The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

Students walk the stone road the Incas built to reach Machu Picchu, after three days in Cusco and the Sacred Valley learning how an empire without the wheel or writing fed millions, moved armies and built walls that outlasted the Spanish ones.

What students will learn

• Read Inca architecture: stonework, terraces and earthquake-resistant design
• Understand how Spanish Cusco was built on top of Inca Cusco, and what survived
• Compare Andean farming systems with modern agriculture at Moray and Maras
• Prepare for altitude and four days of trekking as a team

Day by day

1. Day 1, Cusco: Arrive and acclimatise. Arrive in Cusco, at 3,400 m. A slow afternoon, an altitude briefing and a short walk around the Plaza de Armas.
2. Day 2, Cusco: Two cities in one. The Qorikancha, the Inca temple of the sun under the Santo Domingo convent, then the cathedral and the walls of Sacsayhuamán. How the Spanish city was built on Inca foundations, and why the foundations are what survived the earthquakes.
3. Day 3–4, Sacred Valley: Terraces, textiles and salt. The Pisac terraces and market. Natural dyes and backstrap weaving with a cooperative in Chinchero. The circular terraces of Moray, often described as an Inca agricultural laboratory, and the Maras salt pans, still worked by local families. Night in Ollantaytambo.
4. Day 5–8, Inca Trail: Four days on the Inca road. The classic trail from Km 82: Wayllabamba, Dead Woman’s Pass at 4,215 m, the sites of Runkurakay, Sayacmarca and Wiñay Wayna, and the Sun Gate at dawn on the fourth day. A guided visit of Machu Picchu, then the train back towards Cusco.
5. Day 9, Cusco: Departure. Fly out of Cusco.