Week 24 bought me to Machu Picchu. What a beautiful site to visit. For the longest time I have see this wonder of the world on TV, Posters, videos and pictures of friends and family who have gone there. When I first stepped in there was an overwhelming feeling of excitement, happiness, peacefulness and other indescribable feelings. It was so unreal to actually be there and finally see it in person. I'm planning on going back and spending a little more time there as I feel I did not take full advantage when I was there.
Enjoy!
The following was taken from the Sacred Sites Places of Peace and Power
The ruins of Machu Picchu, rediscovered in 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram
Bingham, are one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world. While the Inca people certainly used the Andean mountain top (9060 feet elevation), erecting many hundreds of stone structures from the early 1400's, legends and myths indicate that Machu Picchu (meaning 'Old Peak' in the Quechua language) was revered as a sacred place from a far earlier time. Whatever its origins, the Inca turned the site into a small (5 square miles) but extraordinary city. Invisible from below and completely self-contained, surrounded by agricultural terraces sufficient to feed the population, and watered by natural springs, Machu Picchu seems to have been utilized by the Inca as a secret ceremonial city. Two thousand feet above the rumbling Urubamba river, the cloud shrouded ruins have palaces, baths, temples, storage rooms and some 150 houses, all in a remarkable state of preservation. These structures, carved from the gray granite of the mountain top are wonders of both architectural and aesthetic genius. Many of the building blocks weigh 50 tons or more yet are so precisely sculpted and fitted together with such exactitude that the mortarless joints will not permit the insertion of even a thin knife blade. Little is known of the social or religious use of the site during Inca times. The skeletal remains of ten females to one male had led to the casual assumption that the site may have been a sanctuary for the training of priestesses and /or brides for the Inca nobility. However, subsequent osteological examination of the bones revealed an equal number of male bones, thereby indicating that Machu Picchu was not exclusively a temple or dwelling place of women.
Here is one of my favorite pictures, I had to climb down to be lower than him and whistle so he can look over to capture this shot.
Did I mention that I LOVE my Canon T1i?
Until next week!
Ciao
