Apr 30 2025
Today was the day I decided to visit the Incan sites in the hills outside of Cusco. Originally I was planning on hiking UP to them, but the day before I left home I decided to reverse that order and take a colectivo up and hike back to Cusco.
In total I went to 9 different sites, though Sucsayhuman really counts as multiple sites all on it’s own since it’s so large and spread out. Also really hard to decide which photos to attach. I took 138 of them.
So, woke up this morning after a night of bizarre dreams. I had forgotten that high altitude causes screwy ass dreams. This one was actually weirder that some one the ones I had in Nepal, but whatever.
Kinda dilly dallied around the apartent a bit. Discovered that my apartment had a bowl of dried coca leaves stashed in the cabinet, so I made tea with them. A little too bitter for my liking, honestly.
Stimulated, I made my way down to the collection point for the colectivo to pisac, and told the driver I wanted to hop out at Tambomachay. 10 Soles for the trip, only had to wait another 2 minutes for the van to fill up and off we went.
Got my Boleto Touristico at the entrance to the site.
Its good at all the major sites around Cusco and the sacred valley. 130 Soles. Worth it, since I plan on seeing most of them this week.
The entrance is at 12,000 feet, and the trail goes up to the site. Handled the elevation better than I did on my day trip to Kumde and Kumjung, which were at comparable altitudes with a comparable load on my back.
Not much to see there, to be honest, but it was a good starting point.
From there I headed back up the road to Puka Pukara. Also a fairly small site.
From there I walked into the town of Huayllarcocha, and this is where I left the road. I don’t tend to plan trips by reading guide books, I plan by looking at satellite photos. And from space, it looks like there’s a trail behind the village that swings past a bunch of Incan sites that tourists don’t go to because they don’t have roads to them. I’m 100% in on that.
So, cut down a side street to the back of the village, and I ended up on what could best be described as a llama path.
So at this point since I’m basically following animal tracks I’m starting to wonder if maybe I had chosen poorly, but not too long after I end up standing directly on top of Cara del Inca. And I was alone there! And nothing was roped off so I could actually really explore it! Nice!
From Cara del Inca the animal trail heads down to a site called Chukimarka. Passed through a herd of sheep to get there. Not a hugely impressive site, just some walls and a shallow cave.
From there the trail becomes more of a legit trail and takes you to the Templo de la Luna.
From there I followed an old Incan road across to the site of Kusilluchayoc.
And from there I cut across some improvised path that connects to a residential neighborhood that has a road leading to the site of Q’enqo. Q’enqo has some above ground stuff going on, but what sets it apart from other sites is it has carved passages through the native rock outcropping.
From there I walked down the road to white Jesus. Literally, the statue is called Cristo Blanco.
And from there I reached Sacsayhuman. Which I learned, in the most hilarious to me way possible, is pronounced SexyWoman. I got to see some Karen Tourist go full on indignant “What did you just call me?!??” at her guide.
Sacsayhuman also offers great birds eye views of Cusco.
From there is just a quick walk back down to Cusco.
All that only took 4 hours of hiking, and although Sacsayhuman had some up that was a little tiring in the moment, it wasn’t a particularly difficult hike.
