Machu Picchu Opens for Single Japanese Tourist Who Waited 7 Months to See It
Peru’s ancient Incan settlement of Machu Picchu was opened on Saturday for a single Japanese tourist who had waited seven months, stranded by the COVID pandemic, to see it. The Cusco tourist authority got wind of Jesse Katayama’s plight and opened the wonder, which has been closed since March, just for him, AFP reports.
Wrote Katayama on Instagram: “The first person on Earth who went to Machu Picchu since the lockdown is meeeeeee!!! I thought that I wouldn’t be able to go, but thanks to all of you who pleaded with the mayor and the government, I was given this super special opportunity.”
Machu Picchu is scheduled to reopen to visitors in November, AFP adds: “Just 675 tourists a day will be allowed in, 30 percent of the number allowed before the pandemic, with visitors expected to maintain social distancing. Since it first opened to tourists in 1948, it has been closed just once before, for two months in 2010 when a flood destroyed the railway tracks connecting it to Cusco.”
Published at Tue, 13 Oct 2020 12:59:00 +0000