| One decenia ago there lived 500 people. Nowadays more than a 1000 tourists A DAY pass trough the village of Machu Picchu. A portrait of the people in the town 'formally know as Aguas Calientes'. |
| A visual and musical composition by Ton van Zantvoort recorded in Machu Picchu Pueblo |
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High
amid the towering peaks of the Andes mountains, the grating shriek of
pneumatic drills fill the air. New streets are being laid out, while hotels
are going up fast in the dormitory town of Machu Picchu Pueblo, the starting
point for the 450.000 tourists who every year flock to Peru’s most
famous Inca site, the mystic citadel of Machu Picchu. |
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For many, the noisy
chaos of the unplanned town, which has mushroomed from 500 inhabitants
to over 4,000 in the past decade due to the tourist boom, embodies the
reckless way in which the Machu Picchu tourist experience is run. |
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Unbridled growth in
tourism is irrevocably damaging the U.N. World Heritage Site and its surrounding
attractions, destroying one of the world’s premier archeological sites. stills |
