Sacred Valley Route

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Cusco

   Cusco sits at about 3,400 metres in a high Andean valley, and the first thing it asks of you is patience. The air is thin, so even a short walk uphill can leave you breathless, and visitors from sea level often feel it as a headache or a strange tightness for a day or two. Locals will offer you coca tea, which helps a little; rest, water and a light dinner help more. On a motorcycle, thin air also saps engine power, a carburetted bike may run rich and a fuel-injected one will cope better, so do not be surprised if your machine feels a little tired.

   Read the complete Cusco write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cusco is where the day begins. Next is Pisac.

2. 2. Pisac

   Above the village of Pisac the Incas cut terraces so fine and so curved that the whole mountainside looks like a seashell. They run up the slope in great sweeping arcs, still green with crops, and above them on a spur of rock stands the citadel, a scatter of stone temples, baths and watchtowers that guarded the entrance to the Sacred Valley from the east. The village itself lies by the Urubamba river, at just under three thousand metres, thirty-odd kilometres from Cusco. Calca, the next town of any size, is another fifteen along the valley.

   Read the complete Pisac write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Pisac comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Urubamba.

3. 3. Urubamba

   Urubamba is the main town of the Sacred Valley of the Incas, a wide, fertile trough at about 2,900 metres, with the Vilcanota river running through it and snow peaks standing along the skyline. It is a place of farms, orchards and fields of maize, and the maize is a speciality, the big white-kernelled variety that is exported around the world and eaten in Cusco as a snack with cheese. The valley was the heartland of the Inca empire, with its fertile soil and mild climate, and terraces still climb the slopes, built to grow crops at different altitudes. The town sits in the middle of this, a busy, practical place of a few thousand people, with a market, a plaza and a lot of good restaurants.

   Read the complete Urubamba write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 74 km into the recorded legs you reach Urubamba. Next is Ollantaytambo.

4. 4. Ollantaytambo

   Ollantaytambo is an Inca town in the Sacred Valley of Peru, about 2,800 metres above sea level, and unlike most Inca sites it is not a ruin: people live here in houses laid out on the original Inca street plan, and the streets, with their stone channels of running water, are some of the oldest continuously inhabited in South America. Above the town, a huge stepped terrace climbs the mountainside to a temple complex, built for the emperor Pachacuti in the fifteenth century, with enormous stones fitted so tightly that a knife blade will not pass between them.

   Read the complete Ollantaytambo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ollantaytambo, about halfway. Next is Abra Malaga.

5. 5. Abra Málaga

   You cross Abra Málaga in one climate and descend in another. On the Urubamba side the valley is dry, dusty and Andean, with terraces, eucalyptus and the white shoulders of Nevado Verónica high above. Then the road tops out at 4,316 metres, a cold, windswept saddle of grass and rock, and plunges into the cloud forest on the eastern slope, where the air gets thick, wet and green and the temperature climbs a degree with every switchback. By the time you reach Santa María, a thousand-odd metres lower, you are in the edge of the Amazon basin, with orchids, bamboo, coffee bushes and mist hanging on every ridge.

   Read the complete Abra Malaga write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Abra Málaga sits at 174 km, late in the day. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Santa Teresa, mostly downhill.

6. 6. Santa Teresa

   Santa Teresa is a village in the cloud forest of the Cusco region of Peru, in the valley of the Urubamba river, and it lies at the end of a long, rough road from the Sacred Valley. The village is small and rustic, set among coffee and fruit farms and surrounded by steep green mountains, and it is one of the main routes to Machu Picchu for those who do not want to take the train. Hot springs at Cocalmayo, a short distance from the village, are a popular place to relax, and the people here grow coffee, avocado and bananas. The nearest towns are Santa Ana and Ollantaytambo, a long way off.

   Read the complete Santa Teresa write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 235 km.