The story: Andean Heritage

Porteadores contemplate the breathtaking landscape in Machu Picchu

This photograph is the most reproduced image of Machu Picchu in the world, and it has an amazing story to tell.

It was taken in 1992, at a time when tourism in Peru was on the rise, as the fear of visiting the country due to dangerous riots was slowly diminishing. An aviation magazine had contacted Heinz Plenge to accompany the first group of tourists visiting Machu Picchu after the revolution. On the fourth day of the excursion, the group reached Machu Picchu. As he walked alongside the porteadores (members of the Huayruros Quechua community), Heinz Plenge noticed that the sky had rapidly changed color, increasingly getting cloudier. Two of the Huayruros sat next to him to admire the breathtaking view. As the photographer said, “they spoke Quechua (the indigenous language of the Andes) and I don’t understand a word of it. However, I noticed that they were pointing to different areas of the mountain in front of us, and I understood that they were talking about the fact that there were hardly any tourists. They talked about their mountain, their ancestors, their site. They were caught in a moment of contemplation of their past, a moment of truly sublime connection”.

It was the gaze of the heirs of Machu Picchu, the gaze of those who reconnect with their own history.