Machu Picchu

Hola Amigos! Hello Friends!

Que tal? This is a special blog entry for two reasons. First, it is all about our visit to Machu Picchu, one of the most famous places in the world! Secondly, it will be my last blog entry as Nathan and I only have a few weeks left of our trip. Even though our plan was to travel through Central America and Mexico, we decided we just didn't have enough time. Besides, there is so much to see here in Peru that we don't want to rush.

Have you ever heard of Machu Picchu? If you don't recognize the name, the pictures might look familiar to you. Machu Picchu is an ancient Incan city that was built high on a mountain in southern Peru around the middle of the 15th century. It is sometimes called "The Lost City of the Incas" because it wasn't known to the rest of the world until the early 19th century. Archaeologists believe that the Incans only inhabited the site for a hundred years or so, then abondoned it during the Spanish conquest. However, the Spanish never found out about the site so it was never plundered or destroyed. For this reason one can still see many of the original structures.
There are records of people discovering and visiting the site in the late 1800's and early 1900's. By then it was very overgrown with jungle vegetation. Local people knew of the site for years, but it wasn't until an archaeologist named Hiram Bingham was led to it by a native Quechua boy that the rest of the world found out about it. Bingham did a lot of research and published books about the site. This helped turn it into one of the most famous Incan sites in the world and now thousands of people visit the ruins every year. This is the entrance gate to the city.

The buildings themselves have been restored and now visitors can see the incredible stone work the Incas used in creating their structures. The stone blocks of their temples and royal palaces are so well worked that they fit together exactly, with no gaps. This was all done with simple hand tools! This is an example of the tight fitting walls of a temple, but the land has settled since construction so you can see some spaces between the bricks now.

The city was built between two mountains, Huayna Picchu (meaning "young mountain" in Quechua) and Machu Picchu (meaning "old mountain", and the mountain for which the city was named). These mountains were sacred to the Incas and they constructed the peaks of roofs to be in line with them. Huayna Picchu is the most well known of the mountains and is the one you see in most images of the site.

To the Incans, the sun was a very important part of their religion. They believed the sun was a god which was responsible for creation. They also used the sun to develop a calendar year and keep track the days of their year. This stone, called the Intihuatana Stone, was carved and aligned so that it points directly at the sun on the winter solstice, the longest day of the year. It also casts no shadow at midday on the spring and fall equinoxes. This position with the sun helped the Incans determine the days of the year.

One can also see large agricultural terraces at Machu Pichhu and today there are still llamas and alpacas grazing on the slopes.

It was really a special opportunity for us to have been able to visit the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu. It has also been a wonderful experience for us to travel through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru, learning about their cultures and visiting so many amazing landscapes. I have had so much fun sharing these experiences with you all, and I hope you have had as much fun reading about them. Hopefully you have learned a few things, too! We are excited to return home, however, and see all of our friends and family. Maybe I will get to visit you as well and share more stories of our adventures!