Peru bans 5 tourists, bars 1 from leaving for allegedly defecating, dislodging rock in Machu Picchu temple site

Six foreign tourists from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and France after they were arrested for surreptitiously entering prohibited areas of the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, Peru, and damaging the famous Temple of the Sun on Jan 12, 2020. PHOTO: AFP/PERUVIAN NATIONAL POLICE

LIMA (AFP, NYTIMES) - Five tourists accused of damaging Peru's iconic Machu Picchu site were deported to Bolivia on Thursday (Jan 16) and barred from returning to the country for 15 years, police and immigration officials said.

Peru Migration said in a statement that the tourists - two Brazilians, an Argentine, a Chilean and a French woman - had been given "the maximum punishment with expulsion and a ban on entry for a period of 15 years".

A sixth tourist, 28-year-old Argentine Nahuel Gomez, has been barred from leaving the small town of Machu Picchu after allegedly admitting to damaging the Temple of the Sun at the ancient Inca sanctuary.

He faces a trial in which he could be jailed for four years.

The five deported tourists - three men and two women aged between 20 and 32 - were dropped off at the Bolivian town of Desaguadero, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, a popular tourist destination.

The six travellers were arrested for damaging Peru's "cultural heritage" after being found in a restricted area of the Temple of the Sun just before 6am on Sunday by staff members who work at the archaeological park.

They were also suspected of defecating inside the 600-year-old temple, an important edifice in the Inca sanctuary.

Gomez admitted to causing a stone slab to fall about 6m from a temple wall. It was chipped when it fell to the ground, causing a crack in the floor.

He must sign in at a local court every 10 days while awaiting trial.

Machu Picchu, which means "old mountain" in the Quechua language indigenous to the area, is perched 2,438m above sea level at the top of a lush mountain and was built during the reign of the Inca emperor Pachacuti.

The Machu Picchu complex - which includes three distinct areas for agriculture, housing and religious ceremonies - is the most iconic site from the Inca empire, which ruled over a large swathe of western South America for 100 years before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

The Temple of the Sun is a semicircular structure constructed around a large boulder on the lower part of a hill and aligned so that when summer solstice occurs, light shines through a window and aligns with both the boulder and the top of a nearby mountain peak. After the Spanish conquest of the Incas, the remote site was largely abandoned.

More than 450 years later, the growing popularity of Machu Picchu that draws thousands of daily visitors is raising concerns among Peruvian officials and archaeologists who hope to protect the Unesco world heritage site.

Several tourists were reportedly detained for taking nude photos at the site in 2014, and officials have warned tourists not to take pieces of debris as souvenirs.

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