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In the year that Peru is trying to get Machu Picchu voted one of the new
Seven Wonders of the World, there are growing tensions over the
country's greatest tourist attraction.
Machu Picchu is located high in the Andes Mountains
A former mayor has built a bridge which creates a new route to the World
Heritage site, threatening to bring more tourists and, some say, open up
a new route for drug traffickers.
The 80-metre long Carilluchayoc bridge, which crosses the Vilcanota
river near the base of the 15th-Century Inca citadel, is to be
inaugurated in February, despite a court order prohibiting its
construction and protests from the government and environmentalists.
There is concern that - with around 2,500 visitors a day - there are
already too many tourists tramping around the ruins. The UN's cultural
division, Unesco, is due to inspect the site this year to decide whether
it should be classed as an endangered heritage site.
But the former mayor of La Convencion province, Fedia Castro, whose term
ended recently, says the village of Santa Teresa needs the bridge to end
its isolation and bring commerce and tourism.
The villagers currently have to undertake a 15-hour journey along
treacherous roads to take their agricultural produce to market in the
regional capital, Cusco. The bridge will allow them to take it by lorry
in just three hours. by BBC news |
