Life at the top of the world was apparently lived largely outdoors. Even the Royal Family House consists of only two small rooms, a likely sign that days here were spent out and about in the community.

Rengifo Solano points out the sophisticated engineering used in creating Machu Picchu's infrastructure, including piping in water from 2,400 feet away, and erecting 16 public fountains in the city.

The mountaintop complex was also carefully guarded. The guardhouse, located at the highest point on the site, is today a lovely place to sit and catch your breath and to snap photos of the complex below.

The green, sugarloaf-shaped, much-photographed mountain called Wayna Picchu towers above Machu Picchu and offers a sweeping view of the site on clear days. The Peruvian government has recently limited entrance to 400 people per day, which means that arriving at daybreak to register for the climb is essential. Guides advise grabbing the 5:40 bus from Machu Picchu Village (also called Aguas Calientes) to the site.

DAUNTING CLIMB

This is not a climb for those who fear heights. As the trail goes higher, it narrows, and sometimes is nothing more than abbreviated rock steps, carved out by the Incas more than 500 years ago -- when feet were clearly smaller than they are today. There are viewing (and catching your breath) platforms along the way, and as the sun climbs in the sky the morning mist begins to disappear, allowing first glimpses of Machu Picchu from above.

To get to the true summit, you need to squeeze through a narrow passageway, but if that seems too daunting (or for some hikers, simply too small), there is a large terrace where you can stand to take in the dramatic views of graceful and green Machu Picchu, in all its mysterious complexity, some 1,180 feet below.

Rengifo Solano believes that Machu Picchu may have been abandoned just before the Spanish arrived, when a civil war broke out between the Incas of Quito and those from Cusco.

''The people chose to leave, but they expected to return,'' he says.

Instead, the Spanish arrived, executing many Incas and doing whatever they could to destroy their well-developed culture. That they failed to find Machu Picchu seems nothing short of a miracle.

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