View from Intipunku, the Sun Gate. This is the first sight of Machu Picchu that hikers following the Inca Tail get.
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"Photographs are as Ashes to a Live Body"Into the Fire by Linda Davies "Helen had always feared that it would be an anticlimax, that something dreamed of for a lifetime would inevitably be smaller than the dream. She had lived so much of her life in the imagination that it was for her more powerful than reality. But what towered before her was greater than anything she might have conjured. Photographs were as ashes to a live body. Nothing captured Machu Picchu, a kingdom ruined but alive."
"The power was not just in the configurations of stones, but in the awesome setting. A thousand feet below, the Urubamba river churned through the gorge that cut around the base of the mountain. Surrounding them a circle of snow-covered peaks and green ranges towered into a dazzling sky. The Citadel at the centre."
The quotations above, describing the goal and fitting climax of the Inca Trail hike are from Into the Fire, the thriller by Linda Davies, who lived in Peru for three years. She used her experiences, and what she learnt there, in the plot of the novel. She travelled extensively in the country and hiked the Inca Trail on various occasions. Into the Fire is now available world-wide in a new paperback edition published by Twenty First Century Publishers and may also be downloaded as an ebook from Diesel eBooks.
Of course, Machu Picchu is an amazing spectacle, even if you arrive by train - the easy way! |
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The Classic view showing the ruined city perched on a hill with the mountain Huayna Picchu in the background.
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A bird's eye view of Machu Picchu from the summit of Huayna Picchu.
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Go to section 3 |