The Machu Picchu Master Plan 2015-2019
After two years of preparation, the new master plan for Machu Picchu has been approved, and it portends a drastic makeover of the tourist experience at the Inca Citadel.
The plan proposes “changing the axis of the visitor experience” to perceive Machu Picchu as something conceptually larger than that iconic postcard image we all know so well.
The vast majority of travelers who come to Peru for the first time do so intending to tour the stone temples, fountains and dwellings perched on that craggy mountaintop, framed against the background of the majestic Huayna Picchu peak.
Machu Picchu is the sacred center point where huge landscape alignments of mountain deities and celestial bodies converge. Archaeological evidence shows that Machu Picchu was also the center of a vast and bustling complex that extended for miles around.
To impress that on visitors — and to control the flow of their ever-growing numbers — Peru’s Culture Ministry plans to relocate the checkpoint entrance into Machu Picchu from just outside the mountaintop ruins to a new visitor center to be built along the lower flanks of the mountain. There tourists will begin their visit with an “official scientific” video explaining Machu Picchu’s significance in that larger theoretical context.
Some major infrastructure changes are also in the works.
An additional exit ramp will be built so that visitors aren’t leaving the same way they came in. A new Help Center will be constructed, as well, and toilets will be installed within the ruins.
For a fuller description of the qualitative changes coming soon to Machu Picchu, read the article I’ve written for the Peruvian Times.
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I’m honestly confused on what this all means. If I visit Peru next year, will I be required to follow these guidelines or will these guidelines be implemented by 2019?
Hi Michelle,
It is hard to know how quickly some of the more drastic procedural changes will be implemented. Last year, they began enforcing the 20-person maximum for tour groups and park guards were there with their shrill whistles to move visitors along at bottleneck points of interest, like the Intihuatana and the Temple of the Condor. As of right now, they are not yet requiring that all visitors enter with a guide.
As far as the infrastructure projects that portend the transformation of the Machu Picchu experience, they are moving right along with that. The Cusco Regional government recently gave the thumbs up to the Tourism and Culture ministry’s plans for the visitor center complex. The central government is in the process of putting it out to bid. They are supposed to break ground in December, and it’s scheduled for completion by January 2017.
Keep on eye on this blog and the Peruvian Times…. I’ll be writing about developments.
Best regards,
Rick
Hi Michelle,
The construction has started:
https://www.fertur-travel.com/blog/2015/reconstruction-at-machu-picchu-begins-starting-with-exit-ramp/11774/
Best regards,
Rick
And will the toilet paper be free and with more than 6 squares?