The
Lost City at Machu Picchu is located high up in the Andean mountains,
rising above the Uruabamba Valley in Peru. The Incas who lived there
were master craftsman who had remarkable engineering skills and
understanding of the night skies. With these skills they built temples
and cities with such precision and planning that many of their achievements
still cannot be matched even with today's technology.
The Inca were
able to live in what many considered to be desolate environments.
They were able to tame the impossibly steep walls of the Valley
by terracing them and developing an irrigation system that gave
precise control to each level to afford the growth of a variety
of different crops.
Their stone
work is nothing short of remarkable. Each stone in their buildings
was hand carved with such precision that they each fit together
like a puzzle and hold solidly without the use of bonding agents
like mortar. In fact it is impossible to slide a sheet of paper
between almost any pair of rocks.
The inca carved
a large stone called an Intihuatana, which was used as a calendar.
How the sun made shadows across the different rises of the rock
would determine the time of year - which was esssential for the
growing/harvesting season.
As I walked
around the city, you could feel the spirit and the presence of
the Inca at every turn