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 Friday, 16 May 2008 |
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Machu Picchu Showing Wear |
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Written by Patrick J. McDonnell, LA Times
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Wednesday, 14 June 2006 |
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Machu Picchu Shows Wear of Being on Must-See List
By Patrick J. McDonnell, LA Times Staff Writer
MACHU PICCHU, Peru — Darwin Camacho, tour guide and denizen of this
place for a quarter of a century, gestures toward gaps in the famously
precise stonework of an Inca wall.
"The stones are separating," he says, pointing to the fissures
separating blocks once snugly fit together by craftsmen toiling without
wheel or cement. "Something needs to be done about this.... "
Machu Picchu Photo: Adventure Associates
Camacho proceeds to the granite pillar known as the Intiwatana, or
"hitching post of the sun," a sacred artifact chipped in undignified
fashion when a 1,000-pound mechanical arm crashed on it during the
filming of an ad for Peru's preferred
cerveza.
"A beer commercial!" Camacho exclaims, pointing his umbrella at the
damage like an accusing finger. "How irresponsible is our government to
have allowed this!"
Machu Picchu, one of the most storied archeological sites in the
Americas, has become a victim of its own astounding success and now
faces threats from overcrowding, landslides, erosion, fire — and
greed.
The end of a guerrilla war in Peru and the onset of relative political
stability have sparked a virtual tourist frenzy here. Almost 700,000
visitors, 70% of them foreigners, visited the site in 2005 — nearly
double the number in 2003 and close to a tenfold increase since 1991. A
million-plus visitors a year seems not far off — quite a load for a
place that, according to current research, may have housed only 700
people or so during its Inca heyday.
As Peru seats a new president and Congress this year, many will be
watching closely to see how much the country's notoriously crooked
political structure will stand up to an assertive tourism sector that
frowns on talk of restrictions.
"The question is going to be whether Machu Picchu is treated as an
extraordinary, nonrenewable resource that needs protection, or whether
you use it to get the maximum amount of foreign currency in the short
term," said professor Richard L. Burger, an Inca expert at Yale
University and frequent visitor. "They're going to have to deal with
the issue of how much you build it up before you destroy it. And
there's no easy solution."
The onslaught of visitors is literally trampling the place to death —
compacting the relatively shallow soil and destabilizing the iconic
dwellings, temples, fountains and other structures, experts say.
A day after tour guide Camacho's lament, the site's chief archeologist,
Alfredo Mormontoy, insisted that reports of Machu Picchu's imminent
demise, including a controversial prediction of a massive landslide,
had been greatly exaggerated.
"There's a certain amount of alarmism out there about the future of
Machu Picchu," said Mormontoy, who spent the morning patching a
landslide-damaged path to the Temple of the Moon. "We are working hard
here for conservation, with the minimum of intervention and respect for
authenticity."
To the legions who trek to this dreamscape annually, the mist-shrouded
Inca citadel of Machu Picchu mostly lives up to its reputation as an
enchanted sanctuary — the "lost city" that Hiram Bingham, a swaggering
Yale man with a flair for self-promotion, stumbled across in 1911 while
seeking the Inca civilization's final redoubt in the Andes.
"Pure bliss," said a dazed American wanderer in faded jeans and a loose
blouse, who gave her name only as Jasmin, as she descended barefoot on
a recent afternoon. "I wanted to absorb the energy through the soles of
my feet."
The mystique only seems to grow even as Bingham's fanciful claims —
among them that Machu Picchu played host to rites involving "virgins of
the sun" — have been discredited. Recent research indicates that the
site's role was probably quite prosaic, serving as a royal retreat
before the ridge was apparently abandoned about the time of the
Spaniards' arrival.
Some five centuries later, Machu Picchu has joined the global must-see
shortlist, drawing jet-setters, backpackers, new-agers, eco-adventurers
and regiments of package-tour travelers from Asia, Europe, the United
States and elsewhere. Nestled in the mist-shrouded mountains at about
8,000 feet, on the cusp between the steamy jungle and the chilly high
valleys, the place evokes mystery. For
many, a visit to Machu Picchu is more of a pilgrimage than a tourist
stop.
"I waited all my life to come here," said Liliana Diaz, 38, of Bogota,
Colombia, who made the journey by wheelchair, with tour guides hoisting
her up rough patches. "This is a wonderful moment for me."
Machu Picchu is relatively small and quite vulnerable, the major
structures occupying a scant 25 acres — an area not much larger than
the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
A place fabled for its remoteness — a quality that may have helped
spare Machu Picchu from the depredations of the conquistadors
— is today relatively accessible, though no road
reaches here.
Almost all visitors arrive via the venerable PeruRail train, passing
snowcapped peaks, furious rapids and Inca structures en route. Most
passages cost $68 to $105 round trip from the former Inca capital,
Cuzco, 75 miles to the southeast. Some well-heeled visitors opt for the
luxury "Hiram Bingham" coach, at $495 round trip.
The beer-commercial incident in 2000 that damaged the Intiwatana
underscored the image of a Peruvian government bent on sucking every
last buck from its singular attraction.
The
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,
known as UNESCO, threatened to remove Machu Picchu from its list of
World Heritage Sites, prompting Peruvian officials to change
course.
A new 10-year master plan shifts the focus from development to
"sustainable tourism," which emphasizes preservation of land, monuments
and cultural heritage.
Many remain skeptical.
"Unfortunately, there are some people whose attitude is, 'I'm doing
business now and I could care less what happens later,' " said Manuel
Bryce, a consultant to the state tourism agency in the capital, Lima,
and a former tour operator in the region. "We can't let Machu Picchu
become Disneyland."
Belatedly, Peru is making a push to divert visitors to some of its
other sites and wonders, including ruins that predate Machu Picchu by a
millennium or more. But none has the exotic cachet of the "lost
city."
The outgoing administration of Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo,
which assumed office practically in the shadow of Machu Picchu, branded
this country "the land of the Incas" and set out on a much-publicized
spat with Yale University over artifacts carted away by Bingham almost
a century ago. That dispute remains unresolved.
Among the recommendations of the new master plan are capping the number
of daily visitors at 2,500 — a number sometimes surpassed during the
high season, which runs from July to September. But any move to limit
visitors faces resistance from the powerful alliance of tour operators,
hotel owners and others based in and around Cuzco, which has thrived as
the gateway to Machu Picchu.
Some merchants fear prolonged shutdowns for repairs and renovation.
Already, trekkers are banned every February from a portion of the Inca
Trail, the 30-mile path to the ruins favored by the more adventurous.
Trash, makeshift bathrooms and campsites, along with occasional
muggings, have become a problem along the route.
Officials in Lima "must take the needs of local people into account,"
declared Oscar Valencia, mayor of "Machupicchu" village, a kitschy
boomtown that has sprung up around the Aguas Calientes train station —
the sole entry point to the ruins in the cloud forest, apart from the
Inca Trail. The raging Urubamba River and its tributaries occasionally
carry off the precarious dwellings of trinket hawkers. Two years ago,
11 townsfolk were killed.
From the village, a transport firm partially owned by the mayor buses
tourists up a dozen switchbacks to the entrance of the ruins, via a
landslide-prone, three-mile mountain road featuring better-not-to-look
vertical drops. Beyond the diesel-belching traffic and scarring of the
mountain, many worry about the possibility of a catastrophic accident.
Proposals for a cable car or monorail system have stalled.
As the chief archeologist at the citadel, Mormontoy was recently
overseeing the repairs on the washed-out trail to the conical peak
called Wayna Picchu, which also leads to the spectacular Temple of the
Moon. Such maintenance issues, he said, do not mean the entire site of
Machu Picchu is likely to be lost anytime soon in a landslide — as a
much-discussed Japanese study suggested in 2001.
"Nothing is imminent," said Mormontoy, whose father was a conductor on
the Machu Picchu train.
Still, international teams have installed
sophisticated monitoring equipment to check for tectonic shifts.
Workers are applying water-resistant sealant to vulnerable sections of
stone and patching the intricate Inca drainage system in an effort to
limit persistent water damage from the more than 80 inches of rain that
falls here annually. Authorities are also working with area farmers to
reduce the risk of dry-season fires.
But it is the inexorable influx of people that probably
represents the greatest threat.
"I was hesitant to come here, honestly, because I'd heard about all the
crowds," Steven Lloyd, 24, a backpacker from Vancouver, said recently
as he stood near a stone structure known as the Guard House.
"But, standing up here, I have to say, 'This place is amazing.' There
are a lot of tourists, yes, but it's still going to be a while before
there's a Wal-Mart here."
*
Andrés D'Alessandro of The Times' Buenos Aires
Bureau and special correspondent Adriana León in Lima contributed to
this report.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 19 June 2006 )
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