Cusco and the Sacred Valley: at the pace of the altitude

Three levels, three ways to sleep

Cusco is at about 3,400 m. The Urubamba Valley (called the Vilcanota upstream) runs to the north, lower down: Pisac at about 2,970 m, Urubamba at about 2,870 m, Ollantaytambo at about 2,790 m. Between the two lies a farming plateau, higher than Cusco in places: Chinchero at about 3,750 m, Maras at about 3,300 m. Finally, Machu Picchu is at about 2,430 m.

Above 3,000 metres, the CDC recommends not climbing too fast from one night to the next; arriving in Cusco by plane from Lima means gaining more than 3,000 metres in less than an hour and a half. Hence a simple rule of organisation: the first nights in the valley, Cusco afterwards. See altitude.

The Boleto Turístico: what it covers and what it does not

The region’s main sites cannot be paid for individually: they are grouped together in the Boleto Turístico del Cusco, sold by COSITUC. The full ticket costs S/ 130 for 16 sites, valid for 10 days; a partial ticket, for a single circuit, S/ 70.

It includes: circuit I: Sacsayhuamán, Q’enqo, Puka Pukara, Tambomachay; circuit II: Qorikancha site museum, Regional History Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Popular Art, Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo, Pachacútec monument, Tipón, Pikillaqta; circuit III: Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Chinchero, Moray.

In practice: the full ticket becomes worthwhile as soon as you visit two circuits, for example the sites above Cusco and those in the valley. Keep it on you throughout its period of validity and show it at the entrance to each site.

Pisac

Pisac means three separate visits. The village, on the banks of the Urubamba, was laid out in colonial times, in the 1570s, below the Inca site. The market officially takes place on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays; it is at its biggest on Sundays, when the Quechua communities from the surrounding area come down to sell their produce and do their shopping, but craft stalls occupy the square every day. The Inca site stretches along a ridge, between about 3,450 and 3,510 m, above spectacular terraces.

What you see there: agricultural terraces that follow the contours of the mountain, several residential quarters and a ceremonial sector in finely cut stone, all over more than 65 hectares. Historians see it as an estate of the Inca Pachacútec, at once a residence, a refuge and a place of worship; curiously, no Spanish chronicler describes it.

How to go about it: the site is more than 400 metres above the village; most visitors go up by car. If you are thinking of walking back down, ask at the ticket office whether the path to the village is open. Allow half a day for the site and the market. If you are buying, ask about the material, the origin and the price: the same fabric may be hand-woven in a neighbouring community or mass-produced.

Urubamba

Urubamba is the busiest town in the valley, halfway between Pisac and Ollantaytambo. People come here less to sightsee than to sleep: it is the most central base for heading out to Chinchero, Maras, Moray and Ollantaytambo, and the accommodation is often set in the middle of the fields, in peace and quiet. On the other hand, being in peace and quiet often means being far from everything: check the real distance to the town and to your driver before booking. PeruRail indicates a station in Urubamba depending on the season; check the timetables for your dates.

Ollantaytambo

Ollantaytambo is often reduced to its station. Yet it is one of the few Inca villages still inhabited according to its original plan: a grid of streets around enclosures (kanchas) where four houses surround a courtyard, some of which have been lived in continuously since the end of the 15th century.

The history of the place can be read in three stages. Around the middle of the 15th century, the Inca Pachacútec made it a personal estate: he rebuilt the village and had the terraces farmed by servants attached to his household. After the conquest, in 1537, the rebel Inca Manco Inca drove back a Spanish expedition from the terraces by flooding the plain, before withdrawing into the forest of Vilcabamba. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, foreign travellers, including Hiram Bingham on his way to Machu Picchu, stopped here.

What you visit:

• The Temple Hill, wrongly called “the fortress”: its functions were mainly religious. You climb the Pumatallis terraces to the unfinished Temple of the Sun and its wall of six monoliths; the view over the village and the valley rewards the climb.
• The fountains and shrines at the foot of the hill, with their channels and carved rocks.
• The village itself, to be explored on foot, away from the most touristy streets.
• The storehouses (qollqas) clinging to the surrounding hills, visible from the village.

A programme before or after the train: arrive the day before, visit the site in the late afternoon or early in the morning, and keep the village for the evening. The station is at the bottom of the village, about a kilometre from the square. PeruRail offers free left luggage there for your big bag: see Machu Picchu.

Chinchero, Maras and Moray

Three places on the same plateau, three different subjects. They combine well in a day, as long as you accept the distances: Cusco–Pisac 32 km; Pisac–Urubamba 39 km; Urubamba–Ollantaytambo 19 km; Cusco–Chinchero 27 km; Chinchero–Maras 22 km; Maras–Moray 8 km; Moray–Maras salt pans 17 km; salt pans–Urubamba 19 km; Cusco–Tipón 24 km.

Chinchero is a plateau village, the highest point of the day, at about 3,750 m. You visit an Inca site attributed to Túpac Yupanqui, included in circuit III of the Boleto Turístico, a colonial church built on its walls, and you meet weavers: the village is one of the centres of the region’s traditional textiles, studied by anthropologists since the 1970s. Distinguish the commercial demonstration, where a dye is shown in a few minutes before you move on to the shop, from the workshop where you take the time to understand spinning, dye plants and weaving. The latter is arranged in advance and paid for as a visit. On Sundays, a traditional fair livens up the village. Everything is detailed on the Chinchero page, with our advice for buying a textile without paying alpaca prices for a blend.

Maras is a village, separate from its salt pans a few kilometres away, at the bottom of a ravine that runs down to the Urubamba. A very salty spring is divided, through a network of small channels, among hundreds of shallow, terraced pools, worked by families from the community. The water evaporates in the sun, the salt crystallises, then it is scraped off in successive layers, from the finest to the coarsest. The system is presented locally as inherited from Inca times. Since 2019, the company that manages the salt pans has forbidden visitors to walk between the pools: you look from the paths. Entry is paid separately; it is not in the Boleto Turístico.

Moray is surprising: terraces arranged in concentric circles in natural hollows, at about 3,500 m, the largest of which is about thirty metres deep. Today, a significant difference in temperature is measured between the top and the bottom of the circles. Hence the hypothesis, often presented as a certainty, of an “agricultural laboratory” where the Incas acclimatised plants: it remains an interpretation, supported by the shape of the place and by soils brought in from elsewhere, with no text to confirm it. In February 2010, after exceptional rain, part of the large circle collapsed and was restored: stay on the paths.

Santa Teresa and the Cocalmayo hot springs

On the other side of the Abra Málaga pass, the road from Ollantaytambo goes down towards the province of La Convención. Santa Teresa, a small town on the banks of the Urubamba, at around about 1,550 m, is a stop on the way to Machu Picchu via Hidroeléctrica and the gateway to the Cocalmayo hot springs. It is not a half-day excursion: about 200 km: 178 km to Santa María, then 25 km to Santa Teresa; the Cocalmayo hot springs are 3 km from the town. Do not confuse these springs with those of Machu Picchu Pueblo (Aguas Calientes). Access, organisation and precautions after rain: see Santa Teresa and Cocalmayo.

Tipón

Tipón, half an hour south-east of Cusco, is the best place to understand the Inca art of water. A spring feeds a monumental fountain, then a network of channels, falls and pools that irrigate a series of large right-angled terraces. The site stretches between 3,250 and 3,960 metres and covers 239 hectares; in 2006, the American Society of Civil Engineers listed it among the great historic civil engineering landmarks. It was probably an estate of the Inca elite, perhaps of Pachacútec or his son.

Tipón is included in circuit II of the Boleto Turístico, as is Pikillaqta, close by: a vast complex of the Wari culture, occupied from about 550 to 1100, several centuries before the Incas, and left unfinished when it was abandoned. The two sites can be visited in half a day from Cusco. The village of Tipón is also known for oven-roasted cuy; confirm an address before you go. See Where to eat cuy?

Vinicunca and Palcoyo

Vinicunca, which everyone also calls the Mountain of 7 Colours, and Palcoyo, the other “coloured mountain”, owe their bands of colour to layers of different sediments and minerals (red clays, sandstone, marl), exposed by erosion. They are not equivalent:

The FDFA advises doing the Vinicunca excursion with a local guide. The rain is heavy from December to February, and it is bitterly cold in the early morning all year round. Keep them for the end of your stay, after a few days in Cusco or in the valley: your body will have had time to get used to the altitude. And keep the option of turning back along the way.

Comparing two offers all the way through. A shared excursion fare, private transport and a service with a French-speaking guide are not the same thing. Write down side by side: number of travellers, departure time, guide and language, community entry fees, meals, any back-up horse and cancellation conditions. See the recorded prices.

The valley in two or three days

A suggestion, to adapt to your accommodation:

1. Day 1, the east of the valley. Cusco, then Pisac: the site in the morning (up by car, down on foot), the market at midday, preferably on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday. A night in Urubamba.
2. Day 2, the plateau. Chinchero in the morning (site, church, a weaving workshop arranged in advance), Maras and Moray in the early afternoon, the salt pans at the end of the day before going back down to the valley. A night in Urubamba or Ollantaytambo.
3. Day 3, Ollantaytambo. The site early in the morning, the village, then the train to Machu Picchu Pueblo.

Tipón and Pikillaqta, to the south-east, are better placed as a half-day from Cusco; Vinicunca or Palcoyo as a whole day, at the end of your stay.

Before setting these days in stone: buy the Machu Picchu ticket, then the train, then the nights. The entry time at the site decides whether you spend the night in Ollantaytambo or in Machu Picchu Pueblo. For reference, a Cusco provider publishes an indicative price per vehicle for the Maras–Moray loop with a driver and waiting time, entry fees and guide excluded (see below).

Hiking: do not confuse trail, mountain and summit

The Inca Trail, the Salkantay programmes and the walks to Choquequirao correspond to different experiences. A “Salkantay trek” is not the technical ascent of the summit of Salkantay. Our hiking page details the questions to ask.