I choose to look up Machu Pichu on Google Earth. The elevation is at about 8000 ft, although it is hard to give an accurate number to the foot, because Machu Pichu is on the hillside of a mountain. The first thing you notice when looking at Machu Pichu ion google earth is that it is on an insanely steep hillside. It is at the very top of a hill, and there are two valleys on either side, one has a lake in it and the other seems to have a stream or river running through it. This site is supposed to be more religious and not an hugely populated city like Cusco is, but you can tell why this location might have been picked. It is easily defendable due to its placement on higher ground and has sources of water on either side. It looks like it has quite a good potential for agriculture that can grow at very high elevations. The area around Machu Pichu looks very lush and green and there seem to be some fields there already. Obviously there might be problems with getting their water sources up to that elevation, since it is so much higher than moth the lake and the river. Machu Pichu looks to be a very isolated location, there is almost nothing to be seen in the mountains around it that look like civilization. There is one long, steep road that razorbacks up the hill to get to Machu Pichu, but it would be a very long and tedious ride to get there using a car, so I can only imagine what it would have been like for travelers to reach the area when they had to travel by foot. This leads me to believe that either Machu Pichu was a special religious place that made it worth traveling to, or that the people who lived in Machu Pichu were very isolated form the rest of Incan society.