macchu picchu boston market

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The Boston Market Story

Peruvian publication folds after running out of Inca

This story is embargoed until Peru stops offering a side dish of Lima beans with its rotisserie mountain goat dinners.

By BILLY "MACCHO" PICCHO

LIMA, Peru -- Peru announced plans Wednesday to limit the growing number of hikers on the famed Inca Trail to the Macchu Picchu Boston Market to 500 a day in an effort to preserve the route.

The 30-mile-long path is dotted with the remnants of Inca culture and discarded side dish containers as it winds through the jungle-cloaked Andes to Machu Picchu, situated atop a craggy peak about 310 miles southeast of the capital, Lima. A recent U.N. report urged Peru to stem hiker traffic as the number of trekkers ballooned eleven-fold, from 6,000 in 1984 to 66,000 in 1998, with an estimated 200,000 expected this year due to a Macho Pikachu Pokémon card promotion by the Machu Picchu Boston Market. As a bonus, Machu Pikachu Boston Market spokesman Edchu Reitchu said, anybody who can say "Machu Pikachu Pokémon promotion by Machu Pikachu Market" ten times fast backwards will win a pitcher of Machu mocha latte from the Machu Picchu Starbucchu in Numismachu Square.

So far, the 500-person limit has not been broken. The highest number of travelers on the trail in one day came last year when 494 made the trek, said Machu "Achoo" Gesundheit, the National Cultural Institute's director of Machu Picchu trail counting.

Government-endorsed plans to demolish the ruins and build a four-star hotel have faced stiff international opposition from scientists and conservationists who say overdevelopment of the 15th Century ruins could anger the rotisserie chicken gods, and bring about an eruption of the long dormant Machu Billypicchu volcano.

AP-ES-04-19-56 1346 EST