August 18th /2011
I ended up at Machu Picchu fully expecting to be disappointed. Didn´t happen! Even with the crowds it would be hard to remain cynical and you can only wonder at the skill and tenacity of those involved in building this site. Easy to see why the Spanish never found it tucked as it is so high and off the beaten track. American Hiram Bingham stumbled across it in 1911 while seeking the lost city of the Incas. A campesino family using the site for farming led him up the summit. It was only after an exhaustive search for the last Inca hideout (which he found but didn`t realize at Vicabamba) that he returned here and let the world know of his rediscovery of the site through a National Geographic article. His later book published after WW11 made him famous and he is considered the template for the Indiana Jones character. We lucked out with clear weather and a brillant morning to look around the site . Miguel our guide spent three hours with us and gave us all the prevailing theories. I found that about four hours was enough and the girls concurred so we headed down and caught our train riding through the stunning Urabamba canyon that hides the site on a train back to Cusco arriving late in the evening. The next day was hectic and sad as the girls head back down to the coast via Nazca and then on home to Toronto for a visit before returning to their home on Interlude in Guatemala.