Temple of the Three Windows

This guide stands before the Temple of the Three Windows at Machu Picchu near Aguas Calientes, a wall with no altar or roof, just three enormous trapezoidal openings cut through solid granite. It traces the openings to an Inca creation story about a cave called Tampu Toco, from which the first Inca people were said to have emerged, and to the emperor Pachacuti, who likely commissioned the wall as a stone echo of that myth when he rebuilt Machu Picchu in the 1400s. It follows Hiram Bingham to this exact spot in 1911, where he fixed on these three holes rather than the views behind him. Look east through any of the openings toward the sunrise over the sacred plaza.