Welcome back to Vagabrothers in VR.
I'm Marko and this is a 360 tour of Machu Picchu
the lost city of the Incas, built in the 15th century and forgotten for 500 years until
until it was discovered by me, Hiram Bingham,
an American adventurer, historian and world famous explorer.
All right. Well after many hoops being jumped through, we have made it up to Machu Picchu.
Got the permit. Everything's supposedly good to go.
I'm getting into character as Hiram Bingham.
Hiram Bingham was the explorer, American explorer, and
historian who found this place 100 plus years ago and
It must have been really challenging for him when he
discovered this place 100 years ago, but it's equally challenging for us 100 years later to film in it.
But we're doing our best and
we're excited to bring Machu Picchu to you all in 360 degrees and
do our best to kind of find places where there's not a million-plus people.
Supposedly, they have eight thousand visitors a day,
which is pretty easy to
to see because just over there beyond all the mist is a lot of people.
We got here as early as we could.
We were in line at 4:00 in the morning and there was already a giant line to get up here.
But if you are interested in seeing Machu Picchu for yourself,
we are going to be doing a before -you- go guide
where we share all of our tips and
point some things out, so you guys don't have to make the mistakes that we did.
But let's get filming.
So for all of you wondering how we were making these VR videos, we were using the GoPro Odyssey.
It's a collaboration between GoPro and Google that basically has a 16 GoPro camera
that stitches together into a single clip to make a virtual reality film.
It's the best camera on the market at the moment, and it's going
to give us a really immersive experience .
The reason we chose Machu Picchu as a VR site is because A:
a lot of people are interested in it and B:
VR has the ability to transport you to places to make you feel like you're there.
The situation here is perfect. You have a lot of
things that are at a good distance.
They'll be perfect for looking at in VR.
Make sure you see the film once it goes live
The first shot we're doing is at these terraces right here.
This is kind of an uncrowded spot, but it does kind of show the
genius of Inca engineering, which was to make these terraces that function not just as a retaining wall
to basically stop this place from sliding away,
but also as a drainage system because it rains a ton here and allows the water to seep
down right back into the earth rather than creating rivers that would wash away everything below it.
But it was also was used to grow food.
Apparently it could feed up to a thousand people who lived here at one point.
This beautiful building back here is the Guard Hut.
We don't know if guards live there, but it's a good name for it.
We all know you guys want the awesome Instagram picture.
This is where you get it.
This is called the Guardian's Hut,
the caretaker's hut, and it's got a view of all the terraces and the city below.
That is when it's not covered in mist or mysterious death
or crowded with tons of people.
Well it's always crowded with tons of people, but sometimes it's not covered in mist.
We were just filming the first take at the
caretaker's hut, which is the hardest place to get without people
and right when we've nailed the perfect take, this guy comes up and he's
just like chicos, chicos, chicos asking to see our film permit.
Of course we had them, but the shot was ruined.
Just kind of funny. All right, anyway, here we go.
So the day is progressing and we're making our way through the city.
We're at what used to be the old quarry where they
got the stones to build the city.
Alex is remaining in character all day. Who the hell's Alex, man?
My name is Hiram Bingham.
Yeah, the stones were most likely taken from this quarry
where they were cut into slabs, hauled into place, and then chipped away till they fit together just right.
All right so the 360 shoot continues .
We've done about half of the takes that we need to take, and
we're really just kind of working around the rain and the crowds.
There's tons of people here in the morning. In the afternoon it chills out.
So we're kind of just waiting
for the crowds to pass, waiting for the clouds to pass, and while it's raining we're kind of in this cool hut.
There's only a few of them that have been reconstructed like this because Unesco requires that they maintain the area as it was.
So therefore there's only a few spots like this,
but they make good rain shelters.
How are you guys holding up?
Crew?
Good. Very good. Good long day,
lots up and down.
I think we've probably walked around five or six miles
so far because you can only really do a circuit.
As we've shot around
the people, the crowds and the rain, we've had to do two circuits so far.
But it's a really nice place to be, you know and
I feel lucky to be here, especially being back in this place that I discovered in 1911
106 years later ..pretty crazy stuff.
We're now in what's known as a Casa del Inca.
This is basically the royal residence of the emperor for when he came to Machu Picchu.
About half of Machu Picchu is agricultural where you see all the terraces;
the other half is residential.
A lot of these slabs are up to three tons in weight and are perfectly fitted together.
This room is cool because there's actually a bathroom right there,
and you can see where the bed would have been
when the emperor would have stayed here.
So behind us is the Hitching Post of the Sun.
Essentially it's a sundial except it measures the year instead of the day.
Pretty incredible spot.
Really puts into perspective just how in tuned
with the elements and the sky the Inca were.
What's most impressive about it is it's the only one that exists in Peru.
The Spanish destroyed all of them in a way
to wipe out the Inca religion, replace it with Catholicism.
So the fact that this exists is extremely rare and very special.
So out behind us is the central plaza of Machu Picchu.
It's really cool because this is a very sacred temple.
It's the Temple with the Three Windows.
Over there is kind of the residential area.
That's where all the people lived.
Usually they have llamas roaming around here and one of my favorite things about Machu Picchu is that they don't actually employ
landscapers they just employ llama- scapers,
and the llamas cruise around and nibble on the grass and keep everything looking clean.
It's going, dude. It's going, oh. It's going to jump.
Oh, here it comes. Here it comes.
Get her. Get her. Get her.
So a lot people wake up super early to get here,
but as you can see it's about 2:30 right now,
and the crowds have emptied out.
The afternoon is easier to pull off because you have to wake up early,
and there's no one here.
So why wake up when you could just have it all yourself in the afternoon?
Okay, so we're now in the Sacred Plaza.
This is where you find the Temple of the Three Windows as well as the Hitching Post of the Sun, and the
Temple Mayor, the main temple.
The Temple of Three Windows is named because these three windows frame the mountains behind them,
and according to Incan myth,
those mountains are where the children of the gods came down to earth.
Behind me you can see one of the areas where the foundation was not that great,
and the rocks have actually slid off balance.
But that's really one that only places in the entire complex where that's happened.
It just goes to show how well-made these buildings were.
These buildings have survived
earthquakes that have destroyed other parts of Peru.
It's temples like this that kind of fuel the idea that this could have been
primarily a religious place because it does have such obvious
connotations with the Inca religion being close to the sun god
and close to the gods in general at this high elevation.
So this is the final walk through of the final scene in our VR film
We're going to go over the lines and kind of just work out
the space where we want to be
Virtual Reality is totally different than regular film making.
So body positioning is super important.
We can also use stereoscopic sound so you can
hear us and know to look in one direction.
In this case we have this beautiful vista right here
we got some Llamas walking in the background
Alex and I are going to walk in from different directions
say our lines and finish this film
but you're going to have to watch the whole VR film to see how it turns out!
Thank you for watching the video
if you enjoyed it give it a thumbs up, share it with your friends
Subscribe to Vagabrothers, turn on notifications and stay tuned for the VR film
Coming out later this week!
Not to mention the entire vlog series
Go back and binge it if you haven't already
In the mean time stay curious
Keep exploring and we will see you on the road
The Inca road. Peace!