Santiago is a spectacular city, with terrific museums, outstanding food and an awe-inspiring view of the Andes. Just steps from each other, the W Santiago and the Ritz Carlton offer two terrific lodging options. Below are highlights from each property.
In Peru, the Ancient Ruins of Llaqta de Kuélap Have Reopened After More Than a Year
04.09.2023 - 13:09 / cntraveler.com
After damage from heavy rains prompted its closure to travelers in April 2022, northern Peru’s Llaqta de Kuélap ruins—one of the largest ancient monuments in the Americas—has reopened to visitors, with limits in place.
Located in the Andes Mountains in the country’s Amazonas region, the site has in the last decade or so gained popularity among international visitors, especially as an alternative to the overtouristed Machu Picchu—and is especially impressive for its scope. “Kuélap’s size is monumental,” Peruvian travel consultant Marisol Mosquera, founder of sustainable luxury travel company Aracari Travel, tells Condé Nast Traveler, noting that some of its outer walls are more than 60 feet tall and that, unlike most remaining structures from the period, are made of stone rather than adobe. “It’s also older than Machu Picchu, corresponding to the Chachapoyas culture, which predates the Incas,” she adds. “The views are staggeringly beautiful.”
From about 900 to 1400 CE, nearly 300,000 inhabitants, including warriors, shamans, farmers, and merchants, are believed to have lived within the fortified citadel, which covered about 37 acres and sits nearly 9,842 feet above sea level. (Machu Picchu has an elevation of about 7,972 feet.) The site—once the thriving political center of the Chachapoyan civilization—fell during the 16th-century Spanish conquest, leaving behind the ruins of civil, religious, and military structures, as well as 420 circular stone homes with murals, carvings, and geometric friezes, which were discovered in 1842.
But in April of last year, a segment of the fortified town’s southern perimeter wall suffered collapses—and the site was forced to close. According to José Bastante, Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Program of Kuélapthe, the deterioration and subsequent collapse stemmed from “the infiltration of rainwater into the artificial platform core of the monument,” which exerts significant pressure on the perimeter wall.
The local team worked with the World Monuments Fund and the Getty Conservation Institute on devising better ways to drain liquid and to prevent future water damage to the structures. They’ve since replaced the drainage system and fortified the structures’ surfaces in the southern section, says Bastante, while also executing archaeological excavations, conservation, and maintenance in various sections of the site and stabilizing the perimeter wall in the process.
After nearly 16 months of work, the Llaqta de Kuélap reopened to travelers on August 19, but with quotas in place “for conservation and safety,” says Bastante. Each day, 144 people can enter the central area of the ruins between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., with groups of 12 entering through the Access 1 entry
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