Around the World in 180 Days with D and N: Machu Picchu

We visited Machu Picchu on Saturday, May 16. We'd planned to get up early and try to catch the sunrise at the site, but overslept. It didn't matter as the day was rather dreary and we wouldn't have seen the sun anyway, so we had a leisurely breakfast. Buses run continuously from the town up to the site, about a 25 minute trip up a very winding 1.7Km road. When the bus stopped, we were hustled by several persons offering guide servics. We hired Graciella, a very informative woman with good English, who offered a "slower-paced" experience! We presented our tickets and passports, and entered the ruins just as it started to rain. Graciella helped us into the cheap rain ponchos we'd fortunately picked up in the town, then led us to a covered area where she gave us background information on the site, illustrating her points by drawing maps and sketches. After about 20 minutes the rain abated and we continued into the area for another three and a half-hours of climbing up and down on rather slippery steps. Graciella and some other kind tourists took pity on us and offered helping hands and arms to facilitate our progress.

Mystery surrounds the exact functions of the Machu Picchu citadel. It was originally thought to have religious, political and administrative functions, but recent scholarly conjectures suggest it was built as a royal summer estate for Pachacutec, the Inca ruler who conquered an area from current day Ecuador to Northern Chile. Construction began around 1450 A.D. and continued for at least 50 years, guided by his descendents. At the time of the Spanish conquest construction was still ongoing. The Spanish never discovered Machu Picchu, and it remained unknown except to local inhabitants until American historian Hiram Bingham accidentally stumbled upon it in 1911. Bingham and others undertook the clearing of the area along with archaeological excavations. There are interesting photos and exhibits of Bingham and his helpers at a really good museum at the foot of the site which we visited the next morning.

Machu Picchu is an engineering and hydrological marvel. The walls are of polished stone fitted to stone, with no mortar in between. The site had to be leveled before construction could begin and a drainage system was developed to keep the inhabited areas dry and provide irrigation for the agricultural terraces on which coca, potatoes and corn were grown.

We spent a little over four hours at the site, then had a late lunch at the Sanctuary, the only hotel actually situated next to the entrance. This was the third "lost" and rediscovered city we've seen, the others being the Angor ruins in Cambodia and Petra in Jordan. With our advancing ages, it may be the last one.