Guide to Peru's Sacred Valley - Sending Postcards Home!

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Once the heart of the Inca Empire, Sacred Valley is a stunning stretch of agricultural farmland and Spanish colonial villages surrounded by Urubamba mountains. It stretches roughly 60 kilometers and is dotted with some of the most impressive Incan ruins. Along with Machu Picchu, Peru’s Sacred Valley was one of the highlights of our Peru trip. In this guide to Peru’s Sacred Valley, we will talk about places you can explore and how to reach these destinations.

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Guide to Peru’s Sacred Valley

Before you begin planning, it’s important to understand how Sacred Valley stretches on a map and where the key places of interest lie. The below screengrab from google maps shows the lay of the land. If you observe carefully, it won’t be difficult to understand that it’s impossible to cover Sacred Valley in one day. You need a minimum of 3 days to explore the breadths and depths of this stunning area. However, it is possible to explore parts of it on a one-day road trip.

Transportation to Scared Valley

There are a number of options for you to explore the sacred valley, which we have listed in detail.

Day Tour

You will find many tour agencies in Cusco that provide full-day and half-day tours to Sacred Valley. Tours are divided based on where these locations lie on the map. You can choose to take a full-day tour to Picas and Ollantaytambo or a half-day tour to Maras salt mines and Moray. This is the easiest option, as you will be collected and dropped back at your hotel in Cusco. However, you will have limited time to explore these places.

Taxi & Local Transportation

Since we prefer to travel on our own, we decided to take a one-way Taxi from Cusco to Ollantaytambolan while making a number of stops on the way, including Maras. We walked to Calle Pavitos, which is a 15 minutes walk from Cusco city center to hire one. You will find a number of Colectivos and Taxis waiting to bargain a price with you and we ended up paying 150 soles for this one-way trip. On the way back, we took a Colectivo from Ollantaytambo to Urubamba and then changed to another for Cusco. It was an easy and interesting experience to travel in Colectivo and reminded us a lot of how we used to travel as kids in India.

Just to note that our Taxi driver wasn’t willing to combine Pisac and Maras in one trip as they are in different directions. However, he made a number of stops on the way, which allowed us to enjoy the beauty of Sacred Valley.

Things to See and Do in Peru’s Sacred Valley

As you can see in the map above, there are many places in Sacred Valley that would be of interest to you and worth visiting. We are covering them in detail below.

Salineras de Maras

Populisarised by Instagram, Salineras de Maras is worth the hype. It’s a stunning location dotted with thousands of small salt pools perched on side of a hill. You can learn about how salt was harvested during the Incan empire, a process that is continuing even today. Since Maras Salt Mines is receiving a lot of tourists recently, the entry is restricted now. You will need to walk through designated paths only and can’t entire the salt pools.

Moray

Moray is about 50 km from Cusco and very close to Salineras De Maras. This Incan ruin looks like a Roman amphitheater. They are circular terraces and are popularly believed to be the agricultural observatory for the Inca people. We decided to skip this, as we had limited time in hand.

Ollantaytambo

Popular as a gateway to Machu Picchu, this tiny village has a charm of its own. Cobbled stone streets backed by Incan ruins make this place definitely worth visiting. A lot of tourists are in Ollantaytambo to either catch a train to Machu Picchu or on their way back to Cusco from Machu Picchu. However, we strongly recommend spending at least one afternoon getting lost in narrow alleyways, exploring handicraft markets, or hiking through the ruins. You can buy the tickets to the ruins as a package (along with other sites in Sacred Valley) or as a single entry.

Pisac

Pisac is a village in the southern Sacred Valley and is on the opposite side of Maras and Moray. The ruins in Pisac are one of the stunning archaeological gems of the Incans, but in addition, Pisca is also famous for its Sunday Market. Pisac Markets are open all days of the week, but Sundays are special. On Sundays, the entire town turns into a small shopping area.

Saqsaywaman

Pronounced as sexy-woman, this place is a large stone complex that was one of the most important religious complexes in Peru and was used by both Incans and Spaniards. You can cover this as a part of your Cusco exploration. You can either walk, take a Colectivo or a Taxi to Saqsaywaman. Walking can be difficult as it involves climbing multiple stairs and high altitudes.

Also read 10 Amazing Things To Do In and Around Cusco

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu needs no introduction and is definitely a highlight of your Sacred Valley and Peru trip. To cover Machu Picchu properly, you will need at least 1 or 2 days. You can read our complete guide to hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu for more details.

If you are not interested in hiking, the next best option is to take a train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes. This should be ideally the day before and a planned night halt at Aguas Calientes if you plan to visit Machu Picchu at sunrise.

Read our guide on Short Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu

Unique Gampling experience

If you are really adventurous, you can plan a night at Skylodge Adventure Suites. It’s an innovative lodge that offers hanging accommodation overlooking the Sacred Valley. It is such a cool experience to hike up tour lounge and sleep under the stars!. This was completely booked out during our trip, so we couldn’t experience it but would highly recommend giving it a go.

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Guide to Peru’s Sacred Valley