monday, november 06, 2006
Machu Picchu
Living in Peru, you never stop hearing about Machu Picchu. Particularly as an expatriate since every gringo passing through town typically stops just long enough to buy a chullo before zipping off to Cusco.My intention was to go see this famed "lost city" of the Incas during the off-season,when the number of tourists was at a minimim. That's when the costs are a bit more reasonable and there is an outside chance of enjoying the place with a modicum of solitude.
No such luck. I ended up in Cusco for a few days at the tail end of July, during what is, by far, the absolute worst two weeks to be there. Not only is that the peak time for international tourists, it's also the weekend before the Peruvian independence day so there were a ton of in-country visitors as well.
So, when I finally made it up to the entrance gates it was everything I feared. The site gets a maximum of about 2,000 visitors on busy days... and it was clearly a busy day.
And it didn't matter one bit. The place simply blew me away.
The Incas built Machu Picchu to impress and everything about it - the design, the layout, the surroundings - works to overwhelm you and suceeds. Every superlative anyone ever used to describe it to you was an understatement.
Yet, very often the mysterious splendor of the place overshadows the incredible engineering achivement Machu Picchu represents. In an effort to address that, the American Society of Civil Engineers has named the site (as well as the remnants of the nearby Incan city of Tipon) to their Designated Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks program.
You can read about the honor in my story, ASCE Designates Incan Sites As Engineering Landmarks, on the Engineering News-Record webpage. As part of that reporting, I assembled my photographs from the site into a slideshow with a brief narration.
| comment posted by: spit on november 6, 2006 @ 11:44 pm |
that photo is stunning! |
| comment posted by: Sebastian on november 7, 2006 @ 4:47 am |
I tell people to see it before they die. I went at 12 or 13, I think. I was sick in bed with altitude sickness for three days along with my sister in Cusco until we got to the lower altitudes of Machu Picchu. Hord to describe being up in the heavens like that. |
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