High in the Peruvian Andes above the Urubamba river on a mountain called Machu Picchu lies the lost city of the Incas which at one time was the centre of the greatest empire in south America four hundred years nobody knew anything about Machu Picchu until the American historian and archaeologist Hiram Bingham discovered it by chance in 1911 but even then it was still very difficult to get to the mountain city until another group of archaeologists found the Inca trail.
The journey to Machu Picchu begins at Cuzco one of the oldest cities in south America and once the capital city of the Inca empire today you can get to Machu Picchu by train from Cuzco and then continue by bus for the more adventurous there’s the Inca trail of course! This three to five-day trek is one of the most popular in South America.
Thick jungle and some of the world’s highest mountains surround the mysterious city of Machu Picchu what makes it so mysterious is that to this very day nobody really knows what happened to the people who lived there.
Archaeologists have found the skeletons of 173 people and 150 of them were women however that discovery didn’t help solve the mystery what even more amazing is that the Incas managed to build this stone city high up on a mountain top and they cut stones and made them fit perfectly together one thing is certain however it will be a long time before archaeologists manage to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and solve the mystery of Machu Picchu.