Huayna Picchu (old mountain) in Machu Picchu

Huayna Picchu (Quechua) means Young Mountain, this name is in contrast to Machu Picchu (old mountain).

Huayna Picchu has an altitude of 2,667 meters above sea level and it is part of a great orographic formation known as the Vilcabamba Batholith, in the Central Cordillera of the Peruvian Andes. This mountain has important Inca sites.

The road to Huayna Picchu is very steep and narrow, which includes several sections with steps, stairs carved into the rock (these stairs float). The way to Wayna Picchu from Machu Picchu can take between 50 to 80 minutes (it depends on your physical condition).

Among the Inca precincts that are in the young mountain, we can find the temple of the Moon.

The way to the temple of the moon is through the back of the Huayna Picchu mountain. The temple of the Moon is a set of caves, some of which have been finely carved to fit precisely with the irregular contours of the large rocks that serve as their roof. The walls, clearly ornamental in character, include false doorways and double and triple jamb trapezoid niches. There is no evidence to show that this area was actually a temple dedicated to the Moon, but its fine and perfect architecture suggests that this would have been a religious place of great importance for the Incas.

The name “Temple of the Moon” is arbitrary and does not have archaeological support. But in the Andean worldview (Inca religion) the Incas always had the Sun and the Moon (Andean duality) in mind in all their cities and religious buildings, for this reason, it is believed that this was the temple dedicated to the Moon, in addition to the fact that local people know this place as the temple of the moon.

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