Machu Picchu & Cusco in 4 Days

Our driver waits in the arrivals hall with a sign with your name. It is a 15-minute ride to the hotel. Check-in is usually possible right away. If not, bags are stored and you get the room by early afternoon.

Nothing is scheduled on purpose. Drink water, walk slowly, eat something light. Your body is adjusting to 11,150 feet and the first hours matter more than any monument.

Qorikancha, the sun temple whose curved wall the Spanish built a church on top of. Then the bus climbs to Sacsayhuamán, where single stones weigh more than a truck. Then Q'enqo, Puka Pukara and Tambomachay, with its still-running water channels. Back at the Plaza de Armas around 6:30 p.m.

We send three dinner suggestions within walking distance and a reminder: early night, the bus leaves before 7 tomorrow.

Main suitcases stay at the hotel storage. You travel with an overnight bag: the train allows one backpack up to 17.6 lb (8 kg).

A weaving cooperative shows how alpaca wool is washed with a grated root, dyed with cochineal and spun by hand. Highest point of the whole trip.

Moray's concentric terraces drop 100 feet and hold different temperatures on each level. The Incas used them to test crops. Twenty minutes away, more than 3,000 salt pools have been fed by one warm spring since before the Incas, and families still harvest them by hand.

Included. Quinoa soup, trout, roasted vegetables, and the coca-leaf ice cream that everyone photographs.

Terraces climb the hill above a town whose street grid and water channels have run without interruption since the 1400s. The stone for the Temple of the Sun was dragged from a quarry across the river.

Expedition or Vistadome class along the Urubamba River. The valley narrows, the vegetation turns tropical, and about 1 hour 45 minutes later you step off in Aguas Calientes, 6,690 feet, at the foot of the mountain. A hotel representative meets the train.

Consettur buses climb the 13 switchbacks in 25 minutes. Your ticket sets the entry slot, so the guide tells you the exact time the night before. Bring your passport: it is checked at the gate.

The route starts at the upper platform for the classic view, then descends through the quarry, the Temple of the Sun, the royal quarters, the Sacred Plaza and the main square. Circuits are one way, with no re-entry, so the guide paces the stops so you are not rushed through the best ones.

Lunch on your own. There are restaurants along the river and, if the timing works, the hot springs the town is named after are a 10-minute walk uphill.

The train returns you to Ollantaytambo, where a transfer is waiting for the 1 hour 45 minute drive back to Cusco. You are at the hotel by about 8 p.m.

If your flight is in the afternoon, the San Pedro market is a 10-minute walk for coffee beans, chocolate and a last look at the fruit stalls.

We coordinate the pickup around your flight. Staying longer? Rainbow Mountain, Humantay Lake and Lake Titicaca all connect from here. Tell us in the quote form and we extend the plan.