At least 900 tourists remained retained near the ruins of Machu Picchu, Peru, said the Minister of Commerce and Tourism on Tuesday, after the temporary suspension of passenger train service and to the famous Inca citadel.
The train operator, Perurail, said the service was suspended on Monday because the route to Machu Picchu, in the Cusco region, is obstructed “with stones of various sizes” after protests of residents due to a conflict between local bus companies and authorities in the area.
Desilú León, Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism, said that, with the help of the police, it was possible to remove 1,400 tourists on Monday from Andina de Aguas Calientes, where the Inca Citadel, the most visited by national and foreign tourists in Peru, is located at the top of a mountain.
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“Those who are retained are about 900 who were ready to leave at night, but due to problems with the road, their safety cannot be endangered,” the minister told local RPP radio station early in the day.
The protest in the area, which began last week, occurred after the end of the bus company Consettur, which takes tourists to the entrance of the ruins of Machu Picchu from the locality of Aguas Calientes.
Instead, the Urubamba neighboring district, also in Cusco, hired another bus company to transport tourists, but it cannot operate due to the opposition of Aguas Calientes, which caused a protest of bus drivers.
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The Ferrocarril Transandino company, owned by Perurail, said in a statement on Tuesday that “third parties” made excavations on the train route “affecting the stability of the road”, which interrupted the withdrawal of tourists.
Amid the protests, the New7Wonders international organization said over the weekend in a statement that it sent a letter to the Peruvian state warning that if the conflict in the area increases, the credibility of Machu Picchu as one of the world’s new wonders could be affected.
The organization chose Machu Picchu, a stone citadel built by the Incas before the 15th century, as one of the seven new wonders of the world in 2007.
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(Report by De Marco Aquino and Carlos Valdez)
