Even more than gratuitous vandalism, it is an offense to a whole prestigious civilization, civilization of the Incas. Six tourists, five Latin Americans from Brazil, ofArgentina and Chile, as well as’a French woman, have degraded and defiled the famous city of Machu Picchu, in Peru, attacking even the most sacred symbol, the Temple of the Sun. One of them is to be tried, the others have already been expelled from the country on Wednesday 15 January.
A night of depredations at 2,400 meters
The small group had entered the site illegally last weekend without paying. Then the so-called tourists, aged 20 to 32, had cleverly hid to escape the vigilance of the guards who made a last round before closing at the end of the day. It was during the night that they were suspected of having damaged the walls of the Inca citadel, perched on a summit of the Andes mountain range at 2,400 meters above sea level. The police even noted on the spot that they had defecated in certain places.
The police who came to arrest the vandals at Machu Picchu transferred them to Cusco, the capital of the province – described as “center of the world” by the Incas -, about 80 kilometers below. Following their interrogation, Peruvian authorities have decided to expel five, including the Frenchwoman: they were driven by road to the city of Desaguadero, on the border with Bolivia. In contrast, the sixth, 28 year old Argentinian to be tried soon for “illegal extraction of cultural property”.
The greatest Inca deity attacked
The tourist, released after paying a deposit equivalent to around 800 euros, admitted having dropped a stone from the Temple of the Sun which, by crashing, also damaged the ground of the monument dedicated to the solar deity. He faces a sentence of several years in prison, provided for by the law of Peru for damage to the national cultural heritage.
Breathtaking beauty:
The Machu Picchu site has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983. It is visited by a multitude of tourists from around the world, at an average of 5,000 visitors per day.
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