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 at 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 overlooking Cusco (being the head of the Puma), famous for its enormous carved stones assembled with great precision 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.
We pick you up at your hotel again at 08:30am in our Private Tourist Bus to start our tour in the following places:
Maras:
Situated west of Cusco at 3,300 m.o.s.l., from there you can watch the Urubamba mountain range and its snowy peaks of “La Veronica” (5,682 m.o.s.l.) and the “Chikon” (5,530 m.o.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 typical of the small town religious architecture, inside this church you can see original Cusco School picture canvases kept for centuries there.
Moray:
It is situated to 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.
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. After that we will go to the train station, to aboard the convoy departing at 19:00pm, arriving in Cusco at about 20:45pm, on arrival our staff will receive you and transfer you to your hotel.
Breakfast. We pick you up at 6:00am and transfer to the CONSETTUR bus station, to take the bus which will take us in a 25-minute ride by a zigzagging road 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.
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.
