A Clumsy Tourist Who Snuck Into Machu Picchu After Hours Faces Jail Time for Accidentally Damaging the Inca Ruins

A
young tourist accused of sneaking into Machu Picchu and damaging
the site faces jail time, while five others who also spent an
unauthorized night in the Inca complex have been deported by Peru.
The group of six were arrested on Sunday morning after illegally
entering the mountain-top archeological site after it had closed to
the public. Their arrest sparked international headlines because
the staff found human waste on the site, however, none of the
overseas tourists have been accused of using the Temple of the Sun
as an outdoor toilet.

Twenty-eight-year-old Nahuel Gómez, who is from
Argentina, has been charged with damaging the pre-Columbian
cultural heritage of Peru after a block of stone measuring just
under eight inches long was found to have fallen from a wall in the
temple and cracked the floor. He admitted to causing the damage at
a hearing on Tuesday, according to a statement from Peru’s culture
ministry. But Gómez says the
damage was accidental, AFP reports. The French news agency quotes
an unnamed source who says the tourist only “leant against the
wall.” 

The
hapless Argentine is appealing the $900 bail imposed ahead of his
trial, the BBC reports. Gómez admitted to entering the
archeological park illegally with five other tourists in the early
hours of January 12. The five who were expelled from Peru three
days later include four men and two women from Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, and France. They are aged between 20 and
30. 

José
Bastante, the head of the Archaeological Park of Machu Picchu,
urged the authorities to make an example of Gómez. The
archaeologist has called for a “severe sanction,” claiming that the
tourist has caused irreparable damage, Peruvian media
reports. 

The Temple of the Sun is one of the most important and popular
parts of the complex. Parts of it are closed off to the public to
preserve the ruins, which overlook the citadel’s stone terraces,
and the Andean mountains beyond.  

Authorities at the Unesco World Heritage Site
have been struggling to manage the increasing demand to visit the
Inca citadel. Abandoned in the 16th century, and unknown to all but
locals, it was “rediscovered” by the Yale professor and explorer
Hiram Bingham in 1911. It is now Peru’s most famous tourist site,
attracting around 1.6 million visitors a year. Unesco has warned
that the increasing number
of visitors “must be matched by an adequate management regulating
access.” 

Sightseers behaving badly at the archaeological
site is nothing new. In 2016, a tourist from England and one from
France were arrested after posing for nude selfies. Two years
later, a 24-year-old Swiss tourist, a 21-year-old from Germany, and
a 26-year-old from the Netherlands were expelled from the site for
the same exhibitionist behavior, though they were not
detained.

The post A Clumsy Tourist Who Snuck Into Machu Picchu After
Hours Faces Jail Time for Accidentally Damaging the Inca Ruins
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