Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu means old mountain in the Quechuan language, which is (one of) the native language(s) of Peru and of many other indigenous andean folks. Before we throw out some more facts about Perus most famous tourist attraction there is one more very important thing we’d like to share here: According to our guide (and Wikipedia!), the correct pronounciation of the name is ‘Matschu Pi*k*tschu’, and not ‘Pitschu’ - even though basically everyone does pronounce it like the latter. Why is this important? Because ‘pitschu’ apparently means p*nis 😂 (again, no guarantee given for the correctness of this statement!), and so now you know an insult in the Quechua language. You’re welcome!
Anyways, here are some more hard facts (or well-accepted theories 🤔) on and about Machu Picchu:
- The site was built before the 15th century on 2430m as a religious sanctuary (not built as a permanent living space for the incan people). However, the Machu Picchu infrastructure also features a water source (by diverting a natural water source from a nearby mountain via channels) as well as many typical inca terraces which - in theory - were used to grow crops. So another theory is that it was initially built as a (very pretentious) residence.
- To date, ‘only’ 30% of the site has been restored (looking good, old lad!). But also the residual 70% is in pretty good condition, because due to its remote and elevated location, the spanish did not find and destroy it when raiding the former Inca empire (the site was only ‘officially rediscovered’ in 1911).
- The reason why it was abandoned - or why people stopped using the religious site - is unknown, but it is suspected that it has something to do with the spanish conquisition of south america and the resulting absorption of the Incas and their culture by the colonialist lifestyle.
- Machu Picchu was still under construction when abandoned, as can be seen by a stonemason area on the site, containing half-cropped building blocks for whatever.

Our personal (and rather unpopular) opinion on Machu Picchu is that even though it is by all means a very impressive place and certainly also impressively well conserved, we think Machu Picchu to be a tad overhyped - yes, it is super beautiful, and yes, it is very exciting to walk around between the ruins, but it is certainly not the magical, life-changing experience as sold by all those influencers (which were super fun to watch at Machu Picchu, by the way). Or at least it was no life changer for us, call us dull if you want 🤷🏻‍♀️.Read more