Machu Picchu, the Mysterious Incan City of Long Ago - Time Out #339

So, so, so many incredible places to visit across planet earth!

My wonderful bride, Lady Deborah, and I have been SO fortunate to have seen many of them in our 40-plus years of marital bliss. In this week's installment, I will discuss our adventure experiencing certainly one of the most spectacular places, Peru's Machu Picchu. This 15th century Inca-civilization citadel is located high (7,970-feet) in the beautiful Andes Mountains of southern Peru. It is truly a masterpiece of history and Mother Nature, all rolled together in an isolated location. During a 2007 worldwide Internet poll, Machu Picchu, deservingly, was named one of the "New 7 Wonders of the World", This destination marked the 4th one my bride and I have visited. The last 3 weeks, I have discussed the other 3 we have seen, Mexico's Chichen Itza, Italy's Colosseum, and China's Great Wall. The final 3 we have not visited yet are India's Taj Mahal, Jordan's Petra, and Brazil's Christ the Redeemer. Yes, we plan to see them all in due course!

Our travel company to Machu Pichu was Lindblad Expeditions, a highly recommended vendor with first-class guided tours operated around the world. We had used them several years previously, when we took a weeklong, small ocean vessel, and saw much of Costa Rica's Pacific Coast. Our Peru excursion was also weeklong, and we flew in/out of Peru's capital and largest city, Lima. Lima is a Pacific Coastal city, and is very interesting in its own right. We spent some time there seeing various attractions both before and after our intercountry flights to Cusco, Peru, the gateway city to Machu Picchu. As I stated earlier, Lindblad, affiliated with the famous National Geographic Society, operates a highly-efficient, classy operation. They provide excellent customer service, and are geared to fully-educating their traveling guests in every aspect of their tours. We stayed in beautiful hotels, ate delicious regional foods and had great native guides.

Machu Picchu is 50 miles northwest of Cusco. Travelers reach the "Old Mountain" (a name sometime used for Machu Picchu) by either hiking 1 to 5 days over the historic Inca Trail, or taking the tourist train in the mornings. Since Cusco's elevation is 11,200-feet, up-scale Lindblad uses the train, and, of course, we did, too! The unique train ends in the tourist town of Machu Picchu, located at the base of the mountain, with the ancient Inca city on the summit. The next mode of transportation to get tourists to the site is a bus. What a passenger experience that is, driving on a steep, switchback rock-filled, narrow road to the top of the mountain! That particular evening, our Lindblad traveling party (35), mostly composed of Americans, Brits, and Aussies, overnighted in the only hotel on-site, and just a few hundred feet from the main entrance to the ruins, the lovely Sanctuary Lodge. Because we stayed there, we were able to tour the iconic site twice, that afternoon and the next morning, a huge advantage over most visitors to Machu Picchu.

By way of recent scientific radiocarbon dating, it is thought Machu Picchu was occupied by the Inca's from 1420-1532. It is also thought it was abandoned after a little over a century of use, due to the Spanish conquest of the area. It is built in the Inca style, classic polished, dry stone walls, placed firmly together without mortar. An estimated 750 people lived there, and they constructed approximately 200 buildings. The historical site was uncovered from extensive jungle overgrowth in 1911, when American explorer, Hiram Bingham III, began excavating the previously abandoned citadel that had been forgotten for almost 400 years. Before the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, there were about 1.4 million tourists per year. The Peruvian government has been actively involved in attempting to soften the environmental impact of this fragile place with the ever-increasing number of visitors.

The incredible views of Machu Picchu during the time we were there, were so memorable. We tried to capture the moments with our cameras, and certainly took many photographs. As you may gather from this story, it takes considerable human effort to get to Machu Picchu, but it is SO worth it! As this almost 2-year pandemic fades into our historical rear-view mirror, please try to visit this world-famous place. Remember, it is SO worth it, folks.