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Peru opened the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu for a single Japanese tourist after the World Heritage site was closed for more than seven months due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Jesse Katayama has been stuck in Peru since March when he bought a ticket to the tourist site just days before the country declared a health emergency.
He told a Peruvian newspaper that he had only planned to spend three days in the area, but with flights canceled and movement limited by the virus, he found himself trapped there for months.
On Saturday, Katayama’s dream of visiting Machu Picchu came true when Peru’s Minister of Culture Alejandro Neyra granted her access after she submitted a special request.
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“The first person on Earth to go to Machu Picchu since the confinement is meeeeeee,” Katayama wrote on Instagram along with photos of himself on the majestic top of the mountain.
“I thought I could not go, but thanks to all of you who pleaded with the mayor and the government, I was given this super special opportunity,” he added.
Machu Picchu is the most enduring legacy of the Inca empire that ruled a large swath of western South America for 100 years prior to the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.
The ruins of the Inca settlement were rediscovered in 1911 by the American explorer Hiram Bingham, and in 1983, UNESCO declared Machu Picchu a World Heritage Site.
It was originally scheduled to reopen to visitors in July, but has now been delayed until November.
Only 675 tourists will be allowed per day, 30% of the number allowed before the pandemic, and visitors are expected to maintain social distancing.
Since it first opened to tourists in 1948, it has been closed only once before, for two months in 2010, when a flood destroyed the train tracks that connected it to Cusco.
Peru has reported more than 849,000 coronavirus cases and 33,000 deaths since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
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