Peru will restrict access to Machu Picchu, crowds of tourists are damaging the monument

Lima - Peruvian authorities will restrict visiting hours at one of the most sought-after monuments in South America - the former Inca city of Machu Picchu. The reason is to preserve this complex of terraces and temples for future generations, minimizing wear caused by mass tourist visits, as an average of around 4000 people visit it daily. Last year, the UNESCO site welcomed a record 6000 visitors daily during the season, reported the Peruvian news agency Andina.

Starting Wednesday, local authorities will limit entry to the three most visited parts of Machu Picchu (the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the Condor, and the ritual site Intihuatana) to three hours per day. They will test access to these places for three hours at different times of the day for two weeks to determine which times should be set for entry from June.

"There is evident wear on the steps and platforms, and the three most vulnerable places (Intihuatana and the temples of the Sun and the Condor) are being affected," explained the caretaker of Machu Picchu, José Bastante, to local media regarding the new measure.

Machu Picchu is located about 100 kilometers from the former capital of the Inca Empire, Cuzco, at an altitude of about 2400 meters above the Urubamba River canyon. The city, constructed from precisely cut stone blocks without mortar, overlooks the green peaks of the Peruvian Andes and was built in the mid-15th century by the ruler Pachacútec Yupanqui.

The Spaniards, who conquered the Inca Empire in the first half of the 16th century, did not discover Machu Picchu. It was found in 1911 by American Hiram Bingham. To this day, experts do not agree on when and why this city was abandoned by its inhabitants. According to some theories, it was not even a classic city but a kind of agricultural testing station for the Inca Empire. The variety of crops that could be grown there would not have been sufficient to sustain a city of about a thousand people at that time. However, the terraced fields provided different microclimates for various crops.

At the beginning of the 16th century, the Inca Empire, with its two million square kilometers, was the largest state entity in pre-Columbian America, stretching from the south of present-day Colombia through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, all the way to the central part of Chile and northern Argentina. It was inhabited by an estimated 15 million people of various ethnic origins, subjugated by the Inca dynasty since the beginning of the 13th century (Inca was a royal title).

The Inca Empire was also the most centrally governed state in pre-Columbian America, even though it did not use writing. It had a perfect system of roads, and yet the Incas did not know the wheel or horses. Their constructions still amaze with their ingenuity; the Incas were the first in the world to cultivate potatoes (about 1000 varieties), they knew copper and produced bronze, but they did not have money, nor did they engage in trade.