Manco Capac Square

This guide to Manco Capac Square in Aguas Calientes starts with the granite figure facing Machu Picchu's peaks, one of thirty seven statues a Cusco stonemason carved around 2017 to mark the town's anniversary. It follows the gap between that Inca imagery and the town's actual past, farming families who settled the gorge around 1901 and a railway that cut it in half in the late 1920s. Walk Pachacutec Avenue from the old hot springs to the square to retrace the path bathers have taken for a century.