For the first time in its 5,000-year-long life, Machu Picchu is totally accessible to visitors who use a wheelchair – and they don’t even need to bring it to the ancient city themselves.
Wheel the World tour company provides visitors with foldable, light-weight wheelchairs that can traverse the steps, slopes and rugged terrain of the World Heritage Site.
The wheelchairs are stored on the premises so that visitors need not ship their own equipment to the site, cutting out cost and effort.
They are described by the founders of the company as resembling a wheelbarrow.
The wheelchairs aren’t self-propelled but can tackle tough terrain, and the company’s assistants and guides operate and direct them.
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The tours range from a day trip to the site which costs R5,700 to a six-day trip with 4-star hotel accommodation that costs R41,000.
The inspiration for the tour company was a hike two Chilean friends embarked on in 2016.
Alvaro Silberstein used online crowd-funding to pay for a special foldable wheelchair, and together with his best friend Camilo Navarro he conquered Patagonia’s Torres de Paine National Park.
They went on to study business together at the University of California, Berkley, and founded Wheel the World.
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‘There are one billion people [in the world] with disabilities,’ Navarro told CNN. ‘But there’s not one main travel company dedicated to these users.’
They run tours in Chile, Mexico, the United States, Tanzania and Peru.
Machu Picchu is one of the Seven Wonders of the World and is perched in the Andes mountains at an elevation of over 2,000 metres – it is more than double the height of Table Mountain. The city was built by the Inca empire about 500 years ago.
It can be accessed by hiking the four-day Inca Trail, or through the visitors centre accessed by bus or train.
Feature Image: Wheel the World/Facebook.
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