Machu Picchu and the Incas: Re-Learning What We Already Know
Many of you know that my family just got back from Peru, specifically MachuPicchu, The Sacred Valley of Cusco, (Ollantaytambo, Sacsayhuaman, etc.), and Lima. My husband, The Lonely Planet, and the Internet were my kids' (16, 14 and 8 YO) and my tour guides. Before and during our trip, I somewhat obsessively searched for a ‘good’ documentary that we could watch together, insisting that we *all* become educated about what we are seeing. But, in the end, I was the only one who watched anything of the sort, and I didn’t glean much more from the programs I found than what I could gather from the scant English translations at the ruins themselves.
This week, looking for something worthwhile for my son to watch while home sick from school (already!), I finally found the Inca documentary I've been looking for. Thank YOU, National Geographic, BBC, and Daily Motion, for making such programs available to the general public, at large.
A significant part of 'Machu Picchu Decoded' focuses on the Inca's almost magical ability to manage and harvest the immense stormwater that floods the Andes Mountains where they built their stone cities. As a self-proclaimed water spirit and sustainable storm-water management advocate, I actually teared up when I saw the construction diagram of the vegetated terraces the Incas clearly used to manage more flash floods per annum than my stormwater-ridden city of Durham, NC, can imagine. At least in "progressive" areas, we now have 'rain gardens' and 'cisterns', though we employ these primarily to reduce pollutants. While the Inca's didn't have to worry about pollutants, they did have to worry about their water supply, particularly given that they lived on the top of a mountain.
'Machu Picchu Decoded' provides a clear, layman's explanation of the grandiosity with which the Inca's harvested stormwater and used it to develop fertile soil on otherwise uninhabitable, mountainous terrain. It proves that sustainable stormwater management can be done on a massive scale - not with expensive engineering calculations and contraptions (the Inca's didn't have a written or numerical language), but with cooperation, first-hand communication, and common sense.
The Inca civilization lasted only 100 years. However, in this time they not only built their giant stone cities using sustainable stormwater practices (that still function more than 500 years after they were installed), they managed the stormwater in such a way that they were able to grow enough food to sustain a welfare state of 12 million people!
Municipalities have now recognized raingardens and cisterns as ‘best management practices’ and have started encouraging (and sometimes even funding) local homeowners and organizations to incorporate them into their landscaping. However, the routine, holistic incorporation of raingardens and cisterns into municipal stormwater management is still not common, with invasive and hard-to-maintain underground piping and large-scale retention being the quick and easy and, therefore, preferred option of city management.
I'm tired of our government's excuses. If the Inca’s did it without steel, electric power, horses, or even writing, then we can do it now. This is a history we would be inhuman not to repeat.
Note: Machu Picchu Decoded is a perfect program to watch as a family. It is educational, yes; but it also sustained the attention of my 8-year-old for the full hour, my teenage kids didn't give me grief about watching it (after the first 10 minutes anyway), and my husband didn't abandon the program in 5-10-minute intervals per usual.
Supplementary Materials:
Link to the documentary discussed above: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6dg9vj
Machu Picchu Questions from National Geographic
National Geographic Documentary, Machu Picchu Decoded
History Channel: Mysteries of Machu Pichu Revealed
Best Time(s) to Visit: