Machu Picchu Travel Guide- How To Visit Machu Picchu From Cusco 2024

Hey everybody, this is IslandHopperTV and today we're going to explore Machu Picchu. Let's do it. That's right IslandHoppers, we're going from Cusco to Machu Picchu and we're going to show you the process. Yeah, so it's 9 30 in the morning and we're actually headed to Ullantanbo, which is where we're going to try and catch the train at around 12 o'clock. We don't even have the ticket, so we're just rolling over there to see if we can get it. But yeah, we're in Cusco, it's going to be about an hour and a half to two hours to get there, so let's see what happens. So the number one way people typically go from Cusco to Machu Picchu is by a tour that wakes up at four o'clock in the morning and then it takes about five hours to get to Machu Picchu town and then they take the 30-minute bus to the archaeological site. But we're actually doing this freestyle so that we're not feeling rushed, that's what you're looking at here. So we've been going through this road along the way to Ayonte Tumbo here and we've got this beautiful view right here. You can see the clouds kind of cascading in between the Barranca, but the road is actually kind of dangerous, so keep that in mind because there is landslides. You'll see big boulders on the side of the road. You're going to be safe coming out here, but landslides are a little bit of a risk out here. So the road we actually arrived in on was highway 110. You want to avoid the landslide risk. You're going to spend a little bit more time driving, but you don't have to deal with the stress or the anxiety of a possible landslide. So you can take the way that goes through Chinchero through Urubamba. Pulled over to the side of the road because they have these capsule hotels. There's about four of them, four little capsules up there, maybe three on this one, but the other side has four. We don't know who exactly built it, if it's Germans or Japanese, whoever had that idea. It's a wild idea. You've actually got to scale up like you're climbing the cliff to get up to your room, and then you have to come back down in the morning. I don't know if you guys would stay there, but they say it's around a thousand dollars a night. So those pillbox hotel rooms or capsules along the cliff, those are about 25 minutes away from Ollantambo. So once you see those, you know you're nearby the train station. Now keep in mind we didn't have a train ticket booked, so we were just going to see what we can get the next train out of town to Aguas Calientes. So when we got here, we kind of had an idea of when the next train was leaving. I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to catch it or if we were going to stay an hour to an hour and a half, because there are some archaeological sites here in Ollantambo, but it just so happens there was a train leaving basically right when we arrived. Okay, so just a little update here for you. We showed up. They did have a train leaving within the next hour, so we're taking it. It was $55 per person on Peru Rail. Inca Rail was like $125 per person, and they were leaving at 1630. The other thing that I wanted to tell you, each bag is $29. So if you bring a suitcase, it's $29 each. So I had to pay an extra $55 for two different bags for me and my dad. But yeah, we got that taken care of now, and we're leaving at 11.50 in the morning. We arrived here at around 10, or I'm sorry, 11. So pretty much no waiting. We've got some restaurants here, and this is the Peru Rail that we're going, and we've got tickets. And it seemed like the trains had availability all throughout the time we were trying to get tickets, even on the way back. So it didn't seem like it was fully booked. The next challenge that we were coming across was once we got to Aguas Calientes, were we going to be able to get Circuit 1 or 2? Was it going to be available? Because people were saying it's fully booked. Yeah, so we're still going about an hour into it. Everything's going smooth. It's a little bit colder here at times, but the sun is out. The mountains are amazing. You can see the Inca Trail. So yeah, we're still cruising along. They did a cart service where they offer you some water, and you can buy some chocolate and some snacks. And yeah, we're about 15-20 minutes outside Aguas Calientes. All right, arrived at the hotel right along the Pura Bamba River here. It's Castanel 4. Got a restaurant here. Oh, here's a look at the room. And this hotel here is called Casadel Sol. This is the Pura Bamba River in Aguas Calientes. So this is our guide Nilo. He's going to be showing us around Machu Picchu. But first, we have to go get the ticket. And yeah, it started raining, but it's beautiful weather right now. You said the ticket to get to Machu Picchu is it for circuit one and two or circuit three? Yeah, one and two. The best one. Yeah, number two. So it's around... Number three plus Inca Bridge is the best one. Number one? One, two, or three. Okay, got you. But three plus Inca Bridge. And it's fifty... 55 U.S. It's included Machu Picchu in the lower part, but plus the mountains. Yeah. And then once we get this, we've actually got to get a bus ticket to get up there. And then he's going to be our guide, and he charges 55 or 60. 60, right? Yeah. All right, so it's the morning. We're actually lining up to get on the bus. So we've got to be up there by 10 o'clock. So we're here around nine o'clock. They say 9 20. It'll take us up. It's a 25 minute bus ride up to Machu Picchu. It's going to be a good day, so let's do it. So as it turns out, Nilo actually had a prior reservation that he was taking other guests up. So we ended up getting a new guide, and our new guide was awesome. Also, you'll see him coming up soon. The bus ticket was $25 per person, and as you can see, we freestyled it up here and we got everything we needed all in time. Everything went great. So now we go up the windy road that definitely is quite interesting. At the Machu Picchu gate entrance, this is what it looks like when the bus takes you. Looks like they have guides up here. If you wanted to get a guide, it's typically 50 to 60 bucks, and this is the first entrance. Here we are, and as you can tell by the way I'm walking, I'm breathing heavy. We're at around 8,000 feet elevation, which is actually 3,000 feet lower than Cusco, but you definitely feel it here at Machu Picchu because high elevation and you're constantly going up the mountain to get to the summit, and then you kind of work your way into the actual citadel where the sanctuary is along the archaeological site. So the hard part is in the beginning when you're going up, but then it gets easier because you're just going down the rest of the way. Now my first impression when I got here was, wow, this is amazing, especially as you're looking around, you realize you're finally here. You know, looking at the actual archaeological site where the peak is and everything in the backdrop is amazing, but then you look around 360 degrees and you realize that there's a river that goes around here, the Urabamba, which actually dumps into the Amazon at some point, and it really feels breathtaking. Come up here, don't take as many pictures, focus on where you're at. And in case you're wondering where they got all these rocks to build this amazing sanctuary on the hill here, because it's a rock quarry. Yeah, this is everything you would expect. Now what makes this such an interesting site is the fact that most of the rock work is done without mortar or cement, just basically placing rocks very tightly together. The Inca were very good stone masons. Yeah, and if you guys are coming to Machu Picchu and you have some questions, you can contact my guide here. This is Joel, so he's got all the information. I'll put a link to his Instagram right here at the bottom. And in case you're wondering when Machu Picchu was built, it was around the 1450s and they say it was left abandoned around 1530. No one knows why they abandoned the site, but as Joel said, this was actually a sanctuary where many of the Inca royalty and some of the religious statesmen were actually living. And they said that an Inca runner could get from Machu Picchu to Cusco in about a day with an important message. But what they would do was they had kind of like a relay race where they would pass the message between other runners. So it wasn't just one runner running the whole length of the trek. Now Machu Picchu is often called the lost city, although it was never really lost to the Inca. It was just never known to the Western world until Hiram Bingham in 1911 arrived here, took pictures and made it famous to the rest of the world because he was a historian and a picture taker. So he was very successful at introducing Machu Picchu to the rest of the world, but he was led here by Inca who knew about this actual sanctuary. Now it wasn't actually called Machu Picchu by the Inca when they were here. The reason it's called Machu Picchu now is because it means old peak in the Quechua language of the Inca. And it was built by the Inca ruler Pachacuti who expanded the kingdom's power and consolidated much of the Inca empire by conquering other tribes around the region of the Andes all the way in towards the jungle and towards the coast of Peru. This is part of the stone quarry here. You can see they've actually got evidence of how they were cutting it with wood. They would put that in between the grooves. They would hammer that through and they put water through that to help break up the rocks. But they didn't have to import any of the rocks here because this was a big stone quarry up on the mountain. So they could source all the materials they needed right from the top of this mountain. And there was a lot more going on here at Machu Picchu aside from just building stone structures and temples. They were also doing sacrifices to the gods. They were also very in touch with the Pachamama which is the mother nature around them. So they would do a lot of things related to their honoring of Pachamama. This is the temple right here. You've got the sundial right here actually at times forms a llama head on the shadow. As with many places in the Inca empire at many of the archaeological sites you'll see pumas or serpents or llamas actually in the rocks. For those of you who pay close enough attention you'll be able to see how the Inca were communicating that through the structures they were building. And they had a great appreciation for llamas as the historians have discovered. And even as you go around here at Machu Picchu you will see alpacas or llamas here. And just some quick facts about Machu Picchu. It's actually 8,000 feet elevation. That's 1,300 feet above Aguas Calientes. It's a bit lower than Cusco though. They say Inca runners used to be able to get from Cusco to Machu Picchu in one day which is a 70 mile trek because they were runners and they would chew on the cocoa leaves. Just so you know here in the Andes they do have a dry season and a wet season. Technically February when I went there that is the actual wet season. If you wanted the dry season try to come anywhere between April until probably September you should be in a dry season. So the benefit of going during the wet season is it might not be as hot but you might not get good views of the actual sanctuary when you're here and it might be raining whereas in the dry season it's going to be hot bright sun especially being at such a high elevation. And then the good thing is you're going to get great views all around but you can see these clouds rolling over the hills really area of those terraces. That's where they did a lot of their farming. They grew tomatoes they had corn some of the corn grew better down below than it did up there and they had potatoes. What else did they have out here? Beans. So a lot of the foods that you eat worldwide around the world came here from the Incas. But as you can tell this circuit too that we're on it really does a great tour of the actual sanctuary. Not all tours are equal. You can actually go online and download the versions of what the actual trek would be for each circuit. When I arrived they told me that circuit three was the only one that's available. So I got I felt as though I got lucky when I was able to get circuit two which really does a full tour of the actual sanctuary. So be careful which one you pick when you order online ahead of time or when you order your tour or even when you get there because not all the circuits are the same. And as we continue to show you around Machu Picchu giving you a really thorough tour I want to let you know that we did do several other travel guides. One about Cusco where we showed you 30 things to do around Cusco which includes many different archaeological sites like Moray which was a laboratory. There's also a salt mine that's here that the Inca used. We had Sacsayhuaman which is one of the most impressive archaeological sites you'll find anywhere in the world and it's right there in Cusco. So definitely check out that guide because we really explored all around the region of Cusco into the Andes. So don't miss it. I'll put a link to that down below in the description and in the comments. Also I did a full things to know about visiting Peru which may be useful for those of you who plan to visit and do more than just visit Cusco but go all around to places like Lima or some of the other sites in the country. Episode here from Machu Picchu just to tell you about the tour it was about three hours. Circuit two they say is the best one so if you can get that one definitely do that. Start up top work your way down and then come back down through the bottom right through the middle. So very great place definitely recommend it and it's worth it if you come out here you'll love it. Good job.