MACHU
PICCHU
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Machu Picchu sits on its saddle,
so remote you wonder how Hiram Bingham ever stumbled
across it nearly one hundred years ago now. The
geography of roaring rivers, precipitous cliffs
and dense cloudforest all connived to keep the ruins
a secret for so long.
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A secret they are no longer. 50,000
visit the ruins in the month of August alone. Over 1,500
a day. The Lost City of the Incas in anything but lost.
This visitor was
most surprised by the natural setting of the famous
ruins. We've all seen the photo. The
one with the ruins in the foreground and the knuckle
of Huayna Picchu rising behind. Perhaps you've
seen one on a clear day, when the mountains behind
Huayna are clear of cloud. But no photo can convey
the stunning natural panorama which cups the ruins.
On three cardinal points, vertiginous green cliffs
rise and fall. As clouds play hide and seek, the
peaks seem to shuffle and re-arrange, chesspieces
playing when your back's turned. The interlocking
valleys embrace each other, growing fainter as
they pulse into the distance. Thousands of feet
of rock sheer down to the brick-orange tumult
of the Urubamba river below. Even the river is
a revelation. It truly coils its way around the
hill upon which the ruins roost, the sound of
its roar rising up between the mossy, military
green hills.
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