Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Discovering Machu Picchu, the Inca Trail and Choquequirau: The Essential Guide [English Ed.]

Discovering Machu Picchu, the Inca Trail and Choquequirau: The Essential Guide [English Ed.]
smccandlish avatar reviewed on


Helfer Arguedas's work is photographically brilliant, even inspiring, and well organized. He clearly knows his subject intimately. You could literally use this a "paper tour guide". But if, like most, you're not going in person, this is the next best thing to being there. It's is especially nice in that it artfully excludes all the tourists from most shots, except where it's pertinent to include them on purpose. (If you've ever been to a major site like this, you know how the throng of tourists sharply detracts from the immersion in the historical experience.) It will also be of great interest to students/devotees of pre-Columbian to immediately post-Conquistador archaeology, anthropology, history and architecture. The English isn't perfect, but educated and certainly serviceable, and the production quality is very high, with rich color on top-quality paper. Over 200 photos.