Visiting Machu Picchu has been on my bucket list for a long time. While the Lares Trek was my favorite part of the trip, this doesn’t mean that Machu Picchu wasn’t amazing. It was. Machu Picchu deserves its place on the UNESCO World Heritage List and your bucket list. You should go.
When I put Machu Picchu on my bucket list, I didn’t have a full appreciation of why it deserved its spot there. I also didn’t have a full appreciation for what amazing architects, engineers, and horticulturists the ancient Incas were. To gain a full appreciation of this, I recommend three things:
- Don’t just visit Machu Picchu. Visit some other ancient Inca sites in and around the Sacred Valley while you are the Cusco region. I’ve shared highlights from the Inca sites we visited below.
- Read up on some ancient Inca history before you go. I read The Last Days of the Incas before I went. Yes, it is a nonfiction book, but it reads more like a novel. Having some context on the Inca civilization made the visit to the Inca sites more interesting and and helped them into historical context when I was there.
- Use a good guide – one who will both have fun with you and share some of the rich history of the Incas and the sites you visit. Our guide, Ernesto, from TLA was great. Added bonus: when you are at Machu Picchu, the guides know where all the most Instagram-able photo spots are.
Ancient Inca sites in and near the Sacred Valley
Machu Picchu is awe-inspiring. It still blows me a way that the Incas designed and built a city on the top of a mountain that could survive 400 years with no one there to do maintenance – in an earthquake-prone area with a serious rainy season. As an engineer, this impresses me. Aside from that the place is beautiful. In addition to the tour of the city ruins, if you are up for a steep hike do the additional trail up Huayna Picchu. The view from the top of both Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountains is unbelievable. On this hike, keep an eye out for orchids on the trail they were beautiful! They limit the number of people who can enter daily and further limit the number who can hike Huayna Picchu, so you must get a ticket in advance. They sell out months in advance. If you use a tour company they will book the tickets and manage logistics for you, which is nice.
Moray surprised me. When we first got there and I saw the circles of terraces, I was a bit underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, the vastness of the site is visually impressive. But the history of how they used Moray was what made this site stand out. Because the Incas did not have a written history, for a long time what they used Moray for was a mystery. However, archeologists have learned that the Incas used it as an agricultural center to study the impact of weather on crops and develop new hybrid crops adapted to different parts of the Inca empire. They used the geography of the site, which has many different microclimates, and brought in soil from different parts of the empire so that they could test different crops in different climate and soil conditions and cross-breed them. This is one reason why over 4000 different varieties of potatoes grow in the Andean highlands. As a gardener, this fascinates me.
Ollantaytambo is more than just the town where you catch the train to Aquas Calientes and Machu Picchu. It was built as a royal estate for Pachacuti, one of the Inca Emperors. During the time of the Spanish invasion it was a stronghold for the Inca resistance, led by Manco Inca. In fact, its the site of one of the few battles that the Incas actually won against the Spanish. When you come to Ollantaytambo to catch the train, allow some time to tour the Inca ruins here. Also, keep an eye out for the Inca storehouses built high in the mountains above the town. They used these to store food grown in the nearby terraces.
Cusco, is a bustling, modern city with beautiful Spanish architecture, but also has interesting Inca ruins. In fact, much like modern Rome is built on ancient Roman ruins, modern Cusco sits atop foundations built by the Inca. As you walk the stone streets of old town, you will notice the Inca-style stacked stones in the lower sections of many walls.
Visit Coricancha, the site of the Inca Temple of the Sun. When the Spanish came, they built a convent and cathedral on the foundations of the Inca temple. Two big earthquakes in 1650 and 1950 damaged or destroyed most of the Spanish colonial buildings, but the Inca foundations remained – proof of their engineering and architectural badassery. At Coricancha, they have some of the stones on display so that you can see how the Inca constructed the walls – they look like ancient stone legos.
Bonus: Orchids from the hike up Huayna Picchu
