Peru is greater than Machu Picchu but Machu Picchu=Awesome

Machu Picchu is awesome in the truest sense of the word. One of the magical and intriguing parts about Machu Picchu, is that no-one knows exactly why so much effort and time was put into building it. Some say it was a religious pilgrimage site or a vacation home for Incan royals. Hiram Bingham, the Yale professor and explorer who found Machu Picchu in 1911, hoped it was the lost city of Vilcabamba where the Incas fled from the Spanish with some of their sacred posessions. However, Vilcabamba has still not been found. A more recent theory is that Machu Picchu was a private university for Incan elite.

Some other aweome things about Machu Picchu:

• Machu Picchu is on top of a mountain that is encircled by the Urubamba River, or Sacred River.
• It is aligned with sun in many ways to create things like a compass on a rock. Also the rising and setting of the sun lines up with religious mountains during solstices and equinoxes.
• The stars align in certain patterns on rocks to signify planting seasons.
• There are lots of colorful flowers all over, which is not what I expected next to the stone building and terraces. And 3 new types of orchids were found in the area last year.

It is thought to be such a spiritual and sacred place that Wayna Picchu was built soley to view Machu Picchu. We climbed Wayna Picchu, and it was a really steep climb, where we were pulling ourselves up with our hands at some points, and crawling through a small cave on all fours, and walking down steep, steep, small stairs. The best part was when I climbed up this ladder, through huge rocks, and emerged to a view of Machu Picchu in front of me.