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

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

On everybody this is Island Hopper TV and today we’re going to explore Machu Picchu let’s do it that’s right Island Hoppers 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 oon Tombo

Which is where we’re going to try and catch the train at around 12:00 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 2 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 4:00 in the morning and then it takes about 5 hours to get to Machu picu 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 ayant tumbo here and we’ve got this beautiful view right here you can see the clouds

Kind of cascading in between the baranka 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 if you wanted 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 chinero through Amba pulled over to the side of the road because they have these capsule hotels there’s about four of them uh 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 has 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 $1,000 a Night so those pill box hotel rooms or capsules along the cliff those are about 25 minutes away from oon Tomo 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 AAS Calientes so when we got here uh 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 o on Tombo but it just so happens there was a train leaving basically right when we arrived okay so just a little update here for you uh we showed up they did

Have a train leaving within the next hour so we’re taking it uh it was $55 per person uh on Peru rail Ina rail was like $125 per person and they were leaving at 1630 the uh 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 uh yeah we got that taken care of now and uh we’re leaving at 11:50 in the morning we arrived here at around 10:00 or I’m sorry 11: so pretty

Much no waiting got some restaurants here and uh 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 AWA Calientes were we going to be able to get circuit one or two 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 uh everything’s going

Smooth it’s a little bit cold in here at times but the sun is out the mountains are amazing see the ink 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 uh yeah we’re about 15 or 20 minutes outside awas gentes all right arrived at the hotel right along the ear MAA River here Cale Po got a restaurant here well here’s a look at the room and this hotel here is called cadel Soul this is the aroma River in awwa

Calientes nice 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 uh yeah it started raining but it’s beautiful weather right now you said the ticket to get ma Pichu is it for circuit one and two or circuit

Three yeah best one one and two one and two the best one number two is better yeah number two so it’s around one number three plus Inc bridge is the best one number one one two or three okay got you FL three flat in and it’s we have only three no yep

And it’s 55 55 us well three and four it’s included M the lower part but plus the mon you don’t that you know 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 10:00 so we’re here around 9:00 they say 9:20 it’ll take us up it’s a 25-minute bus ride up to Machu picu it’s going to be a

Good day so let’s do it so as it turns out Neo 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 machap Picchu Gate entrance this is what it looks like when the bus takes

You look 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 FT elevation which is

Actually 3,000 ft 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° and you realize that there’s a river that goes around here the aoma 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 all of the Rocks came from right here on location 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 uh 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 uh length of the trk 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 ham Bingham in 19111 arrived here took pictures and made it famous to the rest of the world because he was a storian and a picture taker so he was very successful at

Introducing Machu pachu 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 picu by the Inca when they were here the reason it’s called Machu Pikachu now is because it means old peak in the Keta language

Of the Inca and it was built by the Inca rule ruler pakui 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 uh 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 querry 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 picu aside from just building St stone structures and temples they were also doing sacrifices to the gods they were also very in touch with the patcha mama which is the mother nature around them so they would do a

Lot of things related to their honoring of patam Mama this is the temple right here you’ve got the sundow right here it points to South north and actually at times forms a llama head on the shadow of the Llama the oh yeah that is the ear of the

Lama like a Lama yep as with many places in the Inca Empire at many of the archaeological sites you’ll see Puma 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 Machi Picchu you will see alpacas or llamas here And just some quick facts about Machu Picchu it’s actually 8,000 FT elevation that’s 1,300 ft above AAS calienes it’s a bit lower than Cusco though say inco Runners used to be able to get from Cusco to Machu Picchu in one day which is a 70 mile Trek cuz 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 uh

September you should be in a dry season so the benefit of going during the uh wet season is it might not be as hot but you might not get good views of the actual uh 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 uh the good thing is you’re going to get great views all around but you can see these clouds rolling over the hills really does create for a unique picture Yeah if you look behind me here you can actually see the farming area those Terraces it’s where they did a lot of their farming they grew grew uh 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 beans so a lot of the foods that you eat worldwide around the world came here from the uh Incas but as you can tell this circuit 2 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 3 was the only one that’s available so I got I felt as though I got lucky when I was able to get circuit

2 which really does a full tour of the actual Sanctuary so be careful which one you pick when you uh 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 saak Wen 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 uh 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 For episode here from Machu Picchu just to tell you about the tour it was about 3 hours circuit 2 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’re going to love it good Job

In this Machu Picchu travel guide we start in Cusco and drive in a private car to Ollantaytambo where we board a Peru Rail train to Aguas Calientes. We provide you with a Machu Picchu history tour and guide. People want to know if Machu Picchu is Open and the answer is yes 100 percent open. The process of getting from Cusco to Machu Picchu takes about 5 hours. You can book a Machu Picchu tour and wake up at 4am for the 10am tour and then come back in the same day or you can do like we did and actually stay the night in Aguas Calientes and do the tour in the morning.

In this Machu Picchu vlog we show you around the sanctuary and provide facts about Machu Picchu. The reason we made this Machu Picchu travel documentary is to help visitors to Peru understand what it takes to get there.

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