It was a summer house of the emperor hidden in the mountains and this is only so unique because the Spanish demolished the Inca civilization to the ground, along with its iconic buildings and cities! It is of course very pretty and we can appreciate here that the Incas were very advanced in engineering and construction... But on the other hand this place bubbled as a foreign structure in Peru, a poor country where the large proportion of the population lives in extreme poverty. It starts with Agua Calientes, a place completely deprived from the national character, where everything is adapted to the doubtful tastes of tourists, where the typical dinner costs 10 times higher than in the neighboring real villages! The tourists take a bus from Agua Calientes to the sanctuary entrance (a distance of approx. 8 km) for which a one-way ticket costs 12 USD which is like 10 dinners in the real Peru). They walk out of the bus welcomed by a hostess dressed in impeccable uniform, walk along luxurious hotels and restaurants to the entrance where the guides take over their groups and fill their time with fascinating stories... Some tourists take a snack or a bottle of water for 3 dollars (3 dinners) and enjoy the rising sun... Just ten meters below the bus stop, well hidden from the sight of the tourists, a group of local workers eat in silence their 1 USD meals from the real world... The poor part of Peruvians are not supposed to learn about their history and cultural heritage... They should be as invisible as possible, to not spoil the cool image of the country, at least until the tourists pay and go!
