Added theatrics are provided by young Quechua children. The kids live below, but climb the mountain by foot to head off the buses. They yell and wave as you pass, then cut sideways through the trees to seemingly appear from nowhere around each bend. Atop the ruins, passengers stagger from the buses in a daze. An observation point sits just head of the drop-off zone, and everyone walks over to stare in disbelief at the unearthly panorama.
Mountains surround the site.
But these are not Alpine peaks. Their magnificence is not the sublime, sweeping majesty of the Alps or Rockies. You're looking at what an American explorer and historian named Hiram Bingham discovered first saw in 1911. Since the Incas, only a few Quechua peasants who farmed nearby were aware of its existence. Before Bingham, not even the conquistadors knew it was there.