Tourists endanger legendary Inca citadel of Machu Picchu

Fri, Apr 15, 2005



AFP Features
AFP
Tourists endanger legendary Inca citadel of Machu Picchu




MACHU PICCHU, Peru (AFP) - Overrun by tourists in past years, the legendary Inca citadel of Machu Picchu has been so damaged that the United Nations has threatened to list it as one of the world's most endangered monuments if the Peruvian government does move to protect it.



Forty years ago a visitor could climb up to the 15th century sanctuary 2,430 meters (7,972 feet) high in the Peruvian Andes by taxi, where a sleepy guard would lift a bamboo-and-string barrier allowing tourists a private visit.

Today there are official ticket takers, a parking lot, a deluxe hotel, shops and a battalion of guides to direct the army of tourists that arrive each day through the stone buildings and temples of the ancient city.

According to Peru's National Institute of Culture, each year some 800,000 people visit Machu Picchu, dropping off some 200 million dollars.

Every day trains of blue railroad cars snakes through the Urubamba Valley from Cuzco carrying up to 2,500 tourists, who then climb aboard tour buses for the final trip up a steep and winding road to the city.

Upon arrival the tourists are assailed by vendors lining the paths.

Machu Picchu was discovered in 1911 by American explorer Hiram Bingham, and was named a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1983. The site however has been heavily damaged by centuries of rain and poor drainage, as well as by the construction of the village of Aguas Calientes (Hot Springs) at the mountain base.

Aguas Calientes, which had only a dozen or so houses in the 1970s, is now a hive of tourist businesses with some 180 restaurants, hotels and souvenir boutiques.

With tourism a major foreign exchange earner, the Peruvian government has fueled the boom of visitors by heavily advertising the site.

Machu Picchu also attracts a steady stream of "New Age" mystical worshippers who visit the site for shamanist rites and therapies which they say gives them "vital energy".

But the excessive commercialization of the Incan citadel has provoking a backlash. Anger peaked in 2000, when a crane damaged the Intiwatana -- the site's sacred stone pillar known as "the hitching post of the sun" -- during the filming of a beer commercial.

The accident unleashed an outcry in Peruvian media and among archeological conservation groups.

Faced with this onslaught, Unesco's World Heritage Committee stepped up its warnings in recent years, saying there were problems with site management and conservation.

The committee could place Machu Picchu on its list of endangered sites when it meets in two months in South Africa. Making such a designation alerts the international community and helps governments take appropriate steps for protection.

In March, Machu Picchu site director Fernando Astete said that one of the the biggest threats to the ruins is water accumulation and seepage.

"The monument can take 2,500 visitors a day," he said, adding however that research has shown "a risk" in taking so many tourists. "We will without a doubt make some adjustments" to the tourist flow, he said.

Currently, 25 of the 788 World Heritage sites are considered under threat, victims of pollution, poaching, uncontrolled urbanization, tourism, war and natural disasters.