Machu Picchu

Drumroll please... I at last present to you some photos of Machu Picchu. After a few seasons of Peruvian travel they have finally arrived. And there is no rhyme or reason to why I chose the ones I did, so just enjoy them.

Intipunku, the Sun Gate, which is theoretically the first thing a visitor to Machu Picchu would have passed through upon entering the site. Now visitors come in through the center of the main site, definitely not as dramatic because...

... this is the first view of the site you get from the ancient gate. The trail you see is the new bus trail that ascends the mountain, but walking to the Sun Gate from the site is about an hour and a half roundtrip. There are some control points along the way, so obviously access was restricted in some way.

Your standard Machu Picchu overview photo.

Another standard, this time including Huayna Picchu in the background (see photos below of the hike up and down this monster).

A solar observatory of sorts, according to some.

This rock is supposedly shaped like a condor.

View from nearly atop Huayna Picchu. You can see Machu Picchu partially in the background.

Part of the Inka staircase up Huayna Picchu.

Full view of Machu Picchu from halfway up Huayna Picchu.

The "moon temple" that´s way down on the bottom of Huayna Picchu. I think this was a place for keeping important mummies.

A good example of how the Inka constructed Machu Picchu to meld with the natural landscape.

One of the sectors with the most impressive stonework at the site. Again, no mortar, no iron tools. Think about it.

Mummy storage locker under the solar observatory.

Damn, them´s some fine niches.

Some terraces below the main site where the INC is currently excavating. Check out the river below.





A good example of fine Inka waterworks.

Maukallaqta

Maukallqata is an Inka administrative center to the south of Cusco. It´s very well preserved, but to get there you have to leave Cusco at 4 in the morning and hike uphill for an hour.

This is a strange example of Inka administration because, unlike other cases, it wasn´t built along a major transport route in the region. It seems the Inka employed a different administrative strategy here, leaving much of the local settlement in place and building state infrastructure alongside it.

I was misinformed that this is the only Inka site with triple-jamb niches, outdoing the already boisterous double-jamb niches and doors of most important Inka architecture. On the contrary, I just saw some triple-jamb doors in Chinchero. I shall post photos soon.

A platform near the center of the site, identified very tentatively as an ushnu, or ceremonial platform.

Salineras de Maras

Walking from Maras to the Sacred Valley (the Rio Urubamba can be seen in the background), you come across a huge expanse of prehispanic salt pans that are still maintained by salt workers today. All the white is the salt that is dried from salt water collected in manmade salt bins.


A closer view of some of the salt bins. They're lined with clay and sand that is pounded down to be impermeable so as not to lose the salty water into the ground. Each worker is responsible for maintaining their own bins and adding the water when needed from an intricate system of canals that carry the salt water throughout the complex.

The "ojo principal," from which the salty water flows out of the mountain and natural salt deposits.

Some of the small canals that break off from the main flow.

A woman collecting dried salt from the surface of one of her bins.

Checoc

Lots of storehouses on the hill behind the colonial town of Maras were reconstructed by the INC from 2002-2005. It doesn't seem that any tourists come here, but they're a good example of how the Inka strategically stored products in mass quantities.

A view of the Maras plain (and the colonial reduccion town of San Francisco de Maras), with the plain dropping off into the Sacred Valley before the mountains in the background.

Some of the storage bins in one reconstructed storehouse. These structures have a system of ventilation that brings fresh air in during the day and the cold air in at night.

Moray

Moray is an enigmatic site near Maras, with three deeply depressed sets of concentric terraces. Not much is known about the site's purpose, as there are few documentary sources related to it. If you enlarge the photo, you should be able to see the precarious steps used for climbing down each terrace.

Quinoa, a high altitude crop, growing at the bottom of the largest, reconstructed terracing.

Tourists for scale.

Raqchi

Raqchi is an Inka site about halfway between Puno and Cusco. There was an important temple to the creator god Viracocha there, whose well preserved adobe and stone walls and partial columns can be seen here.


There are several buildings like this one next to the temple that are supposedly the remains of the acllawasi, where the "chosen" girls and women were brought to learn to weave fine cloth, make maize beer, and cook Inka food.

Here you can see a few of the more than 150 round storehouses at Raqchi. The climate here is more stable than in Puno or Cusco, so it would be a good place to store staple goods such as maize and potato, which is what has been recovered here in excavations.

The local community farms the large expanse of land between the temple/acllawasi/storehouses and another group of buildings that seem like houses and an administrative building.

There are a few still functioning baths and canals like this one.

Karajia

Another cliffside with burials, this time in the form of humans more or less. It dates to post-Inka contact and they say the Inka taught the Chachapoya how to mummify their dead.


Allegedly, all the niches originally had tombs, but have now fallen. It´s inaccessible now and they say the architects destroyed the access route after the mummies and offerings were placed here.


Some of the less elaborate mummies. There are spaces behind where offerings have somehow been looted.


The 6 "most important" Chachapoya of the time. There were originally 7, but one fell. Some still have human crania on top of their little fake heads. These are 2.5 meters tall, much taller than a Chachapoya person in actuality. Underneath the tombs, there are piles of human bones that have fallen and there are areas where you can see partial remains of smaller sarcophagi.