The classic southern route, paced gently for the altitude: Lima, Cusco, the Sacred Valley, a night below Machu Picchu, and a morning climb above it.
Colonial Lima and the Larco Museum come first, then Cusco at 11,150 ft, where the pace stays gentle while the altitude settles: the stonework at Sacsayhuaman, a day in the Sacred Valley at Pisac and Ollantaytambo. You sleep in the town below Machu Picchu, climb Huayna Picchu or Machu Picchu Mountain the next morning, and are back in Cusco by evening.
A late-afternoon landing and a straight run into Miraflores, the district Lima built along the cliff edge above the Pacific. The clifftop is a chain of parks the length of the neighborhood, with paragliders working the updraft off the face. The evening is open on purpose: time at sea level before Cusco, two miles higher, makes the altitude much easier.
A guided day through Lima's historic center, laid out by Pizarro in 1535 and run as the capital of Spanish South America for the next two hundred years. Then the Larco Museum and its five thousand years of Peruvian gold, ceramics and textiles. The evening is the Magic Water Circuit, where the fountains in the old city park run to music after dark.
Cusco sits at 11,150 feet, so the first few hours are yours to settle in and the sightseeing waits until afternoon. It starts at Qorikancha, where the Spanish built a church straight onto the Temple of the Sun, then climbs to Sacsayhuaman, the fortress above the old capital, with the whole city open below. Last is the little lookout fort at Puka Pukara, out where the road turns down toward the Sacred Valley.
A full day down into the Sacred Valley, which runs lower and warmer than Cusco. The morning is Pisac, market stalls filling the square and Inca terraces curving around the hillside above it. Then the stone stairs at Ollantaytambo, the one place the Inca turned back Spanish cavalry, by flooding the plain below the fortress. Back in Cusco by evening.
The train follows the Urubamba down into the gorge, where the mountains close in and the cloud forest starts. The bus climbs the switchbacks above the town, and the whole site is suddenly in front of you: temples, plazas and terraces cut into the ridge between two peaks. Machu Picchu was built as a country estate for a single emperor and stood empty within a century of his death. The night is spent at the foot of the mountain, because tomorrow starts with a climb high above the ruins.
A self-guided climb, on whichever of the two peaks your dates allow. Huayna Picchu is the peak standing behind the ruins in every photograph of them: a steep hour of Inca stairs to 8,920 ft, looking straight down on the city. Machu Picchu Mountain is the longer, steadier climb to 10,111 ft, with the whole valley below. The afternoon is the train back to Cusco, running up the valley beside the river most of the way.
If the flight out is late enough, there is a last morning in Cusco: the steep lanes of San Blas, the artisan workshops, the market stalls off the main square. Then the transfer to the airport and your onward connection.
Pricing can vary by season, hotel or cabin standard and other factors. Local holidays and major dates like Christmas and New Year carry supplements. A single room adds $400 per person. Prices shown are for the current year. Inquire to check rates for future years.
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