The Inka Trail / Machu Picchu
Location:
District : Machu Picchu
Province : Urubamba
Department : Cusco
Length of the trail : 35,450.00m.
Historical Background.
Chronologically, Machu Picchu belongs to the period of the Inka state (C. 1,430 A.D).
Comments of chroniclers from the 16th centuries reveal their amazement at the Inka road infrastructure:
¨….From the city of Cusco there are two roads or royal highways which are two thousand miles long; one goes along the plains and the other along the mountain tops. They were twenty-eight feet across, that is winder than the roads of Egypt or Rome….¨(Garcilaso de la Vega).
¨…The highland road has to be seen believed, because the terrains is very rough and yet in Christendom we have never seen such beautiful roads, and the whole length of the road all the steams are crossed by hanging bridges, wonderful to behold…¨(Hernando Pizarro).
Arquitecture.
The Inka trail is system of roads setting out from different points and leading to the Inka city of Machu Picchu, one of the structural features is the varying width of the trail, 1.00m.to 1.60m., depending on the topography of the area. On parts of the of the trail the natural ground was earth filled to form embankments, and stone steps were constructed along different stretches depending on the gradient, especially in the area de Puyupatamarka; side walls varied in the type of stonework ranged from of rustic to fine. The original stone paving runs from upper Paqaymayo trough Runkuraqay, Sayaqmarka, Phuyupatamarka, and Intipata to Machu Picchu.
Appropriate basic infrastructure and road infrastructure has now been built to minimize the impact in areas protected by the state.
