Day 2

Today was one heck of a day. I took the Hiram Bingham from Peru to a city near Machu Picchu and took the bus to Machu Picchu. When we got their I went out to explore. Machu Picchu is so beautiful, as you can see in the pictures. Constructed in 1462, most archeologists believe that Machu Picchu was an estate for the emperor Pachacuti. But then the people were wiped out by small pox. It was never touched by the Spanish when they came here. And it remained unnoticed until July 4, 1911 when it was brought to the attention of the scholars by Hiram Bingham who explored it and wrote about it in his book "The Lost City of the Incas". Ever since then it has been getting more famous by the decades.It was regarded so highly because of its architecture. While I was hiking there I visited its three districts: the Sacred District, the Popular District, and the District of the Priests and the Nobility. In the Sacred District I examined the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun and the Room of the Three Windows, three famous temples dedicated to Inti, the Incan sun god. I prowled around the Popular District with its many storage buildings and simple houses for the lower class people. And a splendor to behold was the District of the Priests and the Nobility. The houses of the higher class people were in a group going down the slopes of the mountain. Those houses included the reddish walled houses of the Amuatas or wise people and the zone of the Nustas(princesses).The Monumental Mausoleum is also in that District.It is a statue with a vaulted interior and carved drawings. It was used for sacrifices or rites. Almost all of these buildings were built without a mortar. Mostly they were built in the classical Inca architectural style of dry stone walls of regular shape with lots of Earthquake like trapezoidal doors and windows and L shaped tied around the corners of the structure. After a little more exploring I went back to the hotel on the next train. Machu Picchu is wonderful, that's what I have to say. Visit it, you don't know what you are missing.