Hi there,
Being in Lima we began to investigate how to go to Machupicchu. When I was in Peru in 2011, I organized the entire trip with an agency, so I didn’t know how complicated it was and the bureaucracy behind the most touristic place in Peru.
The first news for me is that now Machupicchu is organized in circuits and each one costs around $40. This organizational change was made before the pandemic supposedly to “decongest” visits.
After the pandemic they placed a new measure, so it was mandatory to enter with a guide, which was an additional expense since it was not included in the ticket.
By the time we visited in March 2022, it was no longer mandatory to enter with a guide, but even so, the agencies lied so you would pay for the tour.
I also realized that the agencies had no idea how Machupicchu was working because each one gave you different information that did not match what you saw on the official website where you bought the tickets. We decided to call the Ministry of Culture directly.
They explained that it was not possible to buy a ticket with all the circuits, but you had to buy each ticket separately. If you wanted to do all 4 circuits, you had to buy 4 tickets. The most absurd of all is that when you finish a circuit, you had to leave the complex and queue again to enter the next circuit. Therefore, you had to imagine how long it would take you to do each circuit to tentatively choose the time of the next one.
Because for each circuit you had to choose a time, and in Machupicchu, if you don’t arrive at the time that you get on the ticket, you lose it.
The agencies did not explain about the circuits and from the schedules of the tours that they sent me, I understood that they only did one circuit since they were only between 2 and 3 hours inside the complex.
When I visited in 2011, you bought a single ticket and walked through the entire complex freely. Also, you could stay all day if you wanted. Now, you can only spend a maximum of 4h on each circuit.
Initially the idea was to do the Waynapicchu circuit and then circuit 1, which is where you take the typical photo.
We proceeded to buy the first tickets for Waynapicchu and after paying, the system gave an error, and we were left without the money and without the tickets. We called the Ministry of Culture again and they told us that “surely the money would be returned in 30 days and that we should continue trying to pay with other cards to see if there was no error”.
$67.5 per person to climb a mountain is too much money.
We were totally disappointed with the poor functioning of the Ministry of Culture, and we didn’t risk losing more money. We decided to wait until we arrived in Cusco to go directly to an office to buy the tickets.
In Cusco, the first thing we did was go to the Tourism Police to file a fraud complaint since we had been writing to the customer service for several weeks and it seemed that they were going to steal our money.
To go to Aguas Calientes there are several options:
- Hire the bus + train service with the same company (Peru Rail or Inca Rail). This is the conventional thing that almost everyone does.
- Hire only the train and go to Ollantaytambo by van or taxi.
- Go by public or private transportation to the hydroelectric plant and from there walk to Aguas Calientes (2 or 3h).
From Aguas Calientes to Machupicchu you can walk up (2 or 3h), or you can go up by bus that costs $12 each way and takes 30-45min.
Américo, who provided us with private transportation during the first days in Cusco, told us that he would take us to the hydroelectric plant for 700 soles, but later at the office where tickets are bought, we were told that if we were going by hydroelectric plant, we had to spend the night in Aguas Calientes because it was a very hard hike.
It is about 4h from Cusco to the hydroelectric plant by car, then 3h to get to Aguas Calientes and then it would be 2 or 3 more hours from Aguas Calientes to Machupicchu. Also, add the same hours to return to Cusco and the 4h minimum for touring Machupicchu. So, it is impossible to do it in one day.
I did not want to spend the night in Aguas Calientes because it is an ugly town with nothing to do.
After having collected all this information, we decided to go for one day and only do circuit 1.
One of the initial ideas was not to go to Machupicchu since we imagined that we were going to find everything full of people and we were going to have a bad experience.
We thought of changing Machupicchu for Choquequirao, which is the less touristy option. We ruled it out because you must do 4 days of hiking to go and come back.
Our organization to go to Machupicchu was like this:
- $63 round trip with Peru Rail, 152 soles ($41) for the entrance to circuit 1, and $12 to take the bus from Aguas Calientes to the entrance of the complex. We would walk down from Machupicchu to Aguas Calientes.
Even though your ticket says the time of the bus, you can catch the ones that leave earlier if there are seats available. For the outward journey, they give you many directions and a Peru Rail agent guides the entire group from where the bus leaves you in Ollantaytambo to the train station. On the train almost no one follows the security measures and almost everyone doesn’t wear masks. In addition, they play the music at full volume, so we arrived in Aguas Calientes with a headache.
The reason why they recommend that you go by train is for “the views”. In my opinion, there is nothing special about them, especially if you have already traveled through the Sacred Valley, which does have beautiful landscapes.
You arrive in Aguas Calientes and go to buy the tickets for the bus. There is a queue to buy tickets and a queue to get on the bus. With all the money they get from tourists, they have not even been able to build a bus station with enough space for the huge number of people who go up to the complex every day. So, there we were all in the middle of the rain standing in line in the middle of the street.
At the entrance of Machupicchu you find a queue to enter the bathroom, a queue to enter the complex and a queue of people waiting for the bus to get back to Aguas Calientes. The entrance to the bathroom costs 2 soles. It should be free after you pay around $40 for each circuit. It is forbidden to use umbrellas inside Machupicchu, and it rained all day.
You must always do the route forward; you cannot go back. If you stop for a few minutes to take the photo, the guides will start yelling at you so that you keep walking. Also, although they are very good at yelling at others, with their groups they do whatever they want and get into the areas that are prohibited.
When I visited, no one was doing the rest of the circuits and circuit 1 was completely crowded.
In short, walking through Machupicchu in a row in the middle of the rain without being able to cover yourself with an umbrella, seeing how the guides yelled at the tourists and with each space collapsed with people. I felt cheated.
At the exit, the queue to get back with the bus was already two kilometers long, so walking down was the right decision.
It took us 2 hours to get to Aguas Calientes, so it would be a 10h30 trip to spend at most 4 hours inside Machupicchu. We were there 2h45 and as you can see, it was not worth it.
What I recommend from my learning:
Do not go to Machupicchu. If you have time, opt for Choquequirao; it is cheaper, and you will be practically alone in the middle of nature. In a few years they will also destroy it because now the agencies are beginning to offer the tours to Choquequirao.
Machupicchu is a wonderful place, but they turned it into a shameless robbery. In addition, you do not know where such an excessive amount of money is going since the streets are the same or worse than 11 years ago, there are no sidewalks, there is no infrastructure, Aguas Calientes is the same as in 2011, etc.
The management of Machupicchu is a mafia. You cannot hire a private transport that takes you to Machupicchu or, even to Aguas Calientes; or you arrive walking or paying the only transport there is.
Inca Rail and Peru Rail are Chilean companies. Many protests have taken place so that they are closed, and a Peruvian company is created to manage transportation to Machupicchu.
It’s all so absurd. In Cusco they are now building a new airport for international flights to arrive without going through Lima, but they are not capable of building a train or any type of transport that goes directly from Cusco to Machupicchu.
I know that one is always biased by what is supposed to be the most important thing to see in each place and it seems that if you do not visit Machupicchu it is as if you had not been in Peru. But in Cusco there are wonderful places that you can visit without so many people, without paying so much money and having a more authentic and pleasant experience.
If you still want to visit Machupicchu, keep in mind:
- Avoid high season. If it is already a chaos of people and disorganization in low season, imagine how it is in high season.
- Try to do it on your own without agencies and without a guide. If you hire a guide, you will spend less time in the complex because they will do the tour in less than two hours.
- Please note that if you do all the circuits, you will have to exit the complex and queue again for each one.
- Even if you are going to do it with an agency, call the Ministry of Culture to verify that the information they are giving you is true.
- If you are going to hire a tour, ask many agencies to get the best price. They all offer the same and follow the same scheme; not for paying more, you will have something different. When I asked, they gave me prices like $480, $240, and in Cusco they gave me a price of $160.
- If you want a guide, hire one directly in Aguas Calientes or at the entrance of Machupicchu, it will cost you cheaper.
The links to my YouTube channel:
Link to the Real Machupicchu gallery: