15. The accidental discovery of the greatest surviving Inca Site
Hiram Bingham was born in 1875 to American missionary parents in Hawaii. As a child, he wanted to follow in his parents’ footsteps, but he as grew up, it became evident that he was not cut out for a life of spreading the Word: he enjoyed playing football and outdoors activities far more than reading Bible. He ended up going to Yale, then studied for a PhD in Harvard. He hit the jackpot when he met, wooed, and married, the heiress to the Tiffany Jewelry fortune – to her parents’ dismay. His wife’s money afforded him the opportunity to indulge his passion for traveling and exploring, and he took full advantage of that.
Bingham was fascinated by the history of the Inca Empire, and in 1911, he led an expedition in Peru, seeking the lost city of Vilcabamba, the last refuge of Inca Manco Capac, who resisted the Spaniards into the 1530s. While exploring ruins near Cuzco, he ran into a local farmer who told him there were more ruins atop a nearby mountain. Bingham and his team walked and rode mules to the top of the mountain, where they discovered Machu Picchu, which had remained largely untouched during Peru’s Spanish colonial period. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world – so popular, that a limit had to be put on the number of tourists allowed to visit.