is a nice short walk down into the city itself. The other benefit of being there so early is you avoid the tourist hordes that start pouring in from the Aguas Calientes train later that morning. Machu Picchu is all yours. Enjoy.
5 / 5
Review by member ‘Machu Picchu’I agree with Kevin, Machu Picchu is best appreciated at dawn. This is truly one of the most remarkable archaeological sites on earth. I'd say give it a couple of days to see as much as you can. Climb the pinnacle of Huayna Picchu as well as hike to the Sun Gate for a dawn view. Chew some coca leaves along the way.
5 / 5
Review by expert member ‘Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu’'Machu Picchu stands 2,430 m above sea-level, in the middle of a tropical mountain forest, in an extraordinarily beautiful setting. It was probably the most amazing urban creation of the Inca Empire at its height; its giant walls, terraces and ramps seem as if they have been cut naturally in the continuous rock escarpments. The natural setting, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, encompasses the upper Amazon basin with its rich diversity of flora and fauna.'
Copyright © UNESCO/World Heritage Centre. All rights reserved. 5 / 5 Review by press. ‘Excerpt from 'The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu'’By John Borthwick for Travel Intelligence
...The last leg. Our final miles of jungle - an ancient highway of footstones, fleeing lizards and orange butterflies. Thicker, warmer air, but still the ever-present precipices beside us. Stone walls netted with roots. And finally, a carved rock gateway at the last pass - the lost city of Machu Picchu, looking much as it would have when explorer Hiram Bingham "re-discovered" what the local Indians had never lost in 1911.
We amble down the long inclination by which Inca emissaries arrived and left on their journeys up and down the giant Andean system, a distance of about nine thousand kilometres. From the uppermost terraces we have our first close view of the complex. It occupies a narrow ridge, with its nunneries, temples and houses spilling over the edges into the emerald gulf of air. Behind it, Huana Picchu, a sacred observatory, soars another 300 metres to a pinnacle of stone and wind. Today there are neither priests nor Inca nuns - just tour groups and ticket collectors. After six days of Andean silence and a company of four, the resonant Spanish of a tour leader and the neo-English squawk of a New Jersey flock are all too abrasive. Full article on Travel Intelligence 5 / 5 Review by press. ‘'The Possessed'’By Arthur Lubow for The New York Times First published June 24, 2007
The stones at Machu Picchu seem almost alive. They may be alive, if you credit the religious beliefs of the ruler Pachacuti Yupanqui, whose subjects in the early 15th century constructed the granite Inca complex, high above a curling river and nestled among jagged green peaks. To honor the spirits that take form as mountains, the Inca stoneworkers carved rock outcrops to replicate their shapes. Doorways and windows of sublimely precise masonry frame exquisite views. But this extraordinary marriage of setting and architecture only partly explains the fame of Machu Picchu today. Just as important is the romantic history, both of the people who built it in this remote place and of the explorer who brought it to the attention of the world. The Inca succumbed to Spanish conquest in the 16th century; and the explorer Hiram Bingham III, whose long life lasted almost as many years as the Inca empire, died in 1956. Like the stones of Machu Picchu, however, the voices of the Inca ruler and the American explorer continue to resonate.
Imposingly tall and strong-minded, Bingham was the grandson of a famous missionary who took Christianity to the Hawaiian islanders. In his efforts to locate lost places of legend, the younger Bingham proved to be as resourceful. Bolstered by the fortune of his wife, who was a Tiffany heiress, and a faculty position at Yale University, where he taught South American history, Bingham traveled to Peru in 1911 in hopes of finding Vilcabamba, the redoubt in the Andean highlands where the last Inca resistance forces retreated from the Spanish conquerors. Instead he stumbled upon Machu Picchu. With the joint support of Yale and the National Geographic Society, Bingham returned twice to conduct archeological digs in Peru. In 1912, he and his team excavated Machu Picchu and shipped nearly 5,000 artifacts back to Yale. Two years later, he staged a final expedition to explore sites near Machu Picchu in the Sacred Valley. Full Article from The New York Times 5 / 5 Review by press. Have you been here? Why not add your own review. |
Photo by mikelyvers
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