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Tourists Arrested for Streaking at Machu Picchu as Peru Cracks Down on Naked Photos
Tourists Arrested for Streaking at Machu Picchu as Peru Cracks Down on Naked Photos
Nov 2, 2024 6:27 PM

Machu Picchu was recognized as a World Wonder in 2007. (Cris Bournocle/AFP/Getty Images)

It has survived centuries of conquest, earthquakes, extreme weather and mudslides, but the historic sanctuary of Machu Picchuin Peru is facing a new kind of threat: nude tourists.

A pair of Canadian streakers were arrested on Wednesday after they were caught taking nude photos at the site of the ancient Incan ruins, located 7,970 ft above sea level, in the eastern slopes of the Andes. The arrest came as Peruvian authorities launcha crackdown on "crimes against culture," reported the National Post.

The tourists, Marc Antonie Daudelin and Patrice Mathien, both 20, were briefly detained at a local police station after guards caught them taking nude images of one another with a cell phone, according the Peruvian newspaper La Prensa. They were released on the same day.

The Canadians' arrest came a day after Peru's Ministry of Culture issued a statement denouncing a recent trend of people running around Machu Picchu naked, the Toronto Sun reported.

(MORE: Spectacular Ruins of the Ancient World)

Last month, a video of two tourists, an Australian and a New Zealander, streaking in the ancient city went viral. Authorities made them delete the image from their digital camera, but another tourist had made a separate recording of the incident and “irresponsibly published it to the Internet,” according to a statement by Peru's Ministry of Culture.

Getting naked at the ruins seems to be a growing trend. A photo of a bearded and dreadlocked Israeli by the name of Amichay Rab posing naked at Machu Picchuhas also gone viral in recent months, according to the Huffington Post. The photo appears on his blog “My Naked Trip,” which features images of Rab being naked across Latin America.

Peruvian officials said in a statement it "rejects any disrespectful act committed by visitors in the history site of Machu Picchu or any public space linked to our cultural heritage," encouraging visitors and residents to help stop the behavior.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Vintage Photos of Tourists Traveling in Style

Tourists in Gizeh, Egypt, 1921. (Taller de Imagen (TDI)/Cover/Getty Images)

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