{"id":1727,"date":"2011-10-31T15:44:10","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T14:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?page_id=1727"},"modified":"2011-11-11T14:50:13","modified_gmt":"2011-11-11T13:50:13","slug":"1727-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?page_id=1727","title":{"rendered":"Caretas Article on Llactapata by Nicholas Asheshov"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>Caretas<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Un Tesoro a la Vuelta De Amenazado por Vacas<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>by Nicholas Asheshov<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>[&#8216;Treasure next to Machu Picchu menaced by cattle&#8217;]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Translation of\u00a0the\u00a0original article as it appeared in the Peruvian magazine, <strong>Caretas<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>One of the most attractive ruins around Machu Picchu is Llactapata,<\/strong> a delicate Inca site hidden high in the cloud forest with the charm of having a superb view, the best, of the Sacred Citadel.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Early in the morning you can watch, as the Incas themselves certainly did, the clouds clear as the sun&#8217;s rays hit first one, then other parts of the citadel.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Llactapata is 200 ms higher than the main plaza at Machu Picchu and three clean and clear kilometers away over the deep canyon of the Aobamba.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>From Llactapata you can see the tiny, bright jackets of tourists as they wander among the walls and ancient terraces of the citadel.\u00a0 Three formidable 6,000m snow peaks provide a dramatic backdrop to the forested ridges, cliffs, deep valleys and turbulent rivers.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>But the ruin of Llactapata itself is deteriorating fast.\u00a0 Hugh Thomson, who was there a few weeks ago with a National Geographic film crew, tells me:\u00a0 &#8220;The cattle are battering down the long corridor which is now only half the height it was when you and I were there in 2003.\u00a0 Soon there will be little left and the other sectors are all woefully neglected and lost in undergrowth again.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>He added that, &#8220;the lovely two-storey temple on the hill is unreachable now. \u00a0Still, we caught the light on\u00a0the\u00a0June solstice dawn streaming straight down the corridor just as the Inca designed it to do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Hugh, together with Gary Ziegler, had led a group of machete-wielders up this mountainside six years ago and, on the basis of compass bearings and drawings Hugh had found in Hiram Bingham&#8217;s diaries at Yale, re-discovered this jewel.\u00a0 That it is in plain view of half a million tourists a year tells you something about the still-immense hidden areas of the Amazon forests.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Last week I talked about Llactapata for a moment with Fernando Astete, the head archaeologist for the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, INC, at Machu Picchu, and one of Peru&#8217;s leading Inca-ologists.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s a difficult area.\u00a0 It&#8217;s just outside, legally, the Machu Picchu national park.\u00a0 The locals are titled owners and they&#8217;re mostly just interested in finding grazing for their cows.\u00a0 We&#8217;re sending in people to &#8216;<em>sensibilizarlos&#8217;<\/em>, but they are often very difficult.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caretas Un Tesoro a la Vuelta De Amenazado por Vacas by Nicholas Asheshov [&#8216;Treasure next to Machu Picchu menaced by cattle&#8217;] Translation of\u00a0the\u00a0original article as it appeared in the Peruvian magazine, Caretas . One of the most attractive ruins around Machu Picchu is Llactapata, a delicate Inca site hidden high in the cloud forest with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":311,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"page-without-sidebar.php","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1727","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1727"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1755,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1727\/revisions\/1755"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}