Between Cusco and Machu Picchu sits the Sacred Valley — a fertile river corridor along the Urubamba that is often more rewarding than the citadel itself. If you’ve only built a day for it, build another.
The Valle Sagrado connects a string of Inca and pre-Inca sites: Ollantaytambo (still a living Inca town with the original urban grid), the circular agricultural terraces at Moray, the Maras salt pans worked since pre-Hispanic times, and the Pisac market and ruins. Each stop was engineered for a specific purpose — crop testing at Moray, salt production at Maras, grain storage at Pisac.
The valley also sits around 600m lower than Cusco, which matters: it’s a much easier place to acclimatize before Machu Picchu than the city at 3,400m. Most of our customers now spend their first two nights in the valley instead of Cusco.
Peruways’ Sacred Valley day stops at Pisac, Moray and Maras and ends with an Ollantaytambo overnight — which puts you in position for the shorter morning train. Book at Peruways.
