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Machu Picchu

The Cordillera de Vilcabamba, the rugged heart of Peru that stretches 260 km northwest of Cusco, crisscrossed by deep gorges and festooned with waterfalls nearly a thousand feet high, has been the ultimate refuge of the Incas retreating from the Conquistadores. Into the safety of these cliffs and crags, on the eastern slope of the Vilcabamba Range, the great Inca emperor Pachacuti had built a summer retreat at Machu Picchu. Immersed in the cloud forest and invisible from below, the place was so inaccessible that remained forgotten for 400 years after the end of the Inca reign.
The archaeological group of Machu Picchu, at a height of 2,350 masl, is in a fantastic location, the city perches like a saddle on a narrow ridge between two sharp peaks, in south the Machu Picchu (Old Mountain) and north the lower Huayna Picchu (Young Mountain), with a sheer 400 meter cliff side of the Urubamba (or Vilcanota) canyon where the river roars in a tight hairpin bend around the site, trapped in a green canyon. Steep forested hills rise all around Machu Picchu, and its mystery is heightened by ghostly wisps of low cloud that cling to these humid mountains.
The only way to get there is either trekking the Inca Trail (the Camino Inca) or by the famous train up to Aguas Calientes from where a bus run on the winding Hiram Bingham unpaved road.

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu, at a height of 2,350 masl, is in a fantastic location

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The ruins of Machu Picchu, rediscovered in 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, are one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world.
With no written records Machu Picchu is a citadel shrouded in mystery and little is known of the site. The spectacular setting, the drama of its discovery and Bingham’s melodramatic speculations have all contributed to the legend of a mysterious “the lost city of the Incas”. For nearly a century, exotic theories have been elaborated about its genesis, beginning with Bingham’s assertion that Machu Picchu was home to a cult of vestal virgins. Other hypothesis says that the city could have been utilized as an advance settlement for planned further expansions or as a secret sanctuary or a pilgrimage place.

Aguas Calientes

Aguas Calientes, now called Machu Picchu Pueblo

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From the style of the houses and temples it was probably built by Pachacuti Inca as a royal estate and religious retreat in 1460-70. When the Pizarros arrived in Cusco in 1532, Machu Picchu was probably already abandoned and forgotten with most of the population dead from war or epidemic. Once Machu Picchu was abandoned, it virtually disappeared. In 1536 after a failed siege of Cusco, Manco Inca, with remnants of the army, abandoned his headquarters at Ollantaytambo. Fleeing back into the remoteness of the Vilcabamba range beyond Machu Picchu, he burned and destroyed Inca settlements and sites accessible to the Spaniard. The trail to Machu Picchu was then definitely lost until its fortuitous discovery in the 1911.

Machu Picchu

one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world

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Today with all Inca sacred shrines razed or converted to churches, ritual plazas turned into market squares, the old Inca world has slipped away. The real attractiveness of Machu Picchu is the perfectly survived Inca citadel with its squares, houses, temples and the famous Intihuatana stone, the only surviving one after their systematic destruction made by the Spaniards.
But still the Incan legends are surviving, moulded into the shapes of ceramics, woven into the patterns of textiles. And nostalgia for Inca times still infuses Peruvian culture, and still nowadays, amid Machu Picchu’s ruins, villagers make offerings of coca leaves, cigarettes, liquor and cookies, gifts of prayer to the Gods of the Mountains.

Machu Picchu

From the style of the houses and temples it was probably built by Pachacuti Inca as a royal estate

This and more photographs can be found at:

Traveller Dreams

  Related Pages
  - Peru Stock Photography Index - Cities of Peru
  - Peru Stock Photography Index - The archaeological legacy
  - Peru Stock Photography Index - Incan Architecture
  - Peru Stock Photography Index - Colonial architecture
  - Peru Stock Photography Index - Natural Landscapes
  - Peru Stock Photography Index - Trekking and Hiking in Peru
  - Peru Stock Photography Index - Birdwatching
  - Peru Stock Photography Index - Culture & Traditions

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