Another virtual reality experience has arrived in Denver, enabling locals to travel far away, potentially to a place that would be out of reach, in reality. This time, it’s to Machu Picchu. Find out what to expect.
A few years back I was fortunate to travel to Peru to visit the ruins of the Incan civilization, including the spectacular mountaintop setting of Machu Picchu. I spent a day exploring the stone terraces, climbing the steep stairs, and following the narrow trails into the jungle to catch glimpses of the archeological site from various angles. It was awe-inspiring. When In Good Taste Denver was invited to attend a media preview of the new virtual reality experience Machu Picchu: Journey to the Lost City, I was thrilled at the prospect of reliving that once in a lifetime journey.
Remembering my visit to the surprisingly powerful Horizons of Khufu: Journey in Ancient Egypt experience, also hosted by Fever in their York Street Yards studio, I had high hopes. For this viewer, the Machu Picchu version suffers a bit by comparison to the Khufu experience, which was extraordinary.
Machu includes a chatty, wannabe, comic robot, TERI (voiced by Terry Crews) as tour guide who recounts helpful historical narration and a fantastical storyline based on Incan beliefs. Perhaps the cartoonish robot is meant to appeal to children? Or a modern contrast to the historical subjectmatter? Either way, I found the robot and culminating fantasy storyline, and TERI’s panicked state, an annoying distraction that added nothing to the experience. For me, the real human history of Machu Picchu and Incan culture is enough. In Horizons of Khufu, our guide was a paleontologist. There, we felt we were “in it together” with her. But with techno-crablike TERI, the contrast took away from the sacredness of the place we were “walking through.”
Despite its shortcomings, Machu Picchu: Journey to the Lost City delivers a vivid, powerful, and convincing visual immersion experience. According to Virtual Worlds, the creative studio behind these experiences, the virtual reality is a “millimetrically precise 3D recreation of Machu Picchu built using drones, LiDAR scanning and photogrammetry.”
When the VR tour opens up to the vista of Machu Picchu surrounded by the jungled slopes of the Andes, memories flooded back. I even pointed out to my wife areas we had walked. When peering over the steep stone terraces or levitating over the mountain and peering into a valley, my head felt woozy – I had to convince myself I would not fall thousands of feet to my death into the valley below. My wife even grabbed my hand to fend off the uneasy feeling. When gazing at a giant moon during a lunar eclipse and the Milky Way from a rugged courtyard, overlooking the Machu Picchu landscape, I felt genuine wonder. And when peering through a wall into a family’s dwelling, it was hard not to feel ashamed at invading their privacy. My wife especially enjoyed this peek into the home life of the ancient Incans as well as views of farmers and stonemasons hard at work. The glimpses into daily life, placing “living” humans back into the complex was very interesting.
If you seek a visit to a lost culture in another place and time, the Machu Picchu VR experience provides a memorable journey. For more details about what virtual reality can really be like, read about our visit to ancient Egypt thanks to the Horizons of Khufu (still running in tandem with this show, even simultaneously which is pretty cool).
Machu Picchu: Journey to the Lost City debuted in Denver on May 6. It is for ages 10 and up and runs about 40 minutes plus prep time before and wrap-up time after. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.
-By Jimmy McDonough
Please note, as is common practice in our industry, we were hosted for our visit. But as is always our policy, our opinions remain our own, honest and true, for the purpose of informing our readers.
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