We perched on a terrace overhanging a sheer 1,000ft drop of rock and stone, surrounded by brooding mountains swathed in mist and cloud, and waited for dawn. Through the cloudburst, the first sunrays hit the ice-laden peaks in a fiery orange and descended from the cliffs to the foggy ruins, illuminating one stone building and one terraced garden at a time. The sight was so stunning that it moved some to tears, others to gasps of wonder. I just forgot to breathe.
Peru’s Taj: Machu Picchu is also known as “The Lost City of the Incas”Sunrise at Machu Picchu is a memory I will hold on to till I am a very old woman. After years of scrutinizing pictures of the ruins, I had finally made it to the lost city of the Incas. The city that was created and used and abandoned, all within a space of 100 years. The city that the marauding Spaniards never found, even as they laid to waste the rest of the Inca empire in the mid-16th century. The city that was discovered in a remarkable state of preservation less than 100 years ago. The city that a poverty-wracked Peru is not equipped to protect, but desperately needs to, mainly from itself.
At one of the site’s most significant sacred stone structures, the Intihuatana, or the “hitching post of the sun”, our guide traced his finger along a long, thin crack that ran down the chipped stone. Resembling the Shiva lingam, this stone straddles the bridge between the two mountain peaks of Machu Picchu (old peak) and Wayna Picchu (young peak) and aligns perfectly with the sun on the two equinoxes in March and September.
“The Instituto Nacional de Cultura (INC), in charge of Peru’s national heritage, allowed an ad agency to film a beer commercial at the site,” he said, naming the government arm entrusted with safeguarding Machu Picchu. During the shoot in 2000, a crane smashed into the post and damaged the stone. The incident triggered a nationwide uproar that led to the site being sealed off and ended with the crane operator being sentenced to six years in jail. “Every day I see broken stone, every day I feel sad,” the guide said.
Despite all the controversies surrounding the 5 sq. miles (approx. 8km) that make up the ruins, Machu Picchu continues to dominate tourism in South America. Now ensconced among the new seven wonders of the world—during my visit, Peruvians across the country were accosting tourists to urge them to vote for the sight they’d come to see—it recently hit the headlines again after National Geographic named the Salkantey-Machu Picchu trail among the 25 best new trips for 2008.
While the four-day Inca trail, used by 500 people every day, offers the easiest access to the ruins, the seven-day Salkantey route sees just 30 hikers daily, according to National Geographic, describing it as the savvy traveller’s alternative to the beaten path.


Source :- niagara-gazette