Name: Machu Picchu in 360 (8K) | Exploring Peru in Virtual Reality
Uploaded: 2025-08-11T18:35:44.000Z
Duration: 8 min 12 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I'm Marco and this is a 360 tour of Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Inca, built in the 15th century and abandoned for over 500 years.

Until I, Hiram Bingham, American adventure historian and world famous explorer, discovered it in 1911.

Come on Hiram, you had some help from the locals.

Well regardless, I'll be joining you on today's tour of this extraordinary treasure of humanity and maybe even share some of its secrets.

But a lot of your theories about Machu Picchu were eventually proven wrong.

Come on guys, let's go for a walk, show you around the place.

Hey, you know when I found this place it was covered in alpaca poop.

You're now standing at the gates of Machu Picchu, the citadel of the Inca.

Located on a remote ridge line 2400 meters above sea level, where the Peruvian Andes meet the Amazon rainforest.

We're in the heart of what was once the Inca Empire, stretching north to Colombia, south to Argentina, all stitched together by 16,000 kilometers of stone highways like this one, which leads 82 kilometers to the Inca capital of Cusco.

Now as close as we are to that capital, this road was traveled by few.

Obviously not the case anymore, but for some reason this magnificent collection of over 200 buildings and temples was lost to the jungle.

And why was it built on this impossible location?

Ever regret making this place so famous, Hiram?

All the rock carved by hand from granite.

Some of these slabs weigh up to three tons and it's incredibly precise, even with modern technology.

The stones most likely came from this quarry, cut into slabs, hauled into place, and then chipped away until they fit together just right.

Crazy thing is that the Inca did all of this without mortar, without the wheel, and without a written language.

But why go to all of this effort to build this place on this incredibly steep cliffside?

You know, the Inca called their empire Tawantinsuyo, the empire of the four cardinal points.

Machu Picchu fits perfectly within that, surrounded by four mountaintops that hit each point on the compass.

It's surrounded by mythical mountains and a sacred river, with a clear view of the night sky and the supreme deity, the sun god, Inti.

Yeah, that is when it's not covered in cloud, buddy.

Well, it wouldn't be a lost city if it weren't covered in mist, would it, Hiram?

This here is the sacred plaza, and that beauty over there is the temple of the sun.

The Inca were master observers of the sky and the stars, and on the summer solstice, the sunlight breaks through that window and illuminates the inside of the temple.

The entire city reflects this sacred architecture, worshipping sun, water, and earth.

But this genius of design was not the only impressive thing about Machu Picchu.

When the Spanish conquered the Inca, they destroyed every temple they could find, using stones like these ones to build their Catholic cathedrals.

That's what makes Machu Picchu so unique, is that it survived intact, which means the Spanish didn't know where it was, or never even knew it existed.

But how could a place this impressive remain a secret?

Still as impressive as the day I found it, except back then it was covered in jungle.

You see, it was the first archaeological discovery of this magnitude to be documented with photography.

It's still a popular place to take a photo.

What is it about this idea of a lost city in the jungle of South America?

It's a myth that's existed since El Dorado, the city of gold the Spanish looked desperately for, but never found.

Why don't you keep that one to yourself, Hiram?

And if it weren't for these terraces, I'd have never found this place.

A magnificent feat of engineering that's protected Machu Picchu from destruction by landslide.

Not only do the terraces help drain off rainwater, but they were used to grow food for up to a thousand people.

My most important discovery was the burial ground.

You see, 80% of the bones that I found were of young women, which led me to believe they were the virgins of the sun, handpicked by the emperor himself to serve his every fancy.

Unfortunately, modern DNA testing has shown that those bones were an even split of guys and girls.

But whoever they were, the secrets that they have about this place, they took with them to the grave.