Macchu Picchu

The mountain at the rear edge of the village, Wayna Picchu, looks like the head of Pacha Papa, or Father Earth, lying down and looking up at the sky. The right end is the forehead; the middle is the nose; the left is the chin.

Macchu Picchu, The Lost City of the Incas. Some pretty amazing stuff here, especially given that it was built about the time Columbus was sailing for America and was only used for 100 years.

Not especially high up by Incan terms, 7,875 ft. above sea level, Macchu Picchu was built by people who didn´t use the wheel. At all. Seriously. Don´t know if they didn´t know about it, but everyone says they didn´t use it. Hauled all that stone everywhere up there without the use of the wheel.

Everything was built on levels, with the most religiously important higher up and the less important people living lower down.

Most of the stone walls are built without cement, or mortar. They just cut the stone so well and the stones fit together so well they didn´t need mortar. And these walls, now mostly 600 years old, have withstood numerous earthquakes.

When the Spanish came, and were trying to wipe out the Incas, they couldn´t find this place. The sites they did find, they destroyed. Even some of the paths between sites were destroyed. So Peru´s pretty lucky to have this intact.

In their building, the Incas incorporated the stone around them into everything -- or sometimes just yielded to the Earth -- and went around a stone outcropping.

Tourism today threatens Macchu Picchu more than the Spanish did back in the day. They´re pretty touchy about where people walk, and freak a little if someone steps on a wall. Understandable.

They also restrict how many people can walk up Wayna Picchu everyday to 400 -- 200 at 8 a.m. and 200 at 10. People race to get up there early -- 6 a.m. -- and many walk up, leaving at 4:30 a.m. We took a bus, got there at 7 a.m. and got tickets for the 10 a.m. -- but it rained like hell about 15 minutes before and washed the walk out.