Machu Picchu
The City Hanged from the clouds
The South America's best and most spectacular archaeological site, popularly known as The Lost City of the Incas. Although Machu Picchu was known to a handful of Quechua peasants who farmed the area, the out side world was unaware of its existence until the American historian Hiram Bingham stumbled on it almost by accident on July 24, 1911.
Bingham's
search was for the lost city of Vilcabamba,
the last stronghold of the Incas, and at Machu picchu,
he thought he had found it. We know now that the remote and inaccessible ruins
of Espiritu Pampa, much deeper in the jungle,
are the remains of Vilcabamba.
Machu Picchu remains a mysterious site, never revealed to the conquering Spaniards and virtually forgotten until the early part of this century.
The site discovered in
1911 was very different from the one today. All buildings were thickly overgrown
with vegetation, and Bingham's
team had to be content with roughly mapping the site. Bingham returned in 1912 and 1915 to carry out the difficult task of
cleaning the thick forest from the ruins, and he also discovered some of the
ruins of the Inca Trail and made further studies.
The Cuzco-Machu Picchu train. The town at the base of Machu-Picchu
On the way up to the ruins from train station