Machu Picchu, Peru

   Beautiful Machu Picchu!

 

The name Machu Picchu means “old peak”. This beautiful place is located 2,430 meter above the sea level. Cusco region in South America is the place where Machu Picchu is located. Machu Picchu is standing on the Urubamba Valley’s mountain ring. This place is 80 KM northwest from Cusco. And Urubamba River flows through this path. The Inca Emperor’s name was Pachacuti. Most of the people and archeologists consider that it was the estate of the emperor. This is a representation of Inca Civilization and also called “The City of Incas.

In 1911 American Historian Hiram Bingham brought this beautiful architecture to people’s eye, before that the outside world was unknown about this place. Since then it’s a tourists’ favorite destination for visiting. And from then on it’s been trying to restore all the work for restoration. 30% of the work was restored by 1976. The restoration work is still going on.

It is one of the seven wonders and also a world heritage site. This cultural Inca style artwork is built with dry stone wall. It consists of Intihuatana, The room of the three windows and The Temple of the sun. Machu Picchu still suffers from the natural disasters and also for the visit of tons of tourists. The Incas showed their knowledge of architecture in building Machu Picchu though Incas didn’t use this sort of style building their important structure. It’s still a mystery that how they moved the huge blocks of stones their but some knobs in stones describes one or two method they might have used. The walls can be moved a bit without collapsing because of the style of the architectural style. The doors have enough details on how to refrain from natural phenomena like earthquakes.

Incas also build a road to region of Machu Picchu. Thousands of people come and walk through the Inca Trail for visiting Machu Picchu every year. It is 104 Km to Machu Picchu from Cusco. It’s around a two day journey each way. In 2010 January due to heavy rain more than 2000 locals and tourists were trapped in Machu Picchu as all the roads and railway were under water. Later they were rescued with the help of airlift. It was temporarily closed till 1^st April, 2010.

As it is a UNESCO world heritage site since 1911, a lot of tourists come to visit this place. There were plans to build luxurious hotels, tourist complex, restaurant and even a bridge. But this idea was protested by most of the locals and scientists as this architectural piece is already in danger and these plans will put an unbearable burden on this area. There were some works done also to make a helicopter landing place. But later on that was also cancelled as it was too much for this beauty to take in. UNESCO is considering this place to put in list of “World heritage in Danger”. There are restrictions in the entrance that how many people can be in there per day at a time due to the vulnerability of the place. Daily utmost 2500 visitors and in the through Huayana Picchu only 400 visitor restricted.

So, there are two ways to reach Machu Picchu- one is by hiking and the other by railway from Ollantaytambo or Cuzco. There are days and overnighting trips depending on when you want to visit. Early in the day gives you the opportunity to enjoy the view in fewer crowds. The dry season in Peru is in between June-August. So it’s best to visit the place during this period but it has to be considered too that crowd will be more at this period of time. During February the Inca trail remains closed because of the height of the rain. To get the entrance one must have a bust ticket which costs around $17 for round trip for foreigners, and a ticket for Machu Picchu which can be get in advance from Here in the original site of Machu Picchu. 

Many treasures were found in Machu Picchu such as- vessels, jewelry Silver statues and human bones as well. Some of the treasures are in Yale University of United States for research. Machu Picchu and the Cusco region can be seen in different movies and songs such as – Secret of the Incas, The motorbike diaries, Ghosts of Machu Picchu, Beastly, Monte Carlo and many more.