Machu Picchu
Cusco Region, Peru
Machu Picchu is a fifteenth-century Inca citadel on a ridge in the Urubamba gorge, reached by rail to Machupicchu Pueblo and then by road or a two-hour climb. The citadel is sold as a timed ticket on fixed circuits and the Inca Trail needs a permit and a guide, so the ground a member can stand on for nothing is the pueblo, the two river corridors below the mountain, and the Inca streets of the valley town the trains leave from.
3 challenges · 13 stops
STARTERMorning in the pueblo under the ridge
≈ 1,100 steps0.5 mi · about 2 hoursStarter · 3 stops · 500 credStart where you live.Two easy hours in Machupicchu Pueblo before or after the citadel: the main square with Pachacútec standing in the middle of it, the artisan stalls pressed up against the railway, and the carved stone park on the road to the hot springs. All three are a short walk apart and none of them takes a ticket.
STANDARDTwo rivers out of the pueblo
≈ 6,000 steps2.9 mi · about 5 hoursStandard · 4 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.Half a day on the two corridors that leave Machupicchu Pueblo on foot. Downstream to the bridge where the free ground ends under the citadel, then back through town and out the other way along the line toward Hidroeléctrica. About three hours of walking, all of it at river level.
ADVANCEDThe Inca town that never sold a ticket
≈ 3,500 steps + 5.3 mi by car1.6 mi on foot · a full dayAdvanced · 6 stops · 800 credGetting there is not the hard part.A full day in the valley town the Machupicchu trains leave from, where the Inca grid is still lived in and only the terraces are ticketed. Pinkuylluna's storehouses on the mountain, the double doorway at the east edge, then a colectivo to Pachar and the railside walk out to the cave altar at Ñaupa Iglesia. Start early; the last train back is your clock.
Counted between stops; you'll walk more at each one.
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