If you have only one chance to visit South America, and only one country, and only one sacred/ historical site– make it Machu Picchu in Peru. It has to be one of the most magical places on the planet.

Unfortunately, the World Monuments Fund had to place Machu Picchu on its 2008 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world because of environmental degradation resulting from the impact of tourism, uncontrolled development in the nearby town of Aguas Calientes, and the construction of a bridge across the Vilcanota River that is likely to bring even more tourists.

Machu Picchu was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1983 when it was described as ‘an absolute masterpiece of architecture and a unique testimony to the Inca civilization’. On July 7, 2007, Machu Picchu was voted as one of New Open World Corporation’s New Seven Wonders of the World.

Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian Inca site located 2,430 metres (8,000 feet) above sea level, in the middle of a tropical mountain forest, in an extraordinarily beautiful setting. It was probably the most amazing urban creation of the Inca Empire at its height; its giant walls, terraces and ramps seem as if they have been cut naturally in the continuous rock escarpments.

Huge strategically-placed stones have been cut to parallel the shapes of the mountains behind them. Ten days walk, I am told, through the mountains and jungle will bring me back to Iquitos and the Amazon River.

Frequent buses from the town of Aguas Calientes will carry you to the top of the mountain where Machu Picchu is well hidden. If you are devil-may-care, you will enjoy the bus as it careens around ever-deepening dropoffs to the Urubamba river valley below. Otherwise, close your eyes til you arrive.

Or if you are hardy and fit, you can join the tens of thousands of tourists who walk the Inca Trail to visit Machu Picchu each year, acclimatising at Cusco before starting on a two-to four-day journey on foot from the Urubamba valley up through the Andes mountain range to the isolated city.

Often referred to as ‘The Lost City of the Incas’, Machu Picchu is one of the most familiar symbols of the Inca Empire and is considered a sacred place. The Incas started building it around AD 1430, but it was abandoned for unknown reasons by the Inca rulers a hundred years later, at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Over the centuries, the surrounding jungle grew over much of the site, and few knew of its existence.

On July 24, 1911, Machu Picchu was brought to the attention of scholars by Hiram Bingham, an American historian employed as a lecturer at Yale University. Bingham was led up to Machu Picchu by a local 11 year old Quechua boy named Pablito Alvarez.

Bingham undertook archaeological studies and completed a survey of the area. Bingham coined the name ‘The Lost City of the Incas’, which was the title of his first book. The site received significant publicity after the National Geographic Society devoted their entire April 1913 issue to Machu Picchu. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction.

Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its primary buildings are the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. These are located in what is known by archaeologists as the Sacred District of Machu Picchu.

In September 2007, Peru and Yale University reached an agreement regarding the return of artifacts which Hiram Bingham had removed from Machu Picchu in the early twentieth century.

Theories about why Machu Picchu was built
No one knows definitely how the Incas used Machu Picchu, which was constructed at the height of the Inca Empire. One theory proposed by Hiram Bingham, is that it was the traditional birthplace of the Inca ‘Virgins of the Sun’.

Another theory maintains that Machu Picchu was an Inca ‘llaqta’, a settlement built to control the economy of these conquered regions. Yet another asserts that it may have been built as a prison for a select few who had committed heinous crimes against Inca society.

Research conducted by scholars, such as John Rowe and Richard Burger, has convinced most archaeologists that Machu Picchu was an estate of the Inca emperor, Pachacuti.

Another theory is that it is an agricultural testing station, the purpose of which was to test different types of crops in the many different micro-climates afforded by the location and the terraces, which were not enough to grow food on a large scale, as much to determine what could grow where.

I am partial to the theory of Johan Reinhard, who among others, presented evidence that the site was selected because of its position relative to sacred landscape features, such as its mountains, which are considered to be gods, and are aligned with key astronomical events that would have been important to the Incas.

For instance, on the winter solstice (June 21st) the sun passes into the window of the Temple of the Sun, much as in Newgrange in the northern hemisphere winter solstice.

The central buildings of Machu Picchu use the classical Inca architectural style of polished dry-stone walls of regular shape. The Incas were masters of this technique, called ashlar, in which blocks of stone are cut to fit together tightly without mortar (see below). The Incas were among the best stone masons the world has seen, and many junctions in the central city are so perfect that not even a blade of grass fits between the stones. Their buildings were highly earthquake-resistant, too.

Whether you arrive by bus or on foot, a visit to Machu Picchu is well worth a visit. But please- visit carefully, so that this magical place will be there for generations to come.