ITINERARY
Total assistance when you arrive to the Imperial City of Cusco and transfer to your hotel. Free time to rest, relax and get acclimatized to the altitude.
In the afternoon, City Tour of Cusco; we pick you up from your hotel at about 13:00pm and proceed to visit the Qorikancha or Sun Temple (today known as the Santo Domingo complex). We continue outside the city to visit Qenko, Tambomachay, Puka Pukara, and the biggest Inka temple complex, Sacsayhuaman, built strategically atop a hill overseeing Cusco (being the head of the puma), famous for its enormous carved stones assembled with a big precission that it’s stunning to your eyes. Some of these huge stones exceeds the 9 meters of height and weighs more than 120 tons.
Return to your hotel at about 18:30pm. Lodging in your hotel.
The adventure will start very early in the morning at around 04:00am, we will pick you up from your hotel and then we will drive you for 2 hours 30 minutes towards the picturesque town of Cusipata, south from Cusco, in this town we will stop for a while to get some articles as mineral water or energizers, snacks, cereal bars, oxygen bottles, etc., we may have forgotten in the rush. After this short stopover we will go on with our trip where we can also see multicolored crop vistas mixed among the mysterious mountains and snowcapped hills, grazing Andean creatures as llamas, alpacas, sheep, vicuñas near deep valleys. We reach then to the picturesque town of Punta Carretera, a place where we will have a very fulfilling and satisfying Andean breakfast.
Around 08:00am we’ll start this so longed for adventure trekking uphill for about 1 hour 30 min., until we reach the control bar and then go on to our goal.
Continuing with our hike we will pass by a path that gradually will change in panorama among mountains with intense colors and small streams of ice cold waters that give life and feed this valley, as w ego up following the trail we will see how colors around us change by the weather, we will reach to a height of 5,033 m.a.s.l., the top of the mysterious Mountain of the 7 Colors (Vinicunca).
This will be the point where we will have enough time to take a lot of snapshots, filming videos, etc. At the same time this will be the place where we will enjoy of our box lunch (snacks) while our eyes delight with the magic that encloses these mountains beyond its veil of clouds and snow peaks, then after this so enticing experience we will start the hike downhill to return to Punta Carretera where we will have our main lunch, after that we will return back to Cusco around 18:30pm.
Note: During the ascent we will have a backing horse just in case some emergency arise because the change in altitude is too strong.
INCLUDED:
º Customized assistance
º Transport Cusco – Punta Carretera – Cusco
º Meals: 01 Breakfast, 01 Lunch (Buffet)
º Professional guide
º High Mountain Medical assistance (doctor)
º Entry ticket for the Mountain of 7 Colors
º Extra horse for emergencies
º Emergency First Aid kit box
º Chocolate, sandwich, cereal bars, fruit, mineral water, rehydrating beverage and energizer.
NOT INCLUDED:
º Beverages, except as indicated
º Tips
º Meals, except as indicated
º Extra expenses
GOOD TO CARRY:
º Your own medicines
º Rain poncho according to season
º Warm outerwear/dress
º Mountain/trekking footwear
º Extra money
º Photographic camera
º Filming/video camera
º Sunglasses with UV protection
º Sunblock
º Hat with long neck covering
º Well fitting pants
Our services start when we pick you up from your hotel between 08:30am and 09:00am, to then aboard our tourist bus bound for Maras town and visit the following attractions:
First place to visit will be the town of Maras, a place situated west of Cusco at 3,300 m.a.s.l. From this point one can clearly see the Urubamba Cordillera (Vilcanota Mountain Range) still with its snowfields and the most outstanding being the Chicon (5,530 m.a.s.l.) and La Veronica (5,682 m.a.s.l.). Its important occupation started when the Cusco noblemen of the Inka times were dispossessed off their palaces in the city and they had to exit the city to establish themselves in other little settlements like Maras.
It has an old church built on adobes (earthen bricks) still standing, this is typical of the small town religious architecture, inside this church you can see original Cusco School picture canvases kept for centuries there.
We then will continue to:
Moray:
This place is situated some 7 kms. southwest of Maras; it’s a superb archaeological complex unique in its class in the region. It consists of gigantic natural depressions or holes in the land surface that were used to build agricultural steps or terraces within its contours with its corresponding irrigation canals, it is then a prototype of hothouse or biologic experimental station well advanced ahead its time that helped the early South American peoples to inherit a 60% of the vegetal products that he needs, that the Andean man consumes more than a thousand and a half varieties of potatoes, a hundred and a half or corn varieties and much more other products that these fertile lands offers. Leaving Moray we will then have our last stop at:
Maras Salineras or Salt Mines:
Situated northwest of the town of Maras, it consists by a compound of some more than 5,000 little “pans” or salt holes with a mean area of 5 sq. m., during the time of summer when there is no rain they are filled or “watered” each 3 days with salt waters that outpours from a natural water fountain ubicated above the salt holes atop the mountain in order that when it evaporates, the salt contained within it solidifies gradually, after that the salt in solid state is beaten and in this way it gets granulated and processed to be bagged into plastic bags and sent to the markets; today, to this salt is being added Iodine, and by this reason its use is not harmful to the people. Finally, we will be returning to Cusco at about 15:30 in the afternoon.
Our tour starts when we pick you up at your hotel at about 8:00am, to then aboard our Private Tourist Bus bound for the valley, in this section of the ride, we will watch many picturesque towns with a marvellous flora and fauna, which you can’t miss out; our first stopover will be at the typical Qorao Pass town market, where you can opt to acquire some budget handicrafts, which are sold by the local artisans themselves, after that we will continue with our tour to our second stopover at the Taray Lookout, a nice place to take postal-like photos of the surrounding Sacred Valley of the Inkas, after that we will be visiting the archaeological zone of Pisaq, a place where you can see the huge agricultural terraces as though the Inka biggest cemetery; these tombs have been profaned by the treasure hunters as you can see, and after that we will be riding along the river banks along this valley, at approx. 13:40pm we will have our Buffet lunch in a restaurant of the Urubamba valley, we go on visiting the Ollantaytambo Fortress, a military, religious and administrative center, considered to be the Inka general Ollanta dwelling. In our return to Cusco we will visit the picturesque town of Chinchero, a place where you can see the remains of the Inka Tupac Yupanki’s palace, where it was built the Chinchero adobe colonial temple above this palace, typical of the old Spanish religious architecture. Nowadays Chinchero is considered as a living culture town, because at seeing the Inka narrow streets you can watch the Inka textile arts. Return to Cusco at about 19:30pm. End of our services.
Breakfast. We pick you up from your hotel at 04:00am and transfer to the Ollantaytambo train station to get the 06:10am train service, to ride towards Aguas Calientes town (or Machu Picchu pueblo). We reach the Aguas Calientes train station and then take the CONSETTUR bus which will take us in a 25-minute ride by a zigzagging road up to the Inka citadel of Machu Picchu. On arrival, guided tour for about 2 hours 30 minutes inside the MAPI Sanctuary visiting the most important points as: the Main Plaza, agricultural terraces, the Temple of the Sun, the Inti Watana (where you “tie the sun”), the sacred temples, the stunning Temple of the Three Windows, the Sacred Rock, the Temple of the Condor, among others.
After the guided tour you will have your free time to wander the complex at your own pace. On the afternoon, we return down back to Aguas Calientes town, and to catch the return train at 18:20pm, reception by our staff at Ollantaytambo train station and transfer back to Cusco by our private van, arriving in Cusco at 22:10pm. Lodging in your hotel.
Our excursion starts when we pick you up from your hotel between 08:30am to 09:00am, to then aboard our tourist bus. This tour is known as the “combined tour”, because it mixes beautiful natural landscapes, Inka architecture in Tipon, Wari pre-Inka architecture in Pikillacta, you visit Andahuaylillas and its beautiful chapel, known as the “Sistine Chapel of the Americas”, not forgetting to say a word about the delicious gastronomy you can taste in the towns of Saylla, Huasao, Oropesa, etc… come with us to enjoy this wonderful adventure !!!!!
Our first place to visit is Tipon. A big huge crop field so stunning that it contains 12 cascading terraces that is being protected actually by the Ministery of Culture, to its safekeeping and conservation, whose walls were erected with huge rocks and stones so finely carved. Still more impressing to you is its irrigation system that is working its duty to agriculture in these days and the advantage being the water intake in the spring season. Then we will continue on to:
Pikillacta:
It shows the characteristics of a great urban center corresponding to the time of the development of the Wari Empire with more than a thousand compounds among them plazas, colcas (food storing silos), canchas or dwelling patios, temples, long and narrow streets with buildings 3 floors high. Finally we will visit:
Andahuaylillas (Sistine Chapel of the Americas)
A typical Andean village from the time of the colony of unique origin and architecture. What it is more impressive and notable in this place is its catholic temple from the colonial times with a nice decoration and wall paintings from the XVII and XVIII centuries, better known as the Sistine Chapel of Cusco and America. In our return back to Cusco we will pass by saylla, typical cusquenian village where you can taste the delicious “chicharrones de cerdo” (deep fried pork slabs) as an optional stop. We will be returning back to Cusco at about 15:30pm. End of our services.
Breakfast. At the fixed time, transfer from your hotel to the Airport. Farewell by our staff from the beautiful immortal city of the Imperial Cusco.
