Machu Picchu in Peru

An Agence France-Presse dispatch from Lisbon, Portugal says that nearly 100 million Internet and telephone voters selected the new seven wonders of the world. One of these is the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru.

High in the Peruvian Andes, the citadel of Machu Picchu appears suspended in mountain mists. Perched precariously on a rocky outcrop with huge drops either side, this city of a long-dead race eluded discovery until the 20th century, some 400 years after its downfall. Travel records indicated that today, a traveler in Peru can make the 60-mile or 96-kilometer journey from the city of Cuzco to Machu Picchu in just a few hours by train and bus.

Historical records reveal that in 1911, the American historian and archaeologist Hiram Bingham toiled for five days along the valley of the River Urubamba before reaching now famous ruins. He believed that he had discovered the Inca stronghold of Vilcabamba - a city that had been razed to the ground during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1572. Bingham's party chanced upon Machu Picchu largely by luck. They had made camp in a river canyon where they met a farmer who told them of the remains of an ancient city on a nearby mountain called Machu Picchu ('old peak'). Although skeptical, the next day Bingham and his party followed the farmer up the mountain through dense jungle. Near the top, 2,000 feet (610 meters) above the valley floor, they came across a stone-faced terrace hundreds of yards long and, beyond it, walls of pure white blocks of granite, covered in thick vegetation but remarkable nonetheless for their exquisite workmanship. Bingham's party found Machu Picchu to be an extraordinary place, "not least because the people who built it did not possess iron tools, draught animals or, indeed, the wheel." [Read Full Article]