Peru's Machu Picchu opens up after lockdown for just one tourist

Peru : The countries have started to open up, especially the tourism sector which was massively hit during the coronavirus pandemic. Peru's famous tourist site Machu Picchu has also opened for tourism, but on the first day it found only one tourist visiting the place.

"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 can be seen speaking at the majestic view of mountaintop dotted with ancient ruins that used to have thousands of visitors per day and was closed since March when coronavirus struck the world.

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.

According to the new guidelines issued while reopening the tourist site, the authorities have allowed just 675 tourists a day, 30 percent of the number allowed before the pandemic, with visitors expected to maintain social distancing.