Machu Pichu :Peru

In the 15th century, the Incan Emperor Pachac�tec built a city in the clouds on the mountain known as Machu Picchu (�old mountain�). This extraordinary settlement lies halfway up the Andes Plateau, deep in the Amazon jungle and above the Urubamba River. It was probably abandoned by the Incas because of a smallpox outbreak and, after the Spanish defeated the Incan Empire, the city remained �lost� for over three centuries. It was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911.

Historians believe Machu Picchu was built at the height of the Inca Empire, which dominated western South America in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was abandoned an estimated 100 years after its construction, probably around the time the Spanish began their conquest of the mighty pre-Columbian civilization in the 1530s. There is no evidence that the conquistadors ever attacked or even reached the mountaintop citadel, however; for this reason, some have suggested that the residents� desertion occurred because of a smallpox epidemic.