Day 40, Intihuatana Stones, Peru

One of Machu Picchu's primary functions was that of astronomical observatory.

The Intihuatana stone (meaning 'Hitching Post of the Sun') has been shown to be a precise indicator of the date of the two equinoxes and other significant celestial periods. The Intihuatana (also called the Saywa or Sukhanka stone) is designed to hitch the sun at the two equinoxes. At midday on March 21st and September 21st, the sun stands almost directly above the pillar, creating no shadow at all. At this precise moment the sun "sits with all his might upon the pillar" and is for a moment "tied" to the rock. At these periods, the Incas held ceremonies at the stone in which they "tied the sun" to halt its northward movement in the sky.

Shamanic legends say that when sensitive persons touch their foreheads to the stone, the Intihuatana opens one's vision to the spirit world.

Hmm, I want to open my "third" eye, but the stone is cordoned off :-((

Intihuatana stones were the supremely sacred objects of the Inca people and were systematically searched for and destroyed by the Spaniards. When the Intihuatana stone was broken at an Inca shrine, the Inca believed that the deities of the place died or departed.

Thank goodness, the Spaniards never found Machu Picchu, even though they suspected its existence, thus the Intihuatana stone and its resident spirits remain in their original position.
Hmm, Sita would like to look into the geometry of the stone..... http://www.gogeometry.com/incas/



Nobody knows the exact history of Machu Picchu....

Some say the city was built by the Sapa Inca Pachacuti starting in about 1440 and was inhabited until the Spanish conquest of Peru in 1532.

Perhaps Machu Picchu was not a conventional city, but a country retreat town for Incan nobility??
The site has a large palace and temples to Incan deities around a courtyard, with other buildings for support staff and it is estimated that a maximum of only about 750 people resided in Machu Picchu at any one time.

It is likely that most of its inhabitants were wiped out by smallpox before the Spanish conquistadores arrived in the area.

Another theory maintains that Machu Picchu was an Inca "llacta", a settlement built to control the economy of these conquered regions.

Yet another asserts that it may have been built as a prison for a select few who had committed heinous crimes against Inca society.

Hopefully, we will know its secrets some day........... but for now, the mystery lingers.........

Day 40, exploring Machu Picchu, Peru

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 arewonders of both architectural and aesthetic genius.

The central buildings of Machu Picchu use the classical Inca architectural style of polished dry-stone walls of regular shape. The Incas were masters of this technique, called ashlar, in which blocks of stone are cut to fit together tightly without mortar.

The Incas were among the best stone masons the world has seen, and many junctions in the central city are so perfect that it is said not even a blade of grass fits between the stones...No, Amit, dont put your credit card in between, it will not fit!

Many of the building blocks weigh 50 tons or more yet are so precisely sculpted and fitted together with such exactitude!!

Hmm, didnt we see the similar workmanship in the Great Zimbabwean Ruins??
The erection of huge buildings without mortar!

There are more than one hundred flights of stone steps-often completely carved from a single block of granite-and a great number of water fountains that are interconnected by channels and water-drains perforated in the rock that were designed for the original irrigation system.

Evidence has been found to suggest that the irrigation system was used to carry water from a holy spring to each of the houses in turn.

Peru is a highly seismic land, and mortar-free construction was more earthquake-resistant than using mortar. The stones of the dry-stone walls built by the Incas can move slightly and resettle without the walls collapsing.

Inca walls show numerous design details that also help protect them from collapsing in an earthquake.

Doors and windows are trapezoidal and tilt inward from bottom to top; corners usually are rounded; inside corners often incline slightly into the rooms; and "L"-shaped blocks often were used to tie outside corners of the structure together. These walls do not rise straight from bottom to top but are offset slightly from row to row.

The Incas never used the wheel in any practical manner. Its use in toys demonstrates that the principle was well-known to them, although it was not applied in their engineering. The lack of strong draft animals as well as terrain and dense vegetation issues may have rendered it impractical. How they moved and placed enormous blocks of stones remains a mystery,

although the general belief is that they used hundreds of men to push the stones up inclined planes.

The ruins of Machu Picchu, 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.......we think....

Day 40, Machu Picchu, Peru

Hmmm, we are unable to do trek .....no, no, its not because we are a bunch of lazy bums...but because the Peruvian Government has very strict quotas on the number of trekkers allowed each day on the Inca trail.

We are going to miss out on the natural wonders of the forest, the ferns, the orchids, the hanging moss, the clean air and butterflies:-((.......
Let's quickly make alternative arrangements.....OK, we are going to take a train to Aguas Calientes and a bus from there to our destination.....Machu Picchu!

(Oh, dear, the World Monuments Fund placed Machu Picchu on its 2008 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world because of environmental degradation resulting from the impact of tourism, uncontrolled development in the nearby town of Aguas Calientes that included a poorly sited tram to ease visitor access, and the construction of a bridge across the Vilcanota
River that is likely to bring even more tourists to the site in defiance of a court order and government protests against it:-((

I am now really looking forward to seeing Machu Picchu which stands 2,430 m above sea-level, in the middle of a tropical mountain forest, in an extraordinarily beautiful setting. It was probably the most amazing urban creation of the Inca Empire at its height; its giant walls, terraces and ramps seem as if they have been cut naturally in the continuous rock escarpments.

The city sits in a saddle between two mountains, with a commanding view down two valleys and a nearly impassable mountain at its back. It has a water supply from springs that cannot be blocked easily, and enough land to grow food for about four times as many people as ever lived there.

The hillsides leading to it have been terraced, not only to provide more farmland to grow crops, but to steepen the slopes which invaders would have to ascend.

There are two high-altitude routes from Machu Picchu across the mountains back to Cusco, one through the sun gate, and the other across the Inca bridge. Both easily could be blocked if invaders should approach along them. Regardless of its original purpose, it is strategically located and readily defended.

A no-fly zone exists above the area so no helicopter ride here......
The site received significant publicity after the National Geographic Society devoted their entire April 1913 issue to Machu Picchu.
An area of 325.92 square kilometers surrounding Machu Picchu was declared a "Historical Sanctuary" of Peru in 1971.
In addition to the ruins, this sanctuary area includes a large portion of adjoining region, rich with flora and fauna.
Machu Picchu was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1983 when it was described as "an absolute masterpiece of architecture and a unique testimony to the Inca civilization".
On July 7, 2007, Machu Picchu was voted as one of New Open World Corporation's New Seven Wonders of the World.
Let's explore..............

Day 40, Nasca Lines, Peru

OK, guys we are going to see the Nasca Lines....no Amit, not NASCAR racing!!
We are now going to fly over the arid Peruvian coastal plain, some 400 km south of Lima, where the geoglyphs of Nasca and the pampas of Jumana cover about 450 km2. These lines, which were scratched on the surface of the ground between 500 B.C. and A.D. 500, are among archaeology's greatest enigmas because of their quantity, nature, size and continuity. They are believed to have had ritual astronomical functions.

There are hundreds of individual figures, ranging in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks or orcas, llamas, and lizards.

The lines are shallow designs in the ground where the reddish pebbles that cover the surrounding landscape have been removed, revealing the whitish earth underneath. Hundreds are simple lines or geometric shapes, and more than seventy are natural or human figures. The largest are over 200 metres (660 ft) across.

The dry, windless, stable climate of the plateau has preserved the lines to this day, for the most part. Extremely rare changes in weather may temporarily alter the general designs.

Here we go ...question time??
Amit says "Could these geoglyphs be effigies of ancient animal gods or patterns of constellations?
Nopi says they look like roads, star pointers, maybe even a gigantic map?
Marti pipes up "If the people who lived here 2,000 years ago had only a simple technology, how did they manage to construct such precise figures? Did they have a plan? If so, who ordained it?

Sita thinks they are of religious significance.
Feroz believes that the geometric ones could indicate the flow of water or be connected to rituals to summon water while Jarca thinks the spiders, birds, and plants could be fertility symbols.

Other possible explanations include: irrigation schemes, giant astronomical calendars, or landing for spaceships.

Hmm, since you can only see the complete design from the air...I wonder ...did they have hot air balloons??

It all seems so otherworldly. To comprehend the Nasca lines, created by the removal of desert rock to reveal the pale pink sand beneath, visitors have proposed every imaginable explanation - from runways for spaceships to tracks for Olympic athletes, from op art to pop art, to astronomical observatories.
It is believed that the geoglyphs were built by a people called the Nasca- but why and how they created these wonders of the world has defied explanation.

Day 39, some UNESCO sites of Peru

We leave Santa Cruz for Peru.

We are going to meet my very dear friend Karla in Lima.
Karla has recently become a Mom:-) Congratulations again my dear Karla:-) Since she is unable to accompany us on all the tours, she was kind enough to book all our tours online so we are going to visit a few of the UNESCO sites of Peru.

LIMA

Although severely damaged by earthquakes, this 'City of the Kings' was,until the middle of the 18th century, the capital and most important city of the Spanish dominions in South America. Many of its buildings are the result of collaboration between local craftspeople and others from the Old World. The tour guide points out the the Palacio Arzobispal de Lima as we drive by in our horse drawn carriage....

Next stop:Arequipa

The historic centre of Arequipa, built in volcanic sillar rock, represents an integration of European and native building techniques and characteristics, expressed in the admirable work of colonial masters and Criollo and Indian masons. This combination of influences is illustrated by the city's robust walls, archways and vaults, courtyards and open spaces,and the intricate Baroque decoration of its facades. Its fascinating, isn't it Sita?

Río Abiseo National Park

The park was created in 1983 to protect the fauna and flora of the rain forests that are characteristic of this region of the Andes. There is a high level of endemism among the fauna and flora found in the park. The yellow-tailed woolly monkey, previously thought extinct, is found only in this area. Research undertaken since 1985 has already uncovered 36 previously unknown archaeological sites at altitudes of between 2,500 and 4,000 m, which give a good picture of pre-Inca society....Nopi is loving this.....

What's wrong guys?....hmmm, the guys look a little bored........these guys are really not too interested in these UNESCO sites......OK...I agree, I am also looking for something a little more interesting.........lets see where to next?
Oh, wow, guys, you are definitely going to love the next few stops........well, I know I am :-)