Everybody has seen Machu Picchu. On posters, pictures, historic TV programmes. Looking so grand with its grey stone walls amid the green grass and the pointy high mountains all around. In reality it’s exactly the same, but the effect is overwhelming. It’s stunning, almost unbelievable. How did they manage to build this mountaintop city, how were they able to find food and clothes and life’s other necessities? How could they live here and why was it all forgotten?
The first thing we learn is that these hilltop Inca settlements were not towns, they were reserved for the elite. The common people, the farmers stayed in the valley below. Except when they were needed in the construction teams, then they worked up here for six months and spent the rest of the year farming.
The Incas were masters of architecture with a great knowledge about materials and structures. On the slopes below the hilltop settlements they built impressive terraces that had a double purpose. One was to grow plants, the other to stabilize the ground. Earthquakes are common here, but Machu Picchu has no visible damages