The Ollantaytambo complex, above the town of the same name in the Sacred Valley, is the second-largest Inca archaeological site after Machu Picchu — and in some ways the more interesting one, because the Spanish Conquest interrupted construction and you can see the building process frozen in place.
Pachacuti ordered the fortress built in the 1440s. The terraces climbing the hillside served both agricultural and defensive functions. The showpiece is the unfinished Temple of the Sun — six monoliths of pink rhyolite, each weighing 50-80 tonnes, hauled across the Urubamba from a quarry at Kachiqhata six kilometres away. The engineering question of how they were moved has not been fully answered.
From Temple Hill the view opens onto the full valley and the Veronica range (5,893 m). The town below is still laid out on its original 15th-century grid.
Peruways runs guided visits with licensed Peruvian historians. We bundle Ollantaytambo with the Pisac circuit as a Sacred Valley day, or combine it with the train down to Machu Picchu as a two-day loop.
Book at Peruways.
