Itinerary
Day 1: Cusco – Ollantaytambo – Km. 82 (Piscacucho) – Wayllabamba
Our adventure starts early in the morning, we pick you up from your hotel at 5:00, we drive to Ollantaytambo, a place where you can have breakfast in some of the tourist restaurants, you can also find some stuff necessary for the following days then we still drive toward Piscacucho km 82 of the railway to Machupicchu town, the control point will be a Good place to pack everything in our backpack while our porters are doing the same. The singing up is the first step what we do at Piscachucho then we officially start our hike. It will be 9 km – 6 mi until our Camping site in Wayllabamba, along the trail we will visit and see some nice inca sites, Patallacta is the best archaeological site of this day seen from above, a specific viewpoint.
Day 2.- Wayllabamba – Llulluchapampa – Pacaymayu
After a nice and enough breakfast, we continue our trip, this will be a challenging day because the trail is a complete ascent until Llulluchapampa, the place where we recover energies having our delicious lunch. The hike continues ascending through a steeply but wonderful path, the cloud forest starts with full vegetation of various types of trees, specially the Q´euña (An ancient and native small tree), many stops will be necessary before getting the pass of Warmiwañusqa (Dead Woman Pass), it is the highest point of our trip (4215 m – 13,825 ft), downhill steps are the following on the way to Pacaymayu, our campiste of the day 2. On this day we covered 13 km – 8 mi more of the Inca Trail.
Day 3.- Pacaymayu – Runkurakay Pass – Phuyupatamarca Pass – Wiñaywayna
This is our second ascending day and get another pass, Runkurakay, which is above 3960 m – 12,990 ft, the environment here is very special because it allows to see some wild animals like the Andean Condor, the Gray Deer and many types of colorful birds. Runkurakay, Sayacmarka, Conchamarka, Phuyupatamarca and Wiñaywayna will be the Inca sites to visit during this day, our final stop will be at the camp site of Wiñaywayna, a nice and warm place to stay, this is the longest part of the Inca trail that we cover, it is 18 km – 11 mi in total.
Day 4.- Wiñaywayna – Intipunku – Machupicchu Citadel – Aguas Calientes (Machupicchu Town) – Ollantaytambo – Cusco
We need to wake up very early on this day, just 1 hour and 30 minutes on a flat section takes to get the Sun gate, the sun rise comes up between 5:30 to 6:00 in the morning and a view of Machupicchu from the Sun gate is indescribable which also makes to stay there longer than usual, one more hour and we get the Citadel of Machupicchu where our Tour Guide starts explaining the history of all the Inca Site and the most important temples are visited, the tour normally takes 2 hours and half, then we have to walk to the town of Machupicchu (Aguas Calientes) or you can skip the hike catching one of the bus to the town. Time is enough to have lunch in Aguas Calientes while we wait the train to Ollantaytambo, it is normally booked after 4:00 pm, the train journey takes almost 2 hours followed by the bus transport back to Cusco.
