After climbing into our van at 6:00 am to begin our journey across the Andes into the Cloud Forest and into the Amazon Basin, along the way, I reflected on our trip to Machu Picchu the previous day.
I was relieved that we had a reasonable start time because the Machu Picchu trip started at 3:40 am. This included a two-hour drive to Ollantaytambo, where we hopped a train for another two-hour ride through stone cliffs, towering cloud forests and two rushing rivers. The train stopped at Aguas Calientes where we were loaded on a bus for another half-hour drive to the base of Machu Picchu where we met our guide Anibal.
Over the years I have seen pictures of Machu Picchu. But you really cannot appreciate the site until you are standing there observing the size of the site and its location in and amongst the steep stone cliffs of the Andes. It is the very definition of remote.
Therefore, you must have to keep fait on the available scopes and cialis 40 mg check it out above all on you also.
As we toured the site, Anibal passionately filled us with a wealth of information most of which blew me away. The most amazing thought was that the site was constructed in approximately 100 years. Anibal explained that workers from the Inca region, as part of a taxation system, would work at the site for one to three months and then return home to their daily lives. Would this be progressive or regressive taxation?
The site has several examples of astrological observation points which played a central role in the culture, religion and daily lives of the Inca. And then there was the stone work. National Geographic notes that “The stones in the most handsome buildings throughout the Inca Empire used no mortar. These stones were cut so precisely, and wedged so closely together, that a credit card cannot be inserted between them. Aside from the obvious aesthetic benefits of this building style, there are engineering advantages. Peru is a seismically unstable country—both Lima and Cusco have been leveled by earthquakes—and Machu Picchu itself was constructed atop two fault lines. When an earthquake occurs, the stones in an Inca building are said to “dance;” that is, they bounce through the tremors and then fall back into place. Without this building method, many of the best known buildings at Machu Picchu would have collapsed long ago.”
Machu Picchu – not to be missed. But again, the road was complicated.