Inca Trail Expedition

A late-afternoon landing and a straight run into Miraflores, the district Lima built along the cliff edge above the Pacific. The clifftop is a chain of parks the length of the neighborhood, with paragliders working the updraft off the face. The evening is open on purpose: time at sea level before Cusco, two miles higher, makes the altitude much easier.

Overnight: Hotel in Lima

A guided day through Lima's historic center, laid out by Pizarro in 1535 and run as the capital of Spanish South America for the next two hundred years. Then the Larco Museum and its five thousand years of Peruvian gold, ceramics and textiles. The evening is the Magic Water Circuit, where the fountains in the old city park run to music after dark.

Overnight: Hotel in Lima · Meals: Breakfast

Cusco sits at 11,150 feet, so the first few hours are yours to settle in and the sightseeing waits until afternoon. It starts at Qorikancha, where the Spanish built a church straight onto the Temple of the Sun, then climbs to Sacsayhuaman, the fortress above the old capital, with the whole city open below. Last is the little lookout fort at Puka Pukara, out where the road turns down toward the Sacred Valley.

Overnight: Hotel in Cusco · Meals: Breakfast

A full day down into the Sacred Valley, which runs lower and warmer than Cusco. The morning is Pisac, market stalls filling the square and Inca terraces curving around the hillside above it. Then the stone stairs at Ollantaytambo, the one place the Inca turned back Spanish cavalry, by flooding the plain below the fortress. Back in Cusco by evening.

Overnight: Hotel in Cusco · Meals: Breakfast, Lunch

Breakfast in Ollantaytambo comes before dawn, and the porters are loading while you eat. From the checkpoint at Km 82 (9,072 ft) the first miles run easy beside the river. They end at Patallacta, the terraced Inca checkpoint that controlled who came up this valley toward Machu Picchu. The climbing starts after lunch and finishes at Ayapata (10,830 ft).

Overnight: Campsite · Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Two passes in one day, and the trail never gets higher than the first. Warmiwañusca, Dead Woman's Pass, tops out at 13,829 ft after four hours of climbing, then gives back most of it into the Pacaymayu valley. The second pass drops to Sayacmarca, a village on a rock spur that a single stone staircase still reaches. Camp is twenty minutes further on at Chaquicocha (11,811 ft), the dry lake.

Overnight: Campsite · Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

An easier day, and all of it losing height. The trail runs level through cloud forest to Phuyupatamarca, where Machu Picchu Mountain shows itself down the valley with the city still hidden behind it. From there it drops by stone staircase past the terraces of Intipata. Camp sits beside Wiñay Wayna, Forever Young, with time in the late afternoon to walk its terraces before the light goes.

Overnight: Campsite · Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

A self-guided climb, on whichever of the two peaks your dates allow. Huayna Picchu is the peak standing behind the ruins in every photograph of them: a steep hour of Inca stairs to 8,920 ft, looking straight down on the city. Machu Picchu Mountain is the longer, steadier climb to 10,111 ft, with the whole valley below. The afternoon is the train back to Cusco, running up the valley beside the river most of the way.

Overnight: Hotel in Cusco · Meals: Breakfast

If the flight out is late enough, there is a last morning in Cusco: the steep lanes of San Blas, the artisan workshops, the market stalls off the main square. Then the transfer to the airport and your onward connection.

Meals: Breakfast