Machu Picchu itself

Was cool, the tour started super early - getting on the bus by 6. Macchu Picchu is a little city on the top of a mountain, surroundend by other super close taller, super steep mountains.

It´s the rainy season in Peru, which meant that in the morning it was very misty and we never got a fully clear view of the whole thing. Fogs of mist would come in and reveal a mountain, then the mountain would disappear. Then parts of the city would appear and disappear. It was pretty cool actually. But it would take a while to finally get the sort of picture they have at the Wikipedia site.

The big thing I learned about the Incas (also spelled with a K) was how amazing their stone work was. The have huge stones carved with multiple (sometimes greater than 12 cuts), and each cut goes into the length of the stone (some say 4 feet long). And they put these jigsaw stone pieces together without grout or mortar to build their buildings. Well more specifically the higher classes had the buildings made this way, the lower class buildings were made of rocks and mortar.

Interesting points that the guide made

• The word Inca is the word for the king, not the empire. The empire is called Tawantin Suyu
• Cusco is the capital of the Inca empire (Inca is easier to type than Tawantin Suyu).
• The Inca influence went as high as Columbia. I thought it went higher, but I think I was getting the Incas confused with the Aztecs
• Hiram Bingham rediscovered the lost city (Machu Picchu) in 1911, by asking a farmer where the lost city was. The farmer told him and his son showed him where it was...
• Machu Pichu wasn´t the lost city. Hiram also found another city called Vilcabamba which was proven in 1976 to be the actual lost city. Not sure if a farmer was involved.
• Peru wants alot of the Artifacts back that were collected by Hiram and taken to the U.S. This reminds me of Greece who wants England to send the Parthenon back to Greece.