コロナで閉鎖のマチュピチュ、日本人観光客一人のため特別公開

【リマＡＦＰ＝時事】南米ペルーの観光名所、古代インカ帝国の城塞（じょうさい）都市マチュピチュ遺跡は、新型コロナウイルスの影響で3月から閉鎖されてきたが、このほど現地で足止めされている日本人男性一人のために特別に公開された。（写真は新型コロナウイルスの影響で閉鎖中の南米ペルーのマチュピチュ遺跡）
　奈良県出身のボクシングトレーナー、片山慈英士さん（２６）は、３月にペルーに入国。しかしマチュピチュへの入場券を購入したわずか数日後に公衆衛生上の緊急事態宣言が発令され、以来現地で足止めされていた。
　片山さんは現地紙の取材に、３日間だけ滞在する予定だったが、航空便のキャンセルと移動制限措置により、気が付けば何か月も過ぎていたと語っていた。
　片山さんの窮状は地元観光当局の元に届き、当局は片山さんだけのためにマチュピチュの閉鎖を解除し、訪問を特別に許可したという。
　片山さんは、他に誰の姿もないマチュピチュで撮影した自身の写真をインスタグラムに投稿。「閉鎖後、一番最初にマチュピチュ行った地球人は俺だぁぁぁぁぁ」とのコメントを添えた。
　また、フェイスブックに動画も投稿し、地元観光当局の計らいに感謝した。
　マチュピチュの再開は当初７月に予定されていたが、現在は来月まで延期されている。
　再開後の一日の入場者数は、新型コロナウイルスの流行以前の３割に当たる６７５人に制限され、入場者らには対人距離の確保が求められるという。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/10/14-12:19）

Peru's best-known tourist site Machu Picchu has opened after months of coronavirus closure, but for just a single visitor -- a Japanese man stranded in the country by the pandemic.
The first person on Earth who went to Machu Picchu since the lockdown is meeeeeee, Jesse Katayama posted on his Instagram account alongside pictures of himself at the deserted site.
This is truly amazing! Thank you, he added in a video posted on the Facebook pages of the local tourism authority in Cusco, where the famed site is located.
Katayama spoke against the backdrop of the majestic mountaintop dotted with ancient ruins that once attracted thousands of tourists a day but has been closed since March because of the coronavirus.
The Japanese boxing instructor, identified by local media as a 26-year-old from Nara, has been stuck in Peru since March, when he bought a ticket for the tourist site just days before the country declared a health emergency.
He told a Peruvian newspaper he had only planned to spend three days in the area, but with flights cancelled and movement limited by the virus, he found himself stuck there for months.
Eventually, his plight reached the local tourism authority, which agreed to give him special permission to visit the Inca city, reopening the site just for him.
I thought that I wouldn't be able to go, but thanks to all of you who pleaded with the mayor and the government, I was given this super special opportunity, he wrote in Japanese on his Instagram account.
Machu Picchu is the most enduring legacy of the Inca empire that ruled a large swathe of western South America for 100 years before 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 that has now been pushed back to November.
Just 675 tourists a day will be allowed in, 30 percent of the number allowed before the pandemic, with visitors expected to maintain social distancing.
Since it first opened to tourists in 1948, it has been closed just once before, for two months in 2010 when a flood destroyed the railway tracks connecting it to Cusco.
burs-hih-sah/am/jah