While on a guided tour of Machu Picchu and the vicinity, I saw so many beautiful and different colored orchids growing everywhere in this lush rainforested area, along with huge bromeliads that were in bloom. The fauna of this area of Peru include the spectacled bear, cock-of-the-rocks, or tunqui, wildcats, and an extraordinary abundance of butterflies and insects that are unique to the region. Hiram Bingham, an American explorer, encountered a condor with a wing-span of 12 feet on one of his expeditions to Machu Picchu in 1911. The Incas revered the mighty condor but they can no longer be found in this area. The natural surroundings and the strategic location of Machu Picchu give this sanctuary great beauty, harmony, and balance unlike any other area in the world.

There are several legends about the origins or the Inca and the emergence of Manco Capac, who was the founder of the dynasty of princes of Cuzco and the Inca Kings. One such legends tells of strangers or new tribes that came from unknown lands across the sea in rafts or boats and landed on the coast, later either settling there or trekking further into the highlands. Other legends tell of the wandering of a clan in search of a permanent place to settle. This clan took up residence at the island sanctuary on Lake Titicaca. Subsequently, Manco left his 200 companions there with the assurance that they would find him again if they asked for the "Son of the Sun and Moon." He reportedly wandered slowly in a northwesterly direction to a shrine of Pacaritampu, about a two day walk from Cuzco. According to legend, Manco Capac had been prepared by a magician for his future as king.

The Incas revered the Sun as the sole universal God who creates and sustains everything through his light and power. They believed that the Sun was the "natural father of the first Inca, Manco Capac, and of his wife, Mama Ocllo Huaco, as well as all of their descendants who were sent to Earth for the benefit of all people." The high priest was called Villac-umu, which means "sorcerer who speaks." The holder of this high position was related by blood to the Inca and held this post for life. He was highly revered and was almost equal in authority with the Inca, his power ranging from appointing and removing priests to control over all shrines and temples.
The feast of Inti-raymi, or Midwinter's Day, was celebrated each year on the shortest day of the year. The ceremony began with the emperor being carried on a golden throne into the Golden Enclosure of the Temple of the Sun which was filled with sculptures of golden llamas and cornstalks. White llamas were then sacrificed to the sun. Priests threw kisses to the sun, which they considered to be God, and attempted to capture him by binding him to a stone pillar they called the Intihuatana, or the "Hitching Post of the Sun." 
The common people did not understand the passing of the seasons and why the days grew longer or shorter. They attributed the annual return of the sun as a miracle and believed that the Sun God had listened to their prayers. The Inca soothsayers were the only ones that knew how to calculate the sun's cycles by using sundials, and they knew exactly when it would return to the land of the Inca. Sundials were used for ceremonial purposes as well. The inhabitants of Machu Picchu were able to develop the calendar, "dividing the year into 365 days, 52 weeks, 12 months, the months into days, the days into 24 hours, and the hours into 60 minutes, exactly as we know it today."

The Incas felt a strong kinship with nature and believed in omens, dreams, and visions. During the last days of the Spanish invasion, Huayna Capac, the last great Inca, had many visions. One was of lightning flashes coming from his feet which he took as an evil omen. In Peruvian mythology, the snake and lightning symbolize forces that can bring disease and decay. He soon received news of an outbreak of bubonic plague in Cuzco. The plague spread rapidly and was a contributing factor to bringing the Inca empire down. More sinister visions occurred. While celebrating, "...the people in Cuzco saw an eagle flying in the air pursued by a flock of smaller birds of prey, which repeatedly attacked it with their beaks. Since he could no longer defend himself, the eagle dropped down into the center of the square in front of the Sun Temple." Its whole body was covered with scabs and it had lost most of its feathers and soon died. Other evil omens occurred, such as earthquakes, floods along the coast, comets appeared in the sky, and the moon had "...three great haloes, one blood-red, another shading from black to green, and another ashen." An ancient oracle of the Inca referred to the coming of "...strange peoples, of a kind that has never been seen before; these would rob the Inca of his empire and destroy its state and religion." These prophecies, visions and dreams foretold the fall of the Inca Empire and played a large role in the religious and spiritual world of the Incas.

On July 14,1911, Hiram Bingham arrived with a team of Yale University specialists in topography, biography, geology, engineering and osteology. In his original map, Bingham had drawn Machu Picchu into four sections, according to the four cardinal points. In 1914, Bingham returned to Machu Picchu with economic backing from Yale University and the U.S. Geographic Society to explore and map Machu Picchu carefully. Bingham was convinced that Machu Picchu was "Vilcapampa the Old" which was the principal city of Manco Inca and his sons. He discovered an outer wall edged with huge terraces and an inner wall that had guarded the city with what appeared to be a gate that once had a heavy door, barred closed with a cross-log. Every inch of space was cleverly used and the mountainside was terraced for agricultural purposes. All parts of the city were connected together by alleys, sidestreets, and more than 100 stairways carved into the rock. A narrow watercourse about four inches wide carried water from springs on Machu Picchu mountain and spread throughout the city. 
There was a square, "the Sacred Plaza," which was surrounded by several temples: "The Temple of the Three Windows" with its huge walls and its three trapezoidal shaped windows; and the "Central Temple" which had seven indentations where mummies were believed to have been kept. There are many Temples in Machu Picchu that represent the Apus, or mountains, that surround this special place. "The Pacha Mama Temple" is formed from part of the Apu behind it. In back of the "Pacha Mama Temple" begins the trail to the summit of Huayna Picchu, from where one can see the great valley of mountains of the area and the shape of Machu Picchu. Its shape is thought to be that of a humming bird which is a special bird to the Incas. Bingham felt that some parts of the city were Incan, while other areas were much more ancient. 

The origins of the Incas is unclear; however, there are a few legends and tales that connect the Incas and their legendary founder, the first Manco Inca, with Tampu Tococo. According to the legends, the Incas conquered Cuzco and then the rest of the Inca empire from that point. Tampu Tococo means "window tavern." Windows are not a common feature of Inca architecture but there are an abundance of windows in the dwellings of Machu Picchu and, of course, the intriguing "Temple of the Three Windows." The legends connect just such a temple with the birthplace of Manco I. Bingham felt that Machu Picchu was both Vilcapampa and Tampu Tococo, the first and last capital of the Incas. He believed that it was the place where "the wisdom, skill and best traditions of the ancient folk who had developed the civilization of Peru" had been preserved. No one knows how this great sanctuary had been built which is known today as the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Graves were discovered on the slopes which had been dug under ledges or inside of caves where they were protected from the rain. Almost all of the graves found in the cemetery were females. "In fact, of the remains of 175 people, about 150 were identified as female!" Bingham speculated that during its final years, Machu Piccu may have been a kind of convent dedicated to the Sun God. He thought that Machu Picchu was a sacred city and that the Virgins of the Sun, who were the Chosen Women, had been the main inhabitants. He believed that the Chosen Women were educated here and worked to provide all of the necessities of life to the Inca and the Priests and that the ancient sanctuary then became lost in the memory of the common people.

Marino Orlando Sanchez Macedo, an archaeologist and the author of De las Sacerdotisas, Brujas y Adivinas de Machu Picchu, or "The Priestesses, Witches & Psychics of Machu Picchu", researched and performed archaeological digs there spanning a 20-year period. Macedo’s research supported that Machu Picchu was truly a sanctuary. The evidence that he found confirms that the priestesses who had lived there were very knowledgeable about the mysteries of the Sky and the Earth.

In 1995, a new archaeological dig at Machu Picchu made a discovery that may help answer the question of why Machu Picchu was built and located high in the Andes Mountains. While excavating a previously unknown cave located in the "Condor Temple," the expedition discovered a series of caves leading to a deep and narrow hole that had been covered up with soil. The Incas believed that man was molded from clay by Pachacamac, "the creator," who then "placed these molds into the depths of the earth and made them re-emerge from caves, springs and lakes throughout the lands." Members of the expedition guessed that the Incas performed religious ceremonies at this site, probably portraying their creation myth. The Andes people thought of "Mother Earth" as alive with supernatural powers and the sacred spots where these forces were honored were called huacas. Machu Picchu was thought to be a huaca, considered sacred and worshiped as the point where life began by emerging from out of the ground.

While on our guided tour of Machu Picchu, our guide took us to just such an underground ceremonial spot. He called it a rebirthing cave. There were several rooms and one with an alter or slab that one could speculate was used for sacrifices as it had grooves cut into the sides that looked like they were designed for the run off of blood and drained down into a deeper hole into the Earth. Our guide said that there were legends that the ancient people used to perform ceremonies there and that the blood was an offering to the spirits of the underworld who would be drawn to the surface and mate with the humans. He said the Yeti, known in the U. S. as Bigfoot, was born of such a union. The top of the cave had symbols of the puma, condor, and the snake carved into it and there were bones and chips of pottery laying close by on the surface which were the remains of an archeological dig whose funding had run out. 

What happened to the inhabitants of this city still remains a mystery. The Inca civilization seemed to have vanished into thin air more than 400 years ago. Bingham was convinced that the civilization of the Andes was very old. He speculated that originally Machu Picchu had been the capital of an ancient pre-Inca kingdom . Oddly shaped and colored stones were found that Bingham thought were "record stones" that had been used to keep accounts. The presence of these stones indicated to Bingham that the Incas had lived at Machu Picchu even before they had developed the quipa, the knotted and colored ropes they had used for record keeping. This was the only site in Peru where such stones had been found. Bingham believed that Machu Picchu was the home of the last Incas as well as the home of the very first Incas, possibly even the "cradle of Andean civilization."
If you stand among the ruins of this ancient civilization and marvel at the beauty that surrounds it, it’s easy to picture the Chosen Women of the convent and the priests performing their rituals and ceremonies to the Sun God and to the Moon and Her Handmaidens, Venus and the Pleiades. The terraced landscape carved into the mountain and the "canal system" waterways that span the entire city reminds us of the clever architectural and agricultural accomplishments of the Incas. That religion and the spiritual world occupied a great place in the lives of the Incas is without question as you gaze upon the many temples and ceremonial areas of Machu Picchu. That these people lived in harmony with nature and their surroundings is evident in how this city remained virtually unknown to the Spanish conquerors, and was even forgotten by the nearby inhabitants of Cuzco. Where did they disappear to? Did they die one by one or abandon the sanctuary of Machu Picchu? Perhaps we will never know, but when you are standing there amongst the ruins, you could almost imagine their beloved Sun God gathering them up in his arms and taking them home to sit by his side in the heavens, rewarding his ancient people for their devotion and service, leaving the remains of this glorious culture behind to tantalize future generations!