Carpe Diem #335, Machu Picchu provided by Managua

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Our festive month of Carpe Diem's first anniversary is almost over. I have had fun with all of your wonderful prompts and it was a joy to read all your wonderful haiku, senryu, tanka and other poetry forms. It wasn't the most easy month, but I enjoyed preparing it. As you will know our next month we will have our first Tan Renga Challenge month in which I ask you every day to make a Tan Renga complete. Every Tan Renga is started with a haiku written by one of you, my dear friends and haiku-family members. I am looking forward to that month ... it will be a challenge to prepare all the daily posts, but ... whatever .... I enjoy what I do ..

Today we share haiku on Machu Picchu (provided by Managua) that wonderful Inca place high in the Andes. A lot of people who have been there say it's a very magical, mystical and spiritual place to be and as I look at the photos of that great place I do believe that it's an one in a life experience to be there.

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu bears a unique testimony to the Inca civilization. Macchu Picchu is an outstanding example of man's interaction with his natural environment.
Standing 2,430 m above sea level, in the midst of a tropical mountain forest in an extraordinarily beautiful setting, Machu Picchu was probably the most amazing urban creation of the Inca Empire at its height. Its giant walls, terraces and ramps seem as if they have been cut naturally in the continuous rock escarpments. The natural setting, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, encompasses the upper Amazon basin with its rich diversity of flora and fauna.
Machu Picchu covers 32,500 ha in some of the scenically most attractive mountainous territory of the Peruvian Andes. As the last stronghold of the Incas and of superb architectural and archaeological importance, Machu Picchu is one of the most important cultural sites in Latin America; the stonework of the site remains as one of the world's great examples of the use of a natural raw material to provide outstanding architecture which is totally appropriate to the surroundings. The surrounding valleys have been cultivated continuously for well over 1,000 years, providing one of the world's greatest examples of a productive man-land relationship; the people living around Machu Picchu continue a way of life which closely resembles that of their Inca ancestors, being based on potatoes, maize and llamas. Machu Picchu also provides a secure habitat for several endangered species, notably the spectacled bear, one of the most interesting species in the area. Others animals include: dwarf brocket, the otter, long-tailed weasel, pampas cat and the vulnerable ocelot, boa, the Andean cock of the rock, and the Andean condor.
The natural vegetation is of humid and very humid lower montane forest of the subtropical region, mainly with genera and ferns of the Cyathea and palms.

Machu Picchu

Set on the vertiginous site of a granite mountain sculpted by erosion and dominating a meander in the Rio Urubamba, Machu Picchu is a world renowned archaeological site. The construction of this amazing city, set out according to a very rigorous plan, comprises one of the most spectacular creations of the Inca Empire. It appears to date from the period of the two great Incas, Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui (1438-71) and Tupac Inca Yupanqui (1472-93). The function of this city situated at least 100 km from the capital, Cuzco, has not been formulated which are not verifiable given the absence of written documentation and sufficiently explicit material evidence.

Without making a judgment as to their purpose, several quite individual quarters may be noted in the ruins of Machu Picchu: a quarter 'of the Farmers' near the colossal terraces whose slopes were cultivated and transformed into hanging gardens; an 'industrial' quarter; a 'royal' quarter and a 'religious' quarter. Inca architecture reveals itself here in all of its force with the titanic earthen works which multiplied the platforms, leveled the rocky relief, constructed ramps and stairways and literally sculpted the mountain whose cyclopean constructions appear to be a prolongation of nature.

Source: UNESCO/CLT/WHC 

Machu Picchu

Isn't it a wonderful place ... I would love to visit it .... yeah in my dreams I think (smiles).

high in the mountains
a city built for the beauty of the Sun -
Machu Picchu

spiritual place
feeling in touch with the Inca -
Machu Picchu

close to heaven
high up in the mountains
I feel close to God

Well .... I hope you liked this post and I hope it will inspire you to write haiku. This prompt will stay on 'til October 31th 11.59 AM (CET) and I will post our last episode of our festive month, Galaxy (provided by Bjorn), later on today around 7.00 PM (CET).

!! Machu Picchu is open for your submissions at 7.00 PM (CET) !!