High amid the towering peaks of the Andes mountains, the grating shriek of pneumatic drills fill the air. New streets are being laid out, while hotels are going up fast in the dormitory town of Machu Picchu Pueblo, the starting point for the 450,000 tourists who every year flock to Peru's most famous Inca site, the mystic citadel of Machu Picchu. For many, the noisy chaos of the unplanned town, which has mushroomed from 500 inhabitants to over 4,000 in the past decade due to the tourist boom, embodies the reckless way in which the Machu Picchu tourist experience is run. Unbridled growth in tourism is irrevocably damaging the United Nations World Heritage Site and its surrounding attractions, destroying one of the world's premier archeological sites, some planners say. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization will issue a report in January recommending Peru make major changes to its management of Machu Picchu and the Inca trail, regulating visits to the site. If not, UNESCO says it will place Machu Picchu on its list of endangered sites -- a "moral sanction" against the Peruvian government's handling of the monuments.

"Just look at the Inca trail that leads to Machu Picchu. It is being worn out, eroded away," said Jorge Pacheco, head of Machu Picchu Management, an umbrella agency coordinating the various agencies running the ancient stone citadel. Some 1,500 travelers walk the 500-year-old, 40-mile Inca trail every day, marveling at the long stone staircases and granite terraces at 8,500 feet above sea level. The trail, made of large stones, was used as a communication route through the Cusco region in Inca times.

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