When you just sit and embrace the magnificent view, you cannot escape thinking how and why this have ever come into being. How did an ancient people choose and manage to build a city in this very unforgiving terrain. TIt was said to be driven by their faith in the sun - their central deity and their visionary emperor - Pachakutek, not by practicality or economy.
Other great civilisations managed to build wonders out of flat terrain unlike this, unlike the Incas who carved an empire out of the rigid mountain ranges of the Andes.
I cannot also escape thinking how western conquest turned this once egalitarian civilisation which was often described by historians as a welfare state with extensive system of social nets and health care ended up as one of the most unequal nations in the continent.
Nonetheless, it is an unparalleled achievement of our humanity.
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