I'm going to tell you about one of the tourist destinations located deep in the forest in my prefecture. It's a cultural and industrial heritage which recently earned the nickname of "Oriental" Machu Picchu. This spot closely resembles Machu Picchu, which is the name of the ruins of an ancient Inca city in southern Peru, as you all know.
Four hundred years ago, three thousand people, at its most prosperous period, lived there, engaging in mining copper in the present Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd. Copper dug out from the mine had been the resources for remarkable development of Japan after World War Two, but now the mine is closed and the area didn't have a proper name but the simple name of the place, "Tohnaru". However, once someone named it as Oriental Machu Picchu, things changed. The spot became well-known and popular.
I visited the site with my wife. It was in a sequestered region. Without preliminary information on the ruins, you would be so astonished to see it like the explorer, Hiram Bingham III, who found Machu Picchu in 1911. Incidentally, Indiana Jones is supposedly modelled on him. Like Indiana(!), in the midst of the dense forest, we found traces of a kindergarten, a clinic and a theater for performing arts. They barely revealed their past existences.
(Vocabulary)
Machu Picchu マチュピチュ〔ペルー南部にあるインカ帝国の都市遺跡〕
earn [他] (当然の)〈名声・地位など〉を得る,〈尊敬・称賛など〉を受ける
I think you've earned a rest! そろそろ休んだらどうだい！
earn sb sth ＜人＞に＜尊敬・称賛など＞をもたらす
His hard work earned him the respect of his co-workers. 彼は勤勉な働きぶりで同僚の尊敬を集めた．
dense 〈植物・葉などが〉密生した,〈人口が〉密集した
areas of dense vegetation 植物が生い茂っている地域
dense forest/jungle/undergrowth うっそうとした森林［ジャングル，下草］
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