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Writer's pictureClaire Arney

Machu Picchu: A Sarcastic Take




The experience of Machu Picchu transcended my ability to put anything into proper prose. To do it any justice and to try to express my time there without getting lost in the wording of things, I decided that the best way for me to recount my experience, thoughts and emotions is to depict it through a humorous lens. Anything historic has the potential to be interpreted and although my choice of interpretation is humorous, it does not in any way detract from the utmost awe and respect I have for the Incan people and their construction of this City. 

A glimpse in my head as I tried to process what Machu Picchu and its surroundings are:

  • A joke. Who decided this was a good idea? Building a whole city out of stone on the top of a mountain that can only be accessed by one trail? sure

  • Who took all the ayahuasca in the region and designed this?

  • The mountains surrounding Machu Picchu are actually the gates to heaven, they just keep climbing into the clouds… okay this is big as I feel I border on atheism most of the time

  • A location to film for the next Top Gun with all its valleys and peaks

  • Magical… was it actually aliens? One can only think so hard about what it took to do it… I'm kidding, the Incas were actually just that powerful

  • Nothing any architect or engineer would ever attempt today (nor even lie to themselves that it would work)

  • Machu Picchu happens to be on not one but TWO fault lines, the point at which El Niño provides horrendously torrential rains, and has severe heat from its height in relation to the sun and thin atmosphere

  • Excuse me for the frankness but suicidal

  • The craziest summer home that no billionaire today can even begin to compete with

  • A million ways to fail and die

  • I’m laughing vengefully that the Spanish never found this. Fransisco Pizarro must have been writhing in his grave when Hiram Bingham discovered it

  • I feel like engineers today make everything so hard… they need to measure angles, stress potential of a material, heat and water exposure and the list goes on and on… just climb to the peak and build out of stone without iron and make it last 550 years, it's doable guys

  • Huayna Picchu…  it will wind up beating you.. Holy altitude and sheer cliff

  • So many jokes that make "Picchu" rhyme with "beat you"… yes in ever category Machu Picchu will surpass whatever you compare it with

  • What in the extravagant? I need you to bring a giant stone block bigger than fourteen people and carve it to look like the mountain across from us… and no you can’t just paint it or carve it on what already exists here

  • Can I mention that there was an actual llama walking around the Machu Picchu terraces? This is not a real place. What in the world is going on? I’m standing equal with the clouds, actually reeling from what I’m seeing and there is a llama chewing grass and strutting between tour groups, absolutely unfazed

  • Our guide lied to us about its purpose… its just that unbelievable nobody can make heads nor tails of it

  • Actual tears in my eyes as I looked at their views. How did anyone keep it together long enough to pull a stone up the mountain?

  • Mr. Beast’s next 24 hour challenge video should be here

  • "We need an amphitheater to have performances because the views aren’t enough, we got bored of them"

  • The term Sacred Valley is not just friendly cute nomenclature…

  • I barely can do legos successfully, how did people 600 years ago do all this

  • NOBODY SUGGESTED TO DO IT ON THE BOTTOM OF THE VALLEY? 

  • My breath was taken away, and not just because of the altitude

  • They say it was a military show of power… if i was an enemy and I saw this, I'd be bowing to the Incan emperor so fast, just dropping to my knees at first sight of this city on the mountains

  • The fact that I am awed to the point of joking about one of the Seven Wonders of the World speaks great volumes to what Machu Picchu is.



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