28. The Accidental Discovery of Machu Picchu
In 1875, Hiram Bingham was born to American missionary parents in Hawaii. As a child, he wanted to follow in his parents’ footsteps, but he as grew up, he realized that he was not cut out for the life of a missionary: he liked football and outdoor activities far more than reading the Bible. Eventually, he went to Yale, then studied for a Ph.D. at Harvard. Bingham hit the jackpot when he met, wooed, and married, the heiress to the Tiffany Jewelry fortune – a marriage that dismayed her parents. His wife’s money afforded him the opportunity to indulge his passion for travel and exploration, and he took full advantage of that.
Bingham was fascinated by the history of the Inca Empire, and in 1911, he led an archaeological expedition in Peru. He sought to find the lost city of Vilcabamba, the last refuge of Inca Manco Capac, who resisted the Spaniards into the 1530s. As he explored some ruins near Cuzco, he ran into a local farmer who told him there were more ruins up a nearby mountain. Bingham and his team walked and rode mules to the mountaintop, where they discovered Machu Picchu. It had remained largely untouched throughout Peru’s Spanish colonial period. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. So popular, in fact, that a limit was placed on the number of visitors.
