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explorer Paolo Greer stated that German businessman Augusto R. Berns had discovered and looted Machu

Picchu in 1867. Greer also stated that Berns had a company dedicated to robbing treasures from the site, and

that Bingham had known that Berns went to Machu Picchu. But even with all the help Bingham received,

finding Machu Picchu took a lot of luck and could even be called an accident.

Hiram Bingham III was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1875 to a Protestant missionary family.

Bingham’s grandfather had significant success in Honolulu, converting many Hawaiians to his faith. His

father, however, spent his entire life translating the Bible to Gilbertese, a language only a 300 people on the

island spoke. An important theme in the family was to seek success and fame through hard work, and

although Bingham took some shortcuts he was quite similar to his relatives. After travelling to the continental

US for a degree at Yale University, Hiram Bingham decided he was not cut out to be a missionary, but rather

an explorer. The early 1900’s was an interesting time for exploration in South and Central America; the 1898

U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War made it possible for American influence to spread to many of these

countries. After graduating, Bingham was offered a job as a professor at Princeton by then university

president Woodrow Wilson, but he was more interested in being a tough voyager than being stuck in a

classroom. He also became infatuated with the idea of being the first to write a major biography of Simon

Bolivar and the first man to summit the great peak of Mt. Coropuna in Peru. His wife, being an heir to the

Tiffany Jeweler fortune, was able to provide him with funds to take a very pivotal first trip to South America.

During one of Bingham’s many stops on his 1908 South American tour, he met the secretary of state

of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, at the Pan-American Congress of Chile. Therefore, he was able to

carry connections into his future travels. After stops in Puno and Arequipa, Bingham travelled by train to

Cusco in 1909, where he was greeted as royalty. Augusto Leguía, the president of Peru at the time, called for

a military escort for Bingham and a guide, Juan José Nuñez. This Cusqueñan was known as the local drunk

but was the first person to notify Bingham about the ruins of Choquequirao. In Abancay, Bingham reluctantly

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