Today Machu Picchu is a great tourist attraction. The visitors, brought by planes, trains, and buses, walk through the city in groups. Cameras click; guides shout their explanations in several languages; people push, run up and down the steps, drop bits of litter, and perhaps take a small stone as a souvenir. Some disappointed visitor may complain, once in a while, that this is not the most satisfying way to see a place so full of history and sadness. And of course he is fight; but without the modem conveniences--and inconveniences---would he be able to visit Machu Picchu at all?
Finally, if you are in a bad mood, you may wonder what good, what understanding could come from the meeting of an exhausted tourist with the merchants of a city that he is visiting in three days, running dutifully through five churches, four museums, and a row of souvenir shops.