Machupiccu, Holiday Retreat of Inka Kings

Apparently no traveler's bucket list is complete without Machupiccu and it is certainly spectacular.

My! That's a long way down.

This is what I think of as the iconic view.  As you can see
there was a bit of cloud and mist during our visit.

We stay a couple of days in the nearby town of Aguas Calientes and spend several hours in the beautifully curated "Museo de Situ"  This museum does not allow photography, but each case is clearly labeled in Spanish and English showing when and where the artifacts were found as well as details about the item like the age, presumed use, material and significance to the culture.  

We had this one taken to prove we finally made it to the
holy grail for South American travelers.

The powers that regulate tourism in Peru have figured out how to make the most of this national treasure.  Therefore it takes quite a bit of time and money to get there.  Our travels outside of the Cusco/Machupiccu area have been bare bones or shoestring tourism, but Machupiccu is the exception.  Many travelers rush through the area so fast that they spend six or eight hours on the train and on the road on the same day they spend two hours actually exploring the site. We are fortunate that our timetable is more flexible.

The site is accessed from Aguas Calientes in the river valley by taking a bus up a short bad road to the gate.  At this point we are not very high by local standards, but we must be 2,000 ft above the river and the drop is very steep on two sides.  For those of us with acrophobia the thrill is enhanced by the view to the valley below.

In some historic sites in Peru "huacheros" or grave robbers did immeasurable damage before scientists and the government stepped in to protect the sites.  Part of the beauty of Machupiccu is that there was very little damage other than the natural decay of grass-thatch roofs and wooden roof beams.  The Inka culture peaked in the 1,400s and reportedly lasted about 100 years.  They extended their influence over other tribes in an area stretching a couple thousand miles from present-day Columbia to Chile.  These tribes paid taxes by providing workers for Inka roads and towns.  Without hard metal tools, the workers chipped away at softer rock using chunks of harder rock and developed a unique way of fitting the stones together without mortar which proved highly resistant to the earthquakes common in the Andes.

No straight horizontal lines to be found here.  There is much
we don't understand about how they could achieve so fine a
fit between adjacent stones with crude tools.

This is an altar-type structure, one of several.  Some had calendar
and astronomy related functions: alignment with the sun on winter
solstice and so on, but information we found was not too clear.
It is clear that this is  a restoration with poorly fitted joints.

This example shows the well-preserved condition of many
buildings at Machupiccu.