Living in Peru : your everyday companion

(LIP-ir) -- Peru's National Statistics Institute (INEI) reported that visits to Machu Picchu increased by 13.1 percent during the month of May.

47,192 tourists, foreign and native, visited "The Lost City of the Incas" in Peru. When compared to the number of visitors Machu Picchu had in May 2006, a 13.1 percent increase can be seen.

Peru's INEI reported that this is the sixth consecutive month in which tourism to the Inca Citadel has increased. INEI informed that this growth can be attributed to the mass amount of publicity and campaigns, national and international, that have been organized encouraging tourists to visit Machu Picchu.

The ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, rediscovered in 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, are considered by some, to be the most beautiful ancient sites in the Americas. Machu Picchu, meaning Old Peak in Quechua, is an Inca city located about 70 km northwest of Cusco.

Machu Picchu is 2,430 m.a.s.l (7,970 f.a.s.l), atop a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru.

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