Machu Picchu

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In January and February, we took an inland trip to Peru and Ecuador, and the highlight of the trip was to South America's top tourist destination, Machu Picchu. Despite altitude sickness which kept Debby in bed for three days in Cusco, once she adjusted to the height (3,500 meters), and almost non-stop rain, we found the site well worth the high price. We took the bus trip up to the site early in the morning in a steady drizzle, expecting to wear our rain gear all day, but the sun came out after about an hour.

Machu Picchu has been restored to such a genuine site that we almost expected to hear the patter of Inca feet around the next corner as we scrambled over rocks and walked the site. They keep alpacas on the site to add to the authenticity of it. Nestled high in the Andes Mountains, the slopes of the surrounding mountains are so steep that it is not surprising that it was lost until the 1880s and not explored or mapped until 1911 by the American Hiram Bingham, swallowed up by the jungle for four centuries. One story has it that some of the Incas fled to Machu Picchu to escape the Spaniards during their subjugation of the local population and were never found.

Machu Picchu (the name means "Old Peaks" in the Inca language Quechua) was begun about 1400, and was still under construction at the time it was abandoned in the 1500s, in the wake of the Spanish conquest of the Inca empire for gold and other precious metals, and the enslavement of the Incas to mine it. The construction of the walls is to such a precision fit that mortar or other adhesive was used. Farmland was terraced on the mountain slopes. The site includes temples, schools, an astronomical observatory, and houses for about 500 - 700 inhabitants.