Hiram Bingham and the Children of the Sun

By Paul Millward
Now almost delirious with altitude sickness, I found myself literally standing on top of the world. I looked below to a green plateau, perfectly positioned by nature across a mountain ridge which straddled two enormous ravines on either side. Beyond this stretched endless acres of verdant sub-tropical rainforest covering the contours of vast mountains wreathed in wisps of ethereal mist.
I was looking down on one of the most remarkable historic sites in the world, Machu Picchu, the so called lost city of the Incas, located above the Urabamba Valley, high up in the Andean mount...