The protests took place outside the stone citadel and in the neighboring town of Machu Picchu, formerly called Aguas Calientes, where visitors arrive by train and board minibuses to climb to the jewel of Peruvian tourism through a narrow route of mountain.
I paid for my tickets [del tren] with Inca Rail for a day with a tour guide, we even pay an additional fee for the bus that brings us here to Machu Picchu, where the ruins are and they have not wanted to let us pass because we do not have an entrance ticket”, declared the Mexican Israel Gonzales Rizoo to AFP.
“It’s a scam,” complained the irate tourist, who said he had paid $65 for the train from Ollantaytambo, some 90 miles away.
The town’s merchants were also very upset, dozens of whom blocked the railway to prevent the movement of trains.
“We demand the sale of tickets at the offices of the Ministry of Culture of Machu Picchu, and 50% of its totality in person (…) to reactivate our economies,” the merchants said in a statement.
This is the second protest in just over two weeks over the lack of tickets to enter the stone citadel. On July 27, the available tickets were sold out due to overbooking.
After that, Peru increased the quota of visitors that can enter the citadel daily from 4,000 to 5,000. A good part of the tickets are sold online and a portion in person in the town.
Given the protests this Friday, the Ministry of Culture indicated that it ordered the face-to-face sale of entrance tickets to continue, respecting the limit set to protect the archaeological heritage.
In the last two weeks, “the average admission to the Llaqta (citadel) of Machu Picchu has remained below the admission capacity,” the Ministry said in a statement.
The town is located at the foot of the 2,430-meter-high mountain on which is the famous stone citadel built in the 15th century by the Inca emperor Pachacutec.
UNESCO declared the citadel of Machu Picchu a World Heritage Site in 1983. Since then, the organization has required Peru to comply with a series of guidelines to preserve the place.
The entrance Tourists protest the suspension of ticket sales to Machu Picchu was first published in diary TODAY.
