Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time

“Everyone knows about Machu Picchu and, less so of course, places like Espiritu Pampa and Choquequirao. That’s because Bingham wrote about those things in his books. But he went to dozens of places, some that almost no one else has gone to since. He was dealing with corruption, thievery, people of dubious character—and he was under a lot of pressur

Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient Sacred Center, by Johan Reinhard. The original, and best, explanation of why Machu Picchu is most likely situated where it is.

John pointed to the far end of the site, where groups of Inca Trail hikers who’d awakened at four to meet the sunrise at the Sun Gate—virtually every tour company uses this supposedly magical moment as a selling point—were waiting impatiently for their first glimpse of the city. “The Sun Gate at sunrise is a complete waste of time,” John said as we

“A place like Angkor Wat is fantastic,” he said, referring to the enormous twelfth-century temple complex in Cambodia. “But they didn’t have the problems there that the Incas did here. This place is a statement: look at how we can tame nature.”

One day they ran into a group of white-lipped peccaries, the deadly, sharp-tusked wild pigs that roam the rain forest in packs. “Jaguars and pumas are afraid of them because they attack,” John said. “When they sense an outsider, they form a group. They make the most awful scraping sound with their tusks as a warning, and you can smell them. They gi

“There’s one fellow I know from Amazonas Explorer named Efrain—he’s very, very good. Speaks Quechua and English, knows his history.

The Machu Picchu Guidebook: A Self-Guided Tour, by Ruth Wright. An excellent guidebook that explains how and why the Incas built the various structures at Machu Picchu.

putative

The Conquest of the Incas, by John Hemming. The definitive history of Francisco Pizarro’s occupation of Peru, and the starting point for any serious examination of Inca history.