Machu Picchu
Amazing views and interesting history. This "Lost city of Incas" is maybe one of the worlds best known historical sites. And there's a reason for it, no one can visit Machu Picchu saying it didn't impress them. Sit down and think how the place has looked 500 years ago when everything was colorful, houses had roofs and people walked on the streets. Machu Picchu is 400 meters above the village of Aguas Calientes where the train from Cuzco arrives. If you spend the night there you can head to Machu Picchu early in the morning to catch the sunrise and have the ancient city almost all yours. During day the place might get crowded with groups of tourist. Walk up from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu is doable but then you wont have much energy left to walk around the site, so better to take the thrilling bus ride to the top. Machu Picchu is located at an elevation of about 2,350 m (7,710 ft).
The site is probably the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire, due to its unique location, its geological features, and its late discovery in 1911. Since 1983 the site has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has been the subject of concerns about damage caused by tourism.
It is thought the city was built by the Sapa Inca Pachacuti, starting in about 1440, and was inhabited until the Spanish conquest of Peru in 1532. Archeological evidence (together with recent work on early colonial documents) shows that Machu Picchu was not a conventional city, but a country retreat town for Inca nobility (similar to the Roman villas). The site has a large palace and temples to Inca deities around a courtyard, with other buildings for support staff. It is estimated that a maximum of only about 750 people resided in Machu Picchu at any one time, and probably only a small fraction of that number lived in the town during the rainy season and when none of the nobility were visiting.
It is thought that the site was chosen for its unique location and geological features. It is said that the silhouette of the mountain range behind Machu Picchu represents the face of the Inca looking upward towards the sky, with the largest peak, Huayna Picchu (meaning Young Mountain), representing his nose.
In 1913, the site received significant publicity after the National Geographic Society devoted their entire April 1913 issue to Machu Picchu. The Intihuatana ("tie the sun") is believed to have been designed as an astronomic clock by the Incas, while some have speculated about the site's possible astrological role
In 2003, some 400,000 people visited Machu Picchu, and UNESCO has expressed concern about the damage this volume of tourism is causing to the site. Peruvian authorities insist that there is no problem, and that the remoteness of the site will impose natural limits on tourism. Periodically, proposals are made to install a cable car to the site, but such proposals have so far always been rejected.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Machu Picchu".