Cusco Region Region Guide

Cusco was the capital of the largest empire the Americas produced, and the region around it holds the single most recognisable archaeological site on earth.

Machu Picchu sits on a ridge above the Urubamba gorge, built in the fifteenth century, abandoned within a hundred years and never found by the Spanish. It survives almost intact, and no photograph prepares you for the setting.

Cusco itself is a colonial city built literally on Inca foundations — Spanish churches standing on walls of shaped stone that earthquakes have not shifted in five centuries.

The Sacred Valley holds Ollantaytambo, Pisac and working Quechua market towns; the Inca Trail and its alternatives climb over passes to reach the site on foot; and the region rises from cloud forest to glaciers within a day’s drive.

Machu Picchu

Entry is by timed ticket on a fixed circuit, booked well ahead. The Huayna Picchu and Machu Picchu Mountain climbs are separate tickets with small daily quotas. Arriving on the first buses gets you the site in morning mist; the last entries get thinner crowds.

The Sacred Valley

Ollantaytambo, still laid out on its Inca street grid, with the terraced fortress above; Pisac’s ruins and market; Moray’s concentric agricultural terraces; and the salt pans at Maras, worked since before the Inca.

Cusco

Qorikancha, the sun temple with a Dominican convent built on top of it; the cathedral; San Blas; and Sacsayhuaman above the city, with megalithic blocks fitted without mortar.

Trekking

The classic Inca Trail takes four days over two high passes and must be booked months ahead; the Salkantay, Lares and Choquequirao routes are alternatives with fewer permits.

Further out

The Rainbow Mountain, the Humantay lake, and the descent into the Manu cloud forest.

Cusco is the most visibly Andean part of Peru, and Quechua culture here is living rather than historical.

Quechua

The language of the Inca is still spoken by a large part of the rural population and by many in the city, and the highland communities maintain reciprocal labour systems, textile traditions and agricultural practice that predate the Spanish. This is not preserved for visitors; it is how the countryside works.

Syncretism

Catholic practice here absorbed Andean belief rather than replacing it. Churches stand on temple foundations, the Virgin is painted in a triangular skirt that reads as a mountain, and offerings to the apus — the mountain spirits — and to Pachamama, the earth, continue alongside the mass. The August offerings and the despacho ceremony are ordinary rather than exotic.

Tourism

Cusco’s economy is dominated by visitors, which has made the centre expensive and touristic while the surrounding provinces remain poor. Awareness of this tension is useful.

Festivals

The calendar is dense and taken seriously, mixing Catholic feast days with pre-Hispanic timing.

Machu Picchu is capacity-limited for good reason — timed entry, fixed circuits, and a daily ceiling. Book ahead, stay on the marked route, and accept that the rules exist because the site was measurably eroding.

Porters on the Inca Trail have legal weight limits and minimum wages that not every operator honours. Choose a company that publishes its porter policy, provides proper equipment and food, and tip properly. This is the single most consequential ethical choice a visitor here makes.

Buy craft from the maker. Weaving cooperatives in the Sacred Valley and around Chinchero pay weavers directly and have revived natural dyeing; the identical-looking machine-made goods in Cusco’s tourist streets mostly come from elsewhere.

Photographing people in traditional dress: those posing with llamas in Cusco expect payment, and agreeing a sum first avoids an argument. In villages, ask.

Water and waste: the Urubamba carries the valley’s sewage and rubbish. Refill bottles rather than buying, and carry out what you bring on trek.

May to September is the dry season and the main season: clear skies, cold nights, and the best trekking conditions. June to August is busiest.

Inti Raymi on 24 June fills Cusco for the winter solstice festival, and the surrounding week is the city’s liveliest.

April and October are shoulder months — some rain, thinner crowds, green landscapes and better prices. April in particular is often excellent.

November to March is the wet season, with heavy afternoon rain, cloud on the peaks and muddy trails. The Inca Trail closes for all of February for maintenance, though Machu Picchu itself stays open.

Orchids and flowers peak in the wet months, and the cloud forest is at its most dramatic.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the region

Peru is inexpensive, but the Machu Picchu day itself is not: entry, train and shuttle bus together run to well over a hundred dollars before guiding.