What & Where In the shadow of 6,000 meter high peaks of the Andes Cordillera, the valley has been slowly carved by the River Urubamba, that springs out at La Raya where an Inca shrine was built, at a height of 5,362 meters, then is joined by many colleagues before it merges with the Ucayali River and ultimately becomes the Amazon itself. The Incas made sure that this river, then called Willcamayu (sacred river), considered a reflection of the galaxy, was kept completely clean. The heart of the Inca Empire, Tawantinsuyu was built around this very river. The sacred valley begins at La Raya and ends 300 km downstream at Machu Pichhu. Climate Climate was clearly one of the reasons why the valley was called sacred. The mild climate of the fertile big-white-corn-growing plain provides a pleasant respite to the harsh climate of the Altiplano. The weather is rather unpredictable, as it may rain at any season, usually in the afternoon, but in the night it can get cold even in the plain. Generally, May to September is the dry season (and the tourist season), so dry in fact that there are many forest fires in August September. Altitude and climate varies from over 6,000 metres in the glacier covered peaks, part of the Andes Cordillera, overlooking the valley to 3400 at Cusco level (Cusco is built on a neighbouring valley), to 2900 at sacred valley level gradually dropping down to 1000 by the time it is only as wide as a small river, below Machu Picchu, where the high jungle (alta selva) begins. Why visit Where to start? This is the heart of what used to be the Inca empire, so Inca traditions are still alive, for example the mayors of towns are announced in local festivals by a procession of men blowing conch shells. There are important monuments everywhere, in a density equaling that of Athens and Rome. Among them Pizac, the largest fortress city complex of the Incas, overlooks the longest (3.3.Km) pre-colombian canal on the Urubamba river, that straightened the flow of the river so as to conserve land. There are colourful Sunday markets, towns with two main squares, an Inca relic, one square being for the sun and one for the moon. You can see Olantaytambo, where the Incas made the last stand against the Spanish Conquerors, the only Inca settlement continuously inhabited in Peru since those days that has kept its original look and trapezoid layout. During Manco Inca's rebellion in 1537 it was here that the sacred river was diverted to flood the cavalry of the Spanish attackers. There is Moray, a set of Inca experimental agricultural terraced pits where by creating terraces of gradually different microclimate (warm in the bottom, colder as you go up) they developed high altitude maize and other crops which made possible high concentrations of people at this altitude. You can admire irrigation systems, still in use today, which tap glaciers through artistically built water channels thousands of meters long. You can follow the numerous Inca trails and little tunnels, perched high above the valleys. And last but not least, Machu Picchu, a palace/sanctuary/fortress - no one knows, never discovered or pillaged by the Conquerors, today a Unesco Cultural and Natural Heritage site, only one of two such monuments in the Western Hemisphere (the other is Tikal). In late July of 2002, in an emotional ceremony, newly elected President Toledo, the first Peruvian President of Andean descent, honored the heritage of the Incas, in a ceremony complete with coca leaves, conch shells, chicha, and traditional priests. Nature does justice to all the cultural achievements, of the valley and vice versa. Apart from the dramatic scenery, nearly 5% (374) of all bird species in the world are found in the Machu Pichhu area alone. One of the most threatened mammal species is also found within the area, the Andean spectacled bear Tremarctos ornatus, perhaps a distant cousin of the panda. Successes & Problems Cusco is the Florence of the South, there are many well kept museums, there is a unified ticket / map / certificate that enables you to visit most of the museums and the antiquities of the sacred valley, which would be an excellent idea for many of the worlds' historic cities. The Tourist Office is very helpful , trains and buses work and the latter can take you anywhere, the roads are good, there are numerous and very cheap Internet cafes, many good and good value restaurants, people are relatively well-off, and the city and the valley are generally safe places to be. Archaeological work is going on in most sites. Until now, under the watchful eye of UNESCO, Machu Picchu and as a result the sacred valley, has been more eco-friendly than many major tourist destinations. You can reach Machu Picchu only by public transport - a pleasant four-hour train journey where you gradually enter the jungle as you descend; or by foot - a four-day trek or a combination of the above. The train passengers' final ascent to the ancient city is organised via a co-operative of local bus drivers. Accommodation is in small, locally-run guesthouses and hotels. Tourists stock up on food, camera film and coca leaves directly from the local shops and markets. Critics however see a lack of adequate basic infrastructure to cater either for the locals or for an ever increasing number of tourists, and a drive by the central government to increase the number of tourists in the area regardless of its physical and social carrying capacity. Facts are sometimes cloudy, as there is a lot of money generated and at stake in the area so there is a political tourism game played both at the local and international levels, on top of local politics. We try to be as impartial as possible below: Macchu Pichu: Is the most important protected area in Peru in terms of revenue generated. The former government under Alberto Fujimori, now a fugitive in Japan, had planned the privatisation (sale to Orient Express) of the railway service and the construction of a cable car up to Machu Picchu from the end of the railway line. A new 6 floor luxury hotel also by Orient Express, complete with its own helicopter landing pad, was planned at the entrance to the ancient city. (By the way, you can already hear a helicopter buzzing overhead with tourists from Cusco every twenty minutes) Together with a new national highway, the government hoped that these developments would treble the number of visitors to this World Heritage Site. These plans were highly unpopular with the local businesses and communities that depend on the current pattern of tourist flow, and caused the wrath of archaeologists and environmentalists and ultimately of UNESCO that added Machu Picchu in 2000 to the shameful list of World Heritage Sites in Peril. This listing was removed in the following year perhaps as a sign of good will when the new Toledo government was installed. However the new minister responsible has since made some dubious remarks about a cable car to the back of the ruins. On the other hand, the current solution, buses, is not without its problems either, as bus drivers drive recklessly fast, the buses cause dangerous vibrations and pollution to the landslide prone mountain slopes, while there are allegations that oil changes find their way to the river. Critics maintain that Machu Picchu is already seriously affected in its aesthetic integrity by the existing tourism facilities, such as the Machu Picchu Hotel, bathrooms, ticket and control office, terrace with bar, telephone booth and antenna building, INC-Comedor, zigzag road, buses, parking of buses. Others say that these are necessary evils. There are also problems with Aguas Calientes, a sort of tourist shanty town at the base of Machu Picchu where the Cusco train stops, and its waste disposal areas along the river. A UNESCO mission observed in 1998 that it is located in a disaster prone area (landslides), it has developed without structure, without proper planning and control, has problems of sewage and waste, the river is being polluted, while hotels are being built with more than four stories. Informal commerce, souvenir stalls selling identical tourist items brought from elsewhere, prevails. The theory that Machu Picchu is already over-visited is already supported by constant "traffic jams" within the ruins, queues just to take pictures, as well as visible strains in the ruins. An unfortunate incident and example of mismanagement was when the Intihuatana, (sun solstice stone) considered by archaeologists to be the most sacred object in Machu Picchu was broken, and now stuck back, a few years ago in the filming of a beer commercial. Some sectors are plainly dangerous to visit such as the path to the Huyana Picchu, the high peak overlooking the main ruins, that appears in all post cards. At the top it has some steep slippery Inca steps that are loose and move when you step on them, while to your right and left is nothing but a 1500 meter drop. The current practice of simply signing yourself in and out to visit that particular section is not adequate to protect either the visitors or the ruins at that part of the monument. In fact in spring of 2001 New Scientist magazine reported a Japanese geologist's finding, later retracted, that Machu Picchu, was in danger of imminent collapse. The article stated that there was "a distortion line running north-south inside the citadel and buildings along the line show signs of damage''. The Inca trail is also overvisited. There are inadequate informal camping sites with overflowing sewage, and litter which end up in already polluted streams. In August of 2000 measures were at last implemented to limit the numbers of people hiking the trail every day to 500, (there are about 70,000 each year) to limit the hiking group to 30 including guides potters and cooks, and raise the prices of hiking from USD 17 to USD 50 but lax controls mean that there are ways to get around the measures, for both tourists and local entrepreneurs. There is a large informal sector in the local economy, many are scraping a living as informal porters and sellers of bottled water and other items for the tourists. As in other popular mountains around the world, porters are over-loaded, underpaid, they double as cooks and guides, sleep roughly and only for a few hours in freezing temperatures. Allegedly, as standards of hygiene are not met, there are frequent reports of food poisoning of hikers. In Cusco, in the centre, Tourists are constantly approached by small children wishing to sell them postcards or shine their shoes, honked at by legal and illegal taxi drivers, and tour operator and restaurant hawkers open menus and programs in their faces. Some shops persist in selling skins and feathers to the tourists, and apparently some tourists persist in buying these illegal products. In the valley: At every tourist site there are natively garbed women with llamas charging for pictures. In relation to reconstructing the ancient monuments there is sometimes a "Puesta en valor" (give value) attitude to over-reconstruct monuments, often arbitrarily. Sewage and chemical residues from towns and villages along the course of the Urubamba river mix with the once so sacred waters and garbage accumulates along its shores. An integrated management plan for the whole of the sacred valley and Cusco region, is lacking thus there are difficulties in departmental coordination. There is continued threat of accidental fires in the dry season while most of the areas adjacent to the antiquities are farmed. In 1988, a major fire spread across the Machu Picchu National Forest destroying over 4,000 ha of land. Perhaps to due global warming, melting glaciers and disappearing snow fields throughout the surrounding Mountain Range lead to increasing water scarcity and affect people, animals and plants, The river carries less water than in previous years and the water it carries is so polluted that its animal and plant life has been greatly reduced and will disappear in the near future unless prompt action is taken. The polluted water also gives rise to parasitic and gastro-intestinal diseases that plague the poor people who depend on the river’s water for consumption and washing. Among current moves in the opposite direction from ecotourism, are plans to build an International Airport in Chincheros, between Cusco and Urubamba. Much traffic would be seen between the airport and the Sacred Valley should this plan become reality. The plan further includes a train station in the small town of Urubamba to connect with Machu Picchu. Investors have already started to buy land along the Sacred Valley to build hotels, some having plans for 5 star luxury hotels. This may take some pressure of Cusco, as currently there are precious few places to stay outside Cusco, but one does not want to turn the still genuine parts of the sacred valley into an IncaLand. Click here to see the ECOCLUB Member Lodges in Peru
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It seems many great civilisations had
sacred valleys, probably because they developed either around the sea, or
around river ways, which really were the commercial and information highways
of the time. There was Mesopotamia (Greek for "in the middle of
rivers"), Nile and the sacred valley of the Egyptians, and then there
is the sacred valley of the Inca. The Incas in fact thought of the galaxy as
a big "Mayu" or river. "Sacred" used to
denote both the religious and the strategic / political importance of the
valley, in fact the two were usually indistinguishable as the ruler was also
the religious leader. Nowadays, as surrounding religions and states have
changed beyond recognition, "sacred" rather denotes the tourist
importance of these agglomerations of ancient relics for cash-strapped
national and local economies. Abused then, "sacred" becomes a sad
reminder to both the resident and the visitor of glories past in sharp
contrast to miseries present. But not is all gloom. If
properly managed and linked to the local economy, a touristic sacred valley
can single-handedly lift economically and morally a local society. ECOCLUB
went there to check for you.
