Machu Picchu - an Inca Sacred Place in the Andean Mountains of Peru

Third place in the he 2011 Travelers’ Choice World Destinations was awarded to Machu Picchu in Peru.

 

Machu Picchu has been preserved under dense vegetation for roughly 500 years and is now open to visitors. Considered to be the most magical city of the World with a wonderful panorama, Machu Picchu attracts thousands of hikers, adventurers, archaeologists, photographers, backpackers and families every day!

About 500 years ago the Spanish conquistadores, lead by Francisco Pizarro, had raided, burned and demolished Inca cities, but thanks to its remoteness, Machu Picchu had remained undiscovered, thus untouched. Officially Machu Picchu was discovered in 1911 by American explorer-historian Hiram Bingham. Since then it has become the World-wide renowned mystery travel destination that we know today.

In 2007 Machu Picchu was voted one of the "New 7 Wonders of the World".

The wonderful Inca city was strategically built 2.450 m high in the Peruvian Andes. The Urubamba Valley in which the Vilcanota River flows partially surrounds the "Old Peak" on which the ruins are located.

For many photographers visiting Machu Picchu is a dream come true... Wonderful photos can be taken by skilled photographers if the weather is clear. Visiting Machu Picchu is possible by hiking in the Andean Mountains along the Inca Trail or by combining train and bus transportation all the way up to the site.

We can only admire the Incas for what they did... They literally flattened the top of a high mountain to build a city comprising of hundreds of buildings with an agricultural production area, irrigation system and other facilities. The rock cutting and shaping, the dry stone techniques (assembling huge bricks without mortar) used for constructing the buildings of Machu Picchu are still a mystery and only speculations exist about how this could have been done. Believe it: many of those stone components are still strongly stuck together, you couldn't put a paper between them!

Several temples, fountains, a jail and a rock quarry (where they extracted the construction materials), a flat area known as "The Main Square"  and an irrigation system that still functions today are located in the Urban Sector, which is right near the agricultural terrace-filled so-called Agricultural Sector where crops were produced for ensuring food.

There even are buildings on top of the high steep mountain called Huayna Picchu ("Young Peak"), which you can see on most photos of Machu Picchu. Visitors can climb up there and get a complete view over Machu Picchu below.

The buildings of Machu Picchu had soft rooftops which had perished forever... But this way one can clearly see the scheme according to which the city was built. It is well structured, organized. The rich lived in one area, the poor or ordinary people in another district.

Most seasoned travelers agree that Machu Picchu in Peru is the world's most dramatic ruins. It sits boldly perched on a steep sided mountain saddle far above the partially encircling Urubamba River gorge.

What remains of the precision stonework of the pre-Colombian Inca temples and palaces clearly reveals how exalted Machu Picchu was in its glory days.