Peru’s Machu Picchu was reopened after seven months of coronavirus closure, for just a single visitor — a Japanese man stranded in the country by the pandemic, AFP reported.

“The first person on Earth who went to Machu Picchu since the lockdown is meeeeeee,” Jesse Katayama said in an Instagram post alongside pictures of himself at the deserted site.

The World Heritage site was closed on March 16. 

Katayama, a 26-year old boxing instructor from Japan’s Nara is 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.

Also read: Machu Picchu empty for anniversary as Peru virus cases soar

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,” Katayama wrote in his Instagram post.

“This is truly amazing! Thank you,” he said in a video on the Facebook pages of the local tourism authority in Cusco, where the famed site is located. 

About Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is the most enduring legacy of the Inca empire that ruled a large swathe of western South America for 100 years before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

The ruins of the Inca settlement were rediscovered in 1911 by the American explorer Hiram Bingham.

Machu Picchu was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. 

Machu Picchu closed for tourists due to the COVID-19 pandemic

After being first closed in March, the site was scheduled to reopen to visitors in July, but that has now been pushed back to November.

Just 675 tourists a day will be allowed in, 30% of the number allowed before the pandemic, with visitors expected to maintain social distancing.

Since it first opened to tourists in 1948, it has been closed just once before, for two months in 2010 when a flood destroyed the railway tracks connecting it to Cusco.