Machu Picchu is a Mess

Filed in archive Latin Travel on January 30, 2010

© Latin America For Less


It hasn't gotten a great deal of press coverage, but Machu Picchu is a tourism nightmare at the moment. Look at the pictures.

Machu Picchu is one of South America's premier tourist sites. The pre-Columbian Inca site is located at 2,430 metres (8,000 ft) above sea level. It was built around 1430 AD. Machu Picchu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Heavy rains cause mud slides at Machu Picchu earlier this week. Several thousand tourists were stranded at the site. The government of Peru has evacuated the tourists now, but that operation took several days and was hampered by the whether. Tourists stranded at the site complained of price gouging by local business and the lack of any evacuation plan.

It's not clear how much time the clean up will take. But I woldn't plan on going to Machu Picchu in the next week or two...