Machu Picchu's Sacred Sisters; Choquequirao and Llactapata
Astronomy, Symbolism and Sacred Geography in the Inca Heartland Amazon rated five stars. Paperback $ 25.oo
Available from Gary Ziegler info@adventurespecialists.org
719 783-2076 Free US shipping. Master Card, Visa and American Express accepted. Signed by author on request
Machu Picchu's Sacred Sisters: Choquequirao & Llactapata--shows how Inca monumental sites were carefully planned and designed in accordance with astronomical alignments, and were precisely placed in relationship to sacred rivers, mountains, and celestial phenomena. It includes stories and notes from expedition journals, which are interspersed with soundly researched and referenced facts, data, and qualified interpretation. The result is a book that conveys the excitement and adventure of extreme archaeology in the cloud-forested Andes. It also includes Trekking Routes, Field Notes, and Exploring Guide to Choquequirao.
Editorial Reviews This book is about more than these two fascinating sites. It gives a lively look at a rugged, spectacular, and highly important but little-known part of the Inca empire. --
John Hemming, Former Director of the Royal Geographical Society and author of The Conquest of the Inca".
This book is one of the best studies to come out about the Machu Picchu region in years. Congratulations on doing such a meticulous study, and for the photos and plans that are a tremendous help to the reader, besides being of academic importance. --
Johan Reinhard, Explorer in Residence at National Geographic and author of "Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient Sacred Center".
During the first half of my thirty years bashing about in the peaks and jungles of Vilcabamba, I crossed trails with quite a bunch of interesting characters, but somehow missed one of the most intrepid of all, my now friend and fellow explorer, Gary Ziegler. We were following parallel paths, it seemed, finding and recording long forgotten ruins that finally brought us together.
Gary's many expeditions have produced a string of important papers and monographs, but his great new book, Machu Picchu's Sacred Sisters: Choquequirao and Llactapata, exposing the newly revealed wonders of Choquequirao, the other Machu Picchu, is a long-overdue contribution to the literature of the Inca. It belongs in the collection of anyone, expert, amateur, or armchair adventurer with a serious interest in the subject. --
Vince Lee, author of "Forgotten Vilcabamba".
This is a rather fascinating book that reminds me of the old adage, "write what you know." Both of the authors have an in depth knowledge of their subject matter--Inca ruins and archaeo-astronomy--and they have summed up decades of experience here. If you want to get the inside scoop on searching for lost Inca ruins in remote locations, you can get the inside scoop right here. The style reminds me of the scholar John Rowe's classic, "Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest" and I'm sure Rowe would have enjoyed this book as well. I hope Ziegler writes an additional book on some of his personal experiences. His tale of meeting the maverick American explorer Gene Savoy--wearing a medallion and flanked by female attendants that waited upon him as if he were an Inca emperor--had me hooked. I'd like to read more of those tales.
Kim MacQuarrie, author of "Last Days of the Inca".
Gary Ziegler and McKim Malville are a dynamic duo. Machu Picchu's Sacred Sisters, about the two fascinating Peruvian sites of Choquequirao and Llactapata, provides a lively look at an Inca landscape that is spectacular, rugged and sure to please. In Machu Picchu's Sacred Sisters, Machete-wielding Gary Ziegler of Adventure Specialists (based at the historic 1880s Bear Basin Ranch in Colorado) leaves the reader gasping for a breath as he rapidly unloads one exciting story after another with the addition of personal photographs, field notes and diagrams. In his chapters, McKim Malville, a professor emeritus in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado, provides a fascinating cosmological look at the Inca landscape.
Ken Wright, author of "Machu Picchu; an Engineering Marvel"