Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
This revised edition includes newly discovered sites. New photos and maps with full-color illustrations of real life scences from National Geographic Magazine.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Good Info for a Trip
Customer Rating:
I bought this book in preparation for going to hike the Inca Trail. Great info!
Machu Picchu guidebook
Customer Rating:
This book came in handy while at Machu Picchu. We actually did have a guide, but we also had some members who could not handle the stairs all day. So we took the guided tour, then toured on our own with this guidebook. It was very helpful, and appeared accurate. Worth the money, and I would recommend reading it before you get on the mountain. That way you can decide where you want to climb to and the not miss areas for your trip.
A great way to prepare your eyes for Machu Picchu
Customer Rating:
This book is fairly scholarly and serious, but I read it on a cross-country flight, using the detailed map insert to locate key items as I read. It made my enjoyment of the site itself many many times greater. Most local guides you hire at the site will only show you "Machu Picchu's greatest hits", and with the book's knowledge you can really appreciate what they are taking you to and can explore the rest effectively on your own. I was glad to have read and studied the book and its many illustrations ahead, however, as the weather was wet and using it as an on-the-spot guide wouldn't have worked so well.
A portable reminder
Customer Rating:
The reviews of this book on Amazon and elsewhere are comprehensive on its strengths and weaknesses. We used it to research our trip to Peru, carried it to Machu Picchu where we referred to it from time to time and annotated it with our personal impressions. We have referred to it as we arranged our photos and just to relive some wonderful moments.
My wife and I did the same thing with an excellent pocket sized guide to Pompeii years ago, where we broke away from the guided tour and spent hours wandering on our own. We carried it back to Italy and Pompeii a few years later, and added additional annotations to the same book. We've often re-read that little guide and re-lived those two excursions.
That's a practical use for this book, but Wright can be poetic. At dawn from the Guardhouse, "where a visitor can anticipate the sun with nothing more than a llama grazing in the distance. As the golden rays slip down Huayna Picchu, the buildings on the ridge below start to emerge from the shadows until Machu Picchu is presented in all its glory. It is a breathtaking, almost spiritual experience, and one you will never forget."
She is absolutely right.
Robert C. Ross 2008
Very Useful for Self-Guided Tour
Customer Rating:
I spent 8 hrs visiting Machu Picchu following the guide. It was very detailed in describing each sector and the information given was enough to get a good understanding of the place. We walked to see the "Inca Bridge" and it described exactly what to expect and when to stop walking. I will recommend this book to anyone that is going to visit Machu Picchu. Great guide!!!
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