World Heritage Machu Picchu Has First Friendship Town in Japan

Peru's Machu Picchu - that ancient Inca town - has picked the village of Otama as its first friendship city. The agreement was signed at the dawn of October 27 at the ancient Inca site.

Why Otama? Here's a story that tell you all about why.

About a century ago, March 1917, a Japanese landed in Peru, named Yokichi Nouchi, a son of a wealthy family in the village of Otama, Fukushima. He was 21 when he boarded an emigration ship Peru bound in January that year.

Yokichi worked on farms here and there for a year in Brazil and Bolivia and settled back in Peru, where he found a job at the National Railway.

From 1926 onward, Yoichi started to cultivate farmland, dig irrigation ditches and eventually built a hydraulic power plant to supply electricity. He even stroke a hot spring.

That's not all.

Yoichi Nouchi built a full-scale hotel, something rare to find in Peru, and rented out quarters free of charge to house a post office, police box, etc,.

The village of Machu Picchu was born in 1941. In 1948, Yoichi Nouchi was elected headman of Machu Picchu. He came back to Otama in1968 for the first time in 52 years. He lectured on Machu Picchu and Peru while in Japan, and against persuasion by his relatives returned to Peru to be with his children.

In August 1969, he closed his truly eventful life in the town of Cusco at the mouth of Machu Picchu.

That's the story of how the villageship of Machu Picchu chose Otama for its first friendship town. According to NHK, headman Dabi Gayoso Garcia commented:

"Mr. Yoichi Nouchi came to Peru a hundred years ago and built the village of Machu Picchu. He has woven the strong bondage for Machu Picchu and Otama".

Present at the agreement ceremony, Headman Riichi Oshiyama of the village of Otama said:

"I am deeply impressed by the way Yoichi Nouchi contributed to Machu Picchu throughout his lifetime".