Machu Picchu, Lost City of the Incas

Led by a local lad, American explorer Hiram Bingham first set eyes on Machu Picchu in 1911, an exhilarating moment still shared today by the daily quota of 21st century visitors. Some arrive on foot on the old Inca trail, others by special bus from the valley but all are equally awestruck when the city is finally revealed in its splendid isolation.

At over 8000 feet, high above the roaring Urubamba river, Machu Picchu sits on a saddle in jungle-clad mountains, enclosed by cliffs plunging 1500 feet into a precipitous gorge and in the distance, the glistening ridges and glaciers of the High Andes. The city was built in the 15th century, most likely for Pachacutec, the greatest of all Inca emperors, but mysteriously abandoned within a hundred years. Fortunately the Spanish invaders never discovered it and framed by its green iconic peaks, it was preserved, now a UNESCO site for posterity. It’s a steep climb up Huayna, the main peak, but even if you don’t reach the top, the view is stunning, mountains rising all around and the lost city spreading at your feet, outlined like an Andean condor.

Imagine over 100 flights of steps, a festival square, farming terraces cut into the slopes, irrigated by sacred springs, and 140 Inca buildings with dry stone walls, rounded corners and tapering frames designed to withstand earthquakes. There were royal and sacred grounds and residential quarters, home to potters, stone masons and weavers. All worked for the nobility and their priests in exchange for protection in this world and the next.

The sun is blisteringly hot, the path rough and the steps high but wandering through the maze of alleyways is full of wonders; here the watchman’s hut at the highest point, there the sacred stone, shaped like the mountain behind it to draw positive energy, the Temple of the Condor where rocks are carved like the bird in full flight or the House of the Mortars where small basins were filled with water to catch the stars. You can explore the ruins of the Royal Palace, protected by a 30 tonne door, the Princess House, the Main Temple with a small stone chiselled with 32 angles (though no one knows why) and the Temple of the Three Windows symbolising the three worlds of Andean cosmology.

The Incas worshipped many gods – mountains, lightning, rainbow, earth, moon – but most important to them was the Sun God, at the heart of farming cycles and religious rituals. The Temple of the Sun has a semi-circular tower where on the solstice, the first rays of the sun are in perfect alignment with the altar. It’s no wonder Machu Picchu has a special aura in the early morning when there’s time to sit and stare and only the dawn chorus disturbs the peace. It’s bitterly cold, crowds are few and as the peaks slowly creep out of the shadows, the ritual stone of Intihuatana begins to glow, marking the spot where on the shortest day of the year, the Incas would ‘tie up the sun’ for fear it may not come back. Llamas graze by the gate, orchids shed the morning dew and you can almost see the Virgins of the Sun shuffling along the old Inca walls.

By Solange Hando

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