Machu Picchu in Peru - XV century Inca city

Machu Picchu is located about 100 km from Cuzco, between two mountains, 900 meters above the Urubamba River.

It was estimated that about 1500 people lived in this religious center, where the ratio of men to women was 1:10. Based on these studies, it was found that Machu Picchu was not a city only a place of sun worship and sanctuary for women called "Virgins of the Sun".

Buildings in the city are built of local stone, they use different types of walls, and the entrance openings have a characteristic trapezoidal shape, like some windows.

The steep slopes and the stone walls placed on them kept the soil in the garden, where potatoes, maize and other vegetables were grown.

In Machu Picchu we can see, among others: the Tower of the Sun - a building with a set of horseshoes with a window set specially towards the sun and the Temple of Three Windows - a building with standing in the middle of a rectangular boulder, important dates were calculated in these buildings based on observation of the sun, including date of equating the day with the night.

You can also see numerous gardens, terraces, aqueducts, fountains, baths and ceremonial buildings and palaces.

The way to connect huge granite blocks remains a puzzle, they were combined without using mortar. Many stones have been joined here with such carefully smoothed edges that they fit together almost perfectly, and the walls are very durable and have almost imperceptible seams.

In the Machu Picchu Reserve an important problem is the excess of garbage thrown away by visitors, because it has been included by UNESCO in the World Cultural Heritage, so you can not build there or containers are littered nor public toilets.