Cusco in my style without agencies

Hi there,

In this post I am going to tell you everything we did in Cusco, and the things that I recommend from my experience. Next Thursday you will have a post about Machupicchu.

As I have been telling you in previous posts, the initial idea was to spend a whole month in Cusco, but I ruled it out because I couldn’t find any accommodation that suited our needs. So, we decided to go on vacation and spend only a few days. We arrived in Cusco on a Saturday morning and returned to Lima the following Sunday night. Almost 8 whole days.

When we tried to buy the tickets to Machupicchu online, the system gave an error, and we remained without the money and without the tickets, so as soon as we arrived in Cusco, we started to investigate where we could make a complaint. We went to several places and finally we filed a complaint with the tourism police.

The first thing you should do is buy the tourist ticket. You can buy it at the Cusco office or directly at any of the archaeological complexes (they only accept cash).

Tourist Ticket (130 soles) includes:

Saqsaywaman
Q’enco
Puka Pukara
Tambomachay
Pisaq
Ollantaytambo
Moray
Chinchero
Tipón
Pikillaqta
Monumento a Pachacuteq
Centro Qosco de Arte Nativo (Only opened at night for musical shows)
Museo de Sitio Qorikancha (permanently closed)
Museo de arte popular (permanently closed)
Museo de arte contemporáneo
Museo histórico nacional

This is what we did (Each point is a day):

Sacred Valley. Part 1. Chinchero, Salineras de Maras, Moray, Ollantaytambo. (250 soles). The entrance to the salt mines is not included in the tourist ticket and costs 10 soles.
Sacred Valley. Part 2. Pisaq, Pikillaqta, Tipón. (250 soles)
Humantay. (500 soles) Entrance fee for foreigners is 20 soles.
Cusco center
Machupicchu. ($63 round trip with Perurail, 152 soles entrance fee for ciscuit 1 and $12 to go up by bus from Aguas Calientes to the entrance of the complex).
Saqsaywaman, Q’enco, Tambomachay, Puka Pukara. (Bus “Cristo Blanco” costs between 1 and 2 soles)
Inkilltambo, Choquequirao Puquio, Kallachaka. (Bus “Inka Express” 1 sol).
Palcoyo (380 soles)
Pachacuteq monument, San Pedro central market

The first day we met a man named Américo, he lived near the Airbnb that we had initially rented and when he saw that we were leaving, he came to introduce himself and offer us his services. He explained to us how he made the visits and what it cost each day. We decided to give it a try.

If you hire a conventional tour (like I did in 2011), the Sacred Valley is visited in a single day, you see fewer complexes than the ones I visited and you have very little time to explore, so you don’t see any site in its entirety. Also, the tours make a lot of stops at markets and shops which, in my opinion, is a waste of time. I don’t buy souvenirs, but I also find it absurd to pay to be taken shopping.

Most conventional day tours only visit Pisaq, Ollantaytambo, and perhaps Chinchero.

For the two days of the Sacred Valley, we left the hotel at 6 AM, so in Chinchero and Pisaq we were alone and when we left, it was when the tours began to arrive.

Maras salt mines are brown in the rainy season, which is when I visited, and white in the dry season. I have seen much more beautiful salt pans and it seems to me that these are not worth it. You pay 10 soles to take a photo at a viewpoint because you cannot enter and walk around. Before you could, but not anymore.

We arrived in Pisaq before 6 AM and we opened the door of the complex because at that time the staff had not even arrived. We were there almost 6 hours and I recommend that you spend the whole day; you can bring your food and have a picnic. I realized that in 2011 I had not seen even a quarter of the complex.

We fell in love and for us it was the best of Cusco.

The first two days were exhausting because in addition to getting up at 5 AM and spending the whole day walking up and down the mountain, there is the altitude that makes everything more difficult. Also, the fact that we were very cold in the morning and as soon as the sun came out, we burned. Seriously, the sun is terrible and even with an umbrella and putting on sunscreen every 3 hours, we got sunburn.

The next day we went to Humantay and Américo picked us up at 3 AM. At 6 AM we started the route to the lagoon. This area is managed by a local community.

The place is full of horses and at the beginning there are many people trying to rent them to you. Please, walk and do not contribute to the exploitation of those poor animals.

I think the route to the lagoon does not reach 4KM, but it is exhausting due to the altitude. Even though it’s cold, after 5 minutes we had already taken off all our coats. We were alone until 10:30 AM. At that time, we began to go down and the tourists began to arrive. We went down another route and it looked like there was even a queue on the path to go up.

Although the place is beautiful, in Europe you have many landscapes of the style and for free.

So far, we were super happy with Américo because, although we had gotten up quite early, we had found almost all the places without people. The bad thing is that when we arrived in Cusco and I went to pay him, it turned out that the transportation to Humantay cost 500 soles instead of the 250 that we had been paying. We paid him, but we were unhappy because the working hours had been the same and because we had agreed that it was 250 soles per day.

The next day we would have gone to Palcoyo with him, but since he also wanted to charge us 500 soles, we canceled while asking for prices elsewhere.

To go to Palcoyo, Américo wanted to pick us up at 2 AM and the next day we had to get up at 4 AM to go to Machupicchu. So, we took that day to tour Cusco without having to get up early and be rested for Machupicchu.

Before continuing with the visit to Cusco, I will tell you about Américo because he was quite a character. The first day we met him, he told us that “he sold mushroom coffee and had a distribution network in Europe”. When we were in the salt mines, he invited us to try the coffee he was selling, and it turned out to be a powder that he put in your drink.

He told us that he was terminally ill with both kidneys useless and when he was in the hospital a few days before having surgery, a woman approached him and said that she had medicine “that operated on you from the inside”. He replaced all his meals with the mushroom drink and was cured. From there, he also started selling DXN products “to help people”. Everything was wonderful with DXN: he was healthy, he never went to the doctor again, he had his distribution network in Europe and every month he received a check from the company. He was also fit because mushroom coffee regulates your weight.

Américo had also fallen into the Herbalife and Omnilife trap before falling into the DXN trap. During the 3 days he was with us, we didn’t see him eat anything, just drink his mushroom shakes. The most annoying thing was that the motivational talks were always put on in the car. Also, this man had the craziest conspiracy stories imaginable.

Still, the worst thing was how he drove. Above all, to return, he was going like crazy on the highway and overtaking at full speed, so Diego arrived in Cusco with crazy nerves.

The city of Cusco is covered in a day quietly. We visited the museums that were included in the tourist ticket except for the Qosco Center for native art because it only opened at night for dance shows. We also visited Qoricancha which costs 15 soles, and I don’t recommend it because even though it was the most important temple of the Inca empire, now it is simply a convent. The Inca temple was completely destroyed by the Spanish. Basically, you pay to see a stone wall.

To visit Saqsaywaman, Q’enco, Tambomachay and Puka Pukara, I had initially thought of doing it with a taxi driver we had met in Arequipa. He would charge us 60 soles to take us to those places and wait for us. But then we found that we could go with the bus called “Cristo Blanco”.

To Saqsaywaman the bus costs 1 sol and then we walked 15 minutes to Q’enco. There we met a guy from Arequipa who was spending the month in Cusco and was exploring everything independently. He told us several interesting things about those temples and about Machupicchu.

We made a stop for lunch in the city and then took the same bus to Tambomachay. Until there it costs 2 soles because it is further away. Then we walked to Puka Pukara. In these two temples there were only a couple of locals.

On Friday my idea was to go to the Rainbow Mountain, but they had closed it. So, another option was to go to Wacra Pukara which cost us 350 soles. Since we were tired of getting up so early and spending so many hours in the car, we started to investigate because we couldn’t believe that there was nothing more to see near Cusco. We found several sites that could be visited by hiking.

We took the “Inka Express” bus that for 1 sol left us where the route began. We visited Inkilltambo, Choquequirao Puquio and probably Kallachaka. From the Google photos and what appears on the map, we are not sure if we arrived at Kallachaka or not. We loved doing this route because we were the only foreigners out there; there were only locals walking their dogs, grazing the sheep, and washing clothes in the river.

The Rainbow Mountain is a tourist attraction that was discovered about 5 years ago since, due to global warming, it was no longer covered with snow permanently. It is managed by two local communities that began to fight over the money and, according to what they told us, the clashes between them had left one person dead and another one disabled.

The situation is the same as what happens in Mexico, locals can also kill each other for tourism money.

From the beginning Américo had told us that it was better to visit Palcoyo than the Rainbow Mountain since in the former there were fewer people. In fact, if you see the videos and photos of the mountain on the internet, the amount of people is terrifying. Palcoyo is offered as the less touristic option and was discovered 2 or 3 years ago.

With the mountain closed, there was no longer anything to choose from. We contracted the transport with the agency of the cousin of the taxi driver that I had met in Arequipa. They charged 380 soles against 500 soles that Américo charged. In another agency they charged 330 soles, but they did not seem professional to me.

We left at 4 AM and it took us 4h30 to get to Palcoyo. You do a short tour of 2 or 3 hours in which you see 4 colored mountains and, finally, you go up to the stone forest. Although it is only a few kilometers, it is hard due to the altitude. On the way back we stopped to see the red river and a typical Inca bridge.

When we were leaving, the tours began to arrive in masse. They were starting to build souvenir shops, so soon Palcoyo will be the same chaos of people as the Rainbow Mountain.

On Sunday we had the flight at night, and we took the morning to go to the Pachacuteq Monument and the central market. It started to rain hard, so we went to have lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon at the hotel.

Important things you have to know if you travel to Cusco:

It is difficult to go sightseeing independently

In Cusco everything is designed for you to pay for tours. The agencies offer you some tours like Salkantay, Humantay, Machupicchu, Wacra Pukara, Ausangate, Rainbow Mountain, Sacred Valley, and there is no way they can take you anywhere else. In fact, many agencies are not able to go beyond the tour model and offer you only transportation.

There are many things to see in Cusco apart from what agencies offer you and which you can access by public transport, you just must do a little research and have enough time. Around Cusco there are many Inca ruins, and you will not find tourists.

On this website you have several options:

https://www.inkanmilkyway.com/es/blog/inkilltambo-cusco-como-llegar/

Also, in Cusco you can spend several weeks because there is a lot to do.

Priorities

For us, Pisaq was the best of everything we saw in Cusco. The complex is huge, so arrive at 6 AM and spend the whole day. Do the Sacred Valley in two days so you can tour each complex in its entirety.

As Peru is a unique place when it comes to the ruins of the Inca empire, I recommend that you give priority to that since you will not find anything like it anywhere else in the world. On the other hand, places like Ausangate and Humantay, you can easily find them in other countries.

There are no car rentals

If in Lima it is almost impossible to rent a car, in Cusco directly there are no rental agencies.

Don’t use Uber

We had several bad experiences, so I do not recommend using Uber in Cusco. Taxis are safe so just hail them on the street, negotiate the price and you’re good to go.

Altitude

We didn’t feel bad because of the altitude, but it does make it hard to do something that requires some physical effort.

Accommodation

Opt only for hotels since you will have the minimum standards guaranteed. Do not even think of using Airbnb because you will find that there is no hot water, that they are poorly insulated against the cold, and that there is no heating or that they want to charge you separately.

Carry cash

In many places they only accept cash and where they accept cards, they charge you a commission.

Public or private transportation

Avoid the tours. If you have enough time, try to use public transport just like the locals. If not, hire only private transport, it will cost you more than a tour, but it’s worth it. You can also negotiate with taxi drivers to take you.

If you are like me and you like to enjoy the sites without people, try to start the visits at 6 AM at least.

Consider that “the most touristic sites” are far from the city. For example, if with private transport the round trip to Palcoyo takes 9 hours, with public transport it will take much more.

Restrictions

Since I visited in 2011, many things have changed. Before, all the temples and archaeological complexes were open, and you could visit them freely. Now they are all more or less limited and cannot be traversed in their entirety.

Solar protection

The sun in Peru is inclement in general, so it is very important to use sun protection, a hat, and sunglasses.

Seasons

The landscapes in Cusco change drastically depending on the season. In the rainy season everything is green and in the dry season everything is brown. Also, if Cusco is already quite dusty in the rainy season, imagine how it must be in the dry season.

Vegan/vegetarian restaurants in Cusco:

Delicias saludables

This restaurant was our favorite and we always had lunch there. It has a menu for 6 soles that includes a small salad, soup, main course, drink and dessert.