OVERVIEW
There are several ways to reach Machu Picchu from Cusco. You can take a train directly from Poroy or Ollantaytambo and arrive in Aguas Calientes in a few hours. You can book a bus tour that handles everything from pickup to return. Both are perfectly valid ways to visit one of the most remarkable places on earth, and millions of people do exactly that every year.
The Inca Jungle route is something different. By the time you stand at the entrance gate to Machu Picchu on the morning of your visit, you will have ridden a bicycle 65 kilometers down from the high Andes, paddled a Class III river through a sacred canyon, soaked in thermal pools fed by the earth itself, and walked through one of the most biodiverse forests on the continent. You will have crossed the same mountain corridor that the Inca used to connect their highland capital with the settlements of the jungle lowlands. You will have seen Machu Picchu from across the valley at Llactapata before you ever set foot inside it.
That context changes everything about the visit. The citadel does not appear at the end of a train journey. It appears at the end of a journey you made with your own body, through a landscape that earns its place in your memory long before the famous view comes into frame.
DAY BY DAY ITINERARY
- THE FINAL APPROACH
On the last night of the Inca Jungle trek, the group stays in Aguas Calientes, the small town built at the base of the mountain that Machu Picchu sits on. The town has one main street running alongside the Urubamba River, a market, restaurants of every kind, and an atmosphere on the eve of a Machu Picchu visit that is difficult to describe to anyone who has not experienced it. Every person in town is there for the same reason, and that shared anticipation gives the evenings in Aguas Calientes a particular energy.
The bus to Machu Picchu departs from the bus station in the center of town beginning at 5:30 AM. The ride climbs 8 kilometers of switchback road up the forested mountainside in approximately 25 minutes. As the bus rises through the early morning mist and the shapes of the mountains begin to emerge from the darkness around you, the anticipation that has been building since the first morning of the trek reaches its highest point.
The gate opens. The citadel appears. And whatever you expected, the reality is larger.
- PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Aguas Calientes is the only access point for Machu Picchu by road or on foot. All visitors must pass through the town either by train or at the end of a trekking route. From Aguas Calientes the options for reaching the citadel are the official bus service, which takes 25 minutes and runs from 5:30 AM to 3:30 PM, or the hiking path that climbs from the town to the entrance gate in approximately 45 minutes to one hour on foot.
The bus is included in all Inca Jungle tour packages. The hiking path is an option for travelers who want to add one final physical challenge to the journey, but it requires departing earlier from the hotel and should be confirmed with your guide the night before.
