Page 4 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • September 7, 2011 Glen Rock Glen Rock architect Glenn A. Grube will share his appreciation for Machu Picchu and the other Incan sites in the Sacred Valley in a program set for Sept. 28. Grube will speak at the Glen Rock Public Library, located at 315 Rock Road in Glen Rock, at 7 p.m. Grube, who is a member of the Glen Rock Historical Society, was inspired to visit Machu Picchu by a slide show he saw in the fourth grade, and fulfilled his dream to visit the “Lost City of the Incas” in October of 2010. His program will include practical travel tips along with an architect’s professional perspective on the Andean city and the culture it commemorates. The lost city and the terraced gardens that surround it were brought to the world’s attention in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, a graduate of Yale, Berkeley, and Harvard, who Architect will share his regard for Machu Picchu reached the Peruvian city by crawling on his hands and knees over a primitive bridge and climbing up the side of the mountain. He photographed everything he saw, and the images he took created a sensation. “I felt utterly alone,” Bingham wrote. “Then I rounded a knoll and almost staggered at the site I faced. Tier after tier of Inca terraces rose like a giant flight of stairs.” Bingham may not have been the first modern explorer to locate Machu Picchu. A rock with the name of Augustone Lizarraga dated 1902 was found in the ruins, as Bingham acknowledged. However, Bingham’s scientific exploration made Machu Picchu a celebrated venue. Grube’s photographic journey starts at Cuzco, the old Inca capital from the days of the Inca Empire which the Spaniards destroyed in the 1540s. The Glen Rock architect looks at the Andean architecture through the Sacred Valley, including the Cyclopean walls of Sacsayhuaman, the terraces and temples of Pisac, the circular agricultural center of Moray, and the unique temple ruins at Ollantaytambo. The goal of the journey, Machu Picchu, has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and has been dubbed one of the Seven Wonders of the World in the second round. The first round was limited to Egypt, Greece, and Asia Minor, but the high level of culture of the Andean peoples, culminating in the Inca civilization, led Oswald Spengler to classify Andean and Mexican cultures as two of the world’s great civilizations. (continued on page 19) Glenn A. Grube at Machu Picchu.