Machu Picchu was easily the best place we visited on the entire trip. We spent 10 hours just walking around the site and taking photos and chatting with other people there. Photos just don’t do it justice. I could fill your brain with history of the site, but you could google it yourself. We poached some info from the guided tours, and learned quite a bit of stuff. Here’s your few facts:
Hiram Bingham III discovered the site in 1911. The switchback highway that you have to take to get to the site (if you don’t do the Inca Trail) is called the Hiram Bingham highway. You can only wonder what state Machu Picchu was like when he arrived almost 100 years ago.
I bet Llamas weren’t at the entrance to greet his expedition team!
There is a carved rock sundial in Machu Picchu–the Intihuatana. The Quechua name translates as “hitching post of the sun.” If you measure the angles of the Intihuatana they are 13 degrees. FYI: Machu Picchu is 13 degrees from the equator.
The sundial measures solstices and equinoxes accurately. Not that atypical of a sundial, but it proves that the Incans had intricate knowledge of the solar system. The dial is also aligned perfectly north, and a magnetic compass when held to the stone will go all wacky as the rock is magnetized. Intihuatana is one of the only sun dials still existing from Incan times. Spanish conquistadors destroyed all symbols of Incan religion. Luckily they didn’t find Machu Picchu.
The site is extremely organized; it would have been an efficient little city. The people would have been completely self-contained with agricultural terraces growing enough food to feed the population of Machu Picchu. Buildings are believed to be homes, storage sites, prison cells, baths, and communal areas. All of them are built without mortar, and the stones are made to fit together perfectly. ps: Jon tells me that people were imprisoned for laziness.
The Temple of the Condor (left photo) is supposed to look like a condor in flight. The natural rock in the background looks like wings, and the rock in the foreground is carved to look like the head of a condor. Word is that the Incans used this site for sacrifices. Another interesting rock formation (right photo) was pointed out by some dude we ran into a few times. The rock was carved to look like the mountain range behind it.
Obviously we saw plenty of Llamas as we wandered, but that wasn’t all. There were little song birds flying everywhere, and so so so many little lizards! (Really, Spiny Whorltail Iguanas if you’d like to get technical and nerdy. Gotta love google!) One of the people we were talking to showed us a photo of a tarantula she’d just taken. We didn’t see any. She was super relieved that it was a tarantula she’d seen and not a lizard. Bizarre!
Everyone at the site seemed to really appreciate the experience. Usually there is at least one jackass story from every site we visit, but here, everyone was just well, normal if you will. People were really nice too, even suggesting to take photos for each other. Seriously, we must have taken 50 photos of other people and been offered just as many times.
We ran into Becky and Ryan, a couple we’d me at the hostel. We also ran into everyone we’d met on the train. Craig, Michael and Michael were still going–that’s them in the photo walking on the stairs. We ran into Andy and Angela for lunch. The three, Andy, Angela and Chad, had hiked to the site in the morning to watch the sunrise. All in all, one of the best days of the trip–an absolutely gorgeous setting, great weather, awesome people.
What more could you ask for?
~j