How to get from Lima to Cusco. How to get to Machu Picchu on your own - detailed information and tips

One of the New Seven Wonders of the World lost city Inca Machu Picchu in Peru is really worth seeing at least once in a lifetime. This post is about how to get to Machu Picchu including different alternatives and practical advice. By the way, Machu Picchu means “old peak” in Quechua.

How to get to Machu Picchu?

Those who follow me Instagram, remember that I shared tips on how to get to Machu Picchu. In this post, I have organized all the information.
In short, there are two options.
1) Difficult but economical.
2) Expensive and simple.
We went rather the second comfortable way, but in its moderate version. If you don't plan to travel as a backpacker, but go to the other extreme and spend a couple of thousand dollars is also not in your plans, then it suits you. Therefore, first I will tell you how to get to Machu Picchu, following my path.

Do as I do or step by step instructions

1️⃣ Fly from the Peruvian capital of Lima to the city of Piece - this is the closest to Machu Picchu Big City with the airport. On the way 1.5 hours, LatAm, Peruvian fly. We flew with LatAm.

Advice. The cheapest flight to Cusco from Lima is with the Peruvian low-cost LCPerú (67 soles). Another economical option to get to Cusco from Lima is by night bus. Reviews about him are good.

2️⃣So, you are in Cusco. Now you need toBuy a Peru Rail or Inca Rail train ticket for a direct flight from Cusco to the nearest town to Machu Picchu. It is called pueblo Machu Picchu, another name for it is Aguas Calientes. We traveled from Peru Rail, I’ll tell you more about these trains below.

Advice. You can go from Cusco with a tour of the Sacred Valley ($ 25 + entrance 70 soles) and ask to leave you on main square the city of Ollantaytambo (abbreviated as Ollanta). From there you take a direct train to Aguas Calientes, the city of Machu Picchu, which is exactly what we did. In this scenario, you skip the last paragraph excursion program, the Chinchero complex, but it's not that important.

3️⃣ The next morning you get up at 5 am in the town of Machu Picchu, where you spent the night the day before, and go to the bus stop, from where buses depart every minute to the entrance to Machu Picchu. since all hotels are located within a radius of 400 m from the bus stop. You can also opt for a free walking trail.

Advice. If you were prudent and bought tickets for this bus in advance in Cusco (at the Consettur office), you can afford an extra hour of sleep.

4️⃣ You get back down on the same bus, and go to the same railway station. From there, the already familiar train departs to Ollanta. Upon arrival in Ogliatna, a forced transfer to a bus to Cusco, since the train does not go further. But everything is included in a single ticket and you will be taken literally by the hand to a stop five steps from the station.

Now that you have a general idea of how to get to Machu Picchu, let's dive into the details.

Trains to Machu Picchu

Two companies provide transportation from Cusco to the lost city of the Incas: Perú Rail and Inca Rail. Trajectories: Cusco-Urumbamba-Ollantaytambo-city of Machu Picchu (Aguas Calientes). They have one railway track, and the prices differ little, only the departure time,so the choice is irrelevant.

The most comfortable, fastest and most direct trajectory Cusco-Aguas Calientes costs $65 in Expedition class (single timetable 06:40 - 09:54) and $105 in Vistadome class (departure time 7:35, arrival 10:52). In this case, you will not see the Sacred Valley, as you are simply driving past it.

The difference in classes is small, the Vistadome has more panoramic windows and more space between the seats, but the price is almost twice as much.

Advice. You can also buy tickets upon arrival in Cusco - one office is located at the airport itself at the exit, other points are at the railway station in Cusco and on central square the city of Plaza de Armas. There were no queues at these offices when I was there.

Any ticket of "bimodal" companies, that is, combined: train + bus. All schedules are on their websites. I bought tickets in advance on the Peru Rail website, there were no problems (and even commissions) with the Chilean card, I don’t know how it will be with the Russian one💳. The company also has an office in Cusco, in the same place as the Poroy railway station.

Advice. You can also buy a ticket for the Peru Rail Urumbamba-Machu Picchu train ($93). It makes sense if you plan to stay in the Sacred Valley for the night.

Peru Rail has three classes of service:economy Expedition, premium Vistadome, and business Belmond Hiram Bingham, in honor of the discoverer of Machu Picchu. In the latter, everything is serious: leather chairs, furnishings, menus and more. Passengers of this class are even given a special pass to Machu Picchu, a sort of turnkey trip. Belmond is an independent company and only leases the Peru Flight train. Belmond also owns a luxury hotel right opposite the Machu Picchu mountain - you can make morning runs with a view of a million. So many stars stayed at the hotel that I'm too lazy to list.

We traveled with Perú Rail twice

🚆First time: from Ollantaytambo to the city of Machu Picchu by Expedition class, the latest flight at 21:00 ($66), as I was afraid not to be on time after the tour of the Sacred Valley. And in vain: we were left in Ollantaytambo at 16 pm and in the end we whiled away the time at the station. Conclusion - it was necessary to take the train at 19:04. We arrived in the town of Aguas Calientes at 23 pm, checked in and immediately went to bed. All the hotels in this tiny town are within a 5 minute radius of both the station and the bus stop which is a big plus.

🚆Second trip: from Machu Picchu to Cusco on the very first flight at 16 pm in the Visitadome class ($109). The single ticket includes the train to Ollantaytambo and the subsequent bus to Cusco. The advantage of this class is the huge panoramic windows, really worth the pleasure, you can see the jungle up close. It was comfortable, and besides, we were also entertained - there was even a performance in a costume reminiscent of a Chilean carnival in the north of La Tirana. Business is not needed at all with such a premium.

How to get to Machu Picchu from Cusco cheap (economy way) via Hydroelectrica

🚌A mini bus departs from Cusco to the Hydroelectric station, from where you will still have to walk about 12 km to Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu town). The distance can be covered in an average of 2.5-3 hours. Trip price: 60 soles, $20. The trajectory passes with a stop in Ollantaytambo, so you can combine the route somehow else if you wish. These tickets are sold at agencies in the center of Cusco on Avenida de Sol, and are the most common way of economical transportation as far as I know.

🚌Also, you can get from the Hydroelectric station to Aguas Calientes in half an hour by train if you are too lazy to walk: with Peru Rail for $31. Departure times at 14:30 and 16:05.
The return train runs at 12:00 and 13:00.

Entrance fees to Machu Picchu

Whichever way you choose to get to the lost city, you will have to buy entrance tickets to the MP, and you need to do this in advance - there are no ticket offices at the entrance to Machu Picchu. Everywhere they are afraid of the need to buy at least a month in advance (up to 2,500 people a day are allowed into the complex), but to be honest, I think this is slightly exaggerated.

There are four types of tickets:

1️⃣Common access to the complex (Machu Picchu solo) – $70. The ticket is valid for 2 days. 3267 tickets of this type are issued per day.
2️⃣With climbing the popular mountain Huayna Picchu $86. They let only 400 people a day, in two groups: at 7 and 10 in the morning.
3️⃣With climbing Montaña Machu Picchu $86. Access restrictions, as well as Huayna Picchu.
4️⃣Machu Picchu + Archaeological Museum Manuel Chavez Bayon.
It is curious that for citizens of the Andean Community Comunidad Andina (includes Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia), the price of all tickets is almost two times lower.

By time, tickets are divided into 2 groups

Ciudad Inca Machu Picchu Turno 1: from 06:00 to 12:00 hours. They give 4 hours to stay in the citadel.

Ciudad Inca Machu Picchu Turno 2: entry from 12:00 to 17:30 horas.

Where and how to buy tickets to Machu Picchu?

I bought on the site boletomachupicchu, everything is simple and fast. Therefore, all the above prices are the prices of this company. True, this is an agency, so their prices are at an extra charge. You can also buy tickets on the official website of the government machupicchu.gob.pe, but personally, the purchase did not go through on this very slow site (plus, on the site, of course, only Visa is accepted for payment, as elsewhere in Peru). There are only 3 physical offices where entrance tickets are sold - two in Cusco at Plaza de Armas, and one more in Aguas Calientes.

Bus to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes

Having seen enough passions about long queues for tickets at 5 am in AK itself, I decided to play it safe and buy them in advance in Cusco. There is such an opportunity - exclusively at the Consettur office on Av. Infancia (quite far from the center, it is better to take a taxi for a couple of salts). The ticket costs $24 round trip (78 soles).

Advice. The alternative is to climb on foot (the path is a little further than the stop along the riverbed). Unless, of course, you are not afraid of a couple of hours of intensive lifting - from one to three, depending on physical fitness.

The lines that weren't there

And what was my disappointment ... When we came to Aguas Calientes for a stop and ... did not see any queues! Two meters away from the stop there is a ticket office where they sell bus tickets (where everyone buys them) - there were only two people in line! Can you imagine? We spent much more time in Cusco looking for the Consettur office. There were no queues for the bus either. In addition, they come up every minute and several pieces at once.

What is the best time to go to Machu Picchu

One of the possible explanations is that we arrived at the bus stop by 6 am. And the very first bus leaves at 5:30. Most likely, there was a blockbuster. But it makes no sense to come to Machu Picchu before six in the morning (at least in March and if you do not climb one of the two peaks) - the sun comes out after 6. Until then, one gloomy fog creeps over the peaks. An exception is if you plan to climb one of the two peaks. And what a beautiful road that leads there! It was with great pleasure that we examined the surroundings and the faults of the serpentine.

P.S.

The moral is that Machu Picchu is not as scary as they are scared. I hope this post was helpful and clarified how to get to Machu Picchu on your own with different budgets. Comments are always welcome.

In the next post you will find a detailed photo report of a walk to Machu Picchu and a story about my impressions.

FOR ORGANIZATION OF TRIPS AND INDIVIDUAL SUPPORT WITH A GUIDE IN PERU - WRITE TO [email protected] website

How to get to Machu Picchu on your own detailed information and advice was last modified: October 17th, 2017 by Anastasia Polosina

Cusco is an amazing city located in the southern part of Peru. It is the capital of the ancient Inca empire. Myself locality very colorful, most of the inhabitants of Cusco wear national costumes. I was here last year, my journey started from Lima.

To Cusco by bus

Two buses from Lima to Cusco run daily. The first one leaves at 14:00 and the second at 17:30.

On the road you need to spend 21 hours and 30 minutes. The carrier is Cruz del Sur. Buses depart from the Alameda bus station. I marked its location on the screenshot.

The bus looks like this.

Prices

A ticket to Cusco costs $56 (185 Peruvian sols or 3,575 rubles).

Buying a travel document

You can buy a ticket on the carrier's website (link to it above) or at the box office at the bus station.

To Cusco by plane

This is the fastest way to travel on this route.

air gate Jorge Chavez Lima is the largest international airport in the country. At least thirty planes fly from here to Cusco every day. You only need to spend an hour and a half in the sky.

Many airlines fly on this route, for example:

The air gate of Cusco named after Alejandro Velasco Astete is located just five kilometers from the central part of the city. You can get to the city by taxi in ten minutes and 7 dollars (25 Peruvian soles or 450 rubles).

Prices

A ticket to Cusco costs from 36 dollars (from 119 Peruvian salts or 3,000 rubles). It turns out that flying by plane is even cheaper than traveling to Cusco by bus.

Buying a travel document

You can buy a ticket in advance on the website of the company with which you will fly to Cusco, or on aggregator websites.

conclusions

As for traveling by train on this route, there is no single railway network in this country. Several railway lines are represented by private companies. There are no trains from Lima to Cusco. I don’t advise you to travel by car along this route, it’s not about the distance - it’s not critical, just a thousand kilometers. It is not safe on the roads of this country, you can simply be robbed. Also, the condition of the roads themselves, to put it mildly, is unsatisfactory, in addition, there are many dangerous sections along the way. Flying is the fastest way to get to Cusco.

How to get to Machu Picchu: by plane, train, bus or car. current prices, helpful tips, all the nuances and details of the route to Machu Picchu from the "Subtleties of Tourism".

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If earlier the road to the lost city was long, difficult and dangerous, now it is just long and difficult. Or costly. The final choice of path depends on the requirements for comfort and tolerance for inconvenience, as well as the desire to save time or money. In any case, the way to Machu Picchu is a real adventure!

To Peru!

From Moscow to Machu Picchu approximately 13,000 km. To make this journey, you first need to arrive in the capital of Peru, Lima: there are no direct flights from Russia, you will have to fly with transfers. A one-way budget flight will cost 650-750 USD. Pay attention to the visa requirements of transfer points - it may turn out that flying through Miami or New York is noticeably cheaper and faster, but there is an additional headache in the form of obtaining a US transit visa. Perhaps the best transfer options are Madrid and Havana, with some reservations - London. Prices on the page are for September 2018.

From Lima to Cusco

Then from Lima you need to get to Cusco - ancient capital Incas. This path can be overcome by plane or by bus. The first method will significantly save time, but will be more expensive. Planes run between Cusco and Lima daily, with a schedule of up to 10 flights. On the way 1 hour 20 minutes, tickets - 290-678 PEN one way.

The bus ride is frankly long - 20-22 hours, the case when even a night trip in a comfortable chair-bed does not help. Bus transportation is carried out by Grupo Ormeno (website in Spanish) and Excluciva (website in Spanish). For the former, the antediluvian site offers booking through the feedback form, tickets cost about 330 PEN. Excluciva has the opportunity to choose a seat in the cabin and pay for the ticket on its own. Cars of different comfort levels operate on the route - Econociva, Superciva and Excluciva, when choosing a place, you can see the photos. Tickets in buses of different classes cost 53-340 PEN.

Such different paths from Cusco to Machu Picchu

From Cusco to Machu Picchu about 110 km. Need for public transport or taxi to get to railway station"Sometimes" in Cusco or to the station "Ollanta" in the Sacred Valley. From there, take the tourist train or the tourist car of the regular train to Aguas Calientes. Trains of different classes run several times a day, it takes 3-4 hours to reach Machu Picchu. Pleasure is not cheap - the most budget options will cost 350-530 PEN, a trip on the Hiram Bingham branded train costs 1579 PEN. You can view the schedule and book a seat on the website of the PeruRail carrier.

Peru has several railways. This one is private. Hence the prices disproportionate to the standard of living in the country. True, tickets for locals have been several times cheaper for some time now - 34-68 PEN, but they are not sold to travelers.

Another option is to take a bus from Cusco to the Urubamba Hydroelectric Station. For a ticket they ask for 80-100 PEN. The trip is difficult - 6 hours of continuous serpentines. If there is an unpleasant experience of motion sickness on the road, it is better to stock up on magic pills, special packages and fortitude. Or quit right away. Arriving at the place are offered two options - the rest of the way to Aguas Calientes, take the train for almost sane 80 PEN or go along railway on foot. Free, beautiful, not very long - 2-3 hours, depends on physical fitness.

On the spot. Final push

At the destination, we are looking for a bus stop and another 15-20 minutes by bus we go up to the entrance to the archaeological site of Machu Picchu, located at an altitude of 2400 m above sea level. You will have to pay another 25-35 PEN for the ascent by bus, but the ascent is steep, it is quite difficult to master it on foot. Bus tickets are advised to buy the day before the scheduled visit to Machu Picchu. By the way, it is also better to buy a ticket to the ancient city of the Incas in advance. This can be done using the official website of the attraction. For adults foreign tourists entry price - 152 PEN.

Get to Machu Picchu, if we discard the extreme options in the form of private jets and helicopters, or vice versa walking route You can only through Cusco. Those. The route is divided into 2 sections:

How to get to Cusco, which depends on the initial position
How to get from Cusco to Machu Picchu. There are only 2 options on this stretch.

How to get to Cusco

Depending on where you want to get from, direct flights to Cusco may not be available or they will be very expensive. It is often cheaper, but certainly less convenient, to travel via Lima, which is the capital of Peru.

In our case, when we traveled from Valparaiso, the best option was to fly via Lima from Santiago, the capital of Chile.

Valparaiso — Santiago

Santiago is about 120 km away. Can be reached by:

Taxi ($100 per car).
Bus ($6 per person). Buses leave from the central station, to which we took a taxi ($10) from the hotel. We just told the driver that we wanted to go to Santiago by bus and he brought us there. :-)

How we almost got robbed again

At the bus station, when I went to the kiosk, and Lesha was left with the bags: he walked away for a second to look at the scoreboard, and when he turned around he saw already a showdown - the policeman was standing with our bag and holding the thief by the hand. The bag contained documents and a wallet. In short horror!

AT South America you have to be very vigilant.

The bus takes about 2 hours.

Santiago - Santiago Airport

You need to get off at the penultimate stop (where, as a rule, everyone gets off). At the station “Pajaritos” (birds). Near this station, in a three-minute walk, there is another one, from there buses to the airport leave every 10-15 minutes. We also just asked at the box office where the buses to the airport were and they showed us. Tickets must be bought on the bus, there is no separate ticket office, they cost $ 2.5 per person. Taxi alternative = $20

Santiago Airport - Lima - Cusco

We arrived at the airport 5 hours before departure. While they checked in, while they ate, then yes, and they are already calling for landing.

Online scoreboard airport Arturo Merino Benitez (Santiago)

Fly around 4 hours. We ended up in Lima at night at 1-30, local time at 23-30 and wait until the next flight for 5 hours. Barely talked to the airport staff to let us into the waiting area, where the gates are. Because they have a rule that domestic flights they launch 1 hour before departure, and it was not clear where to hang out for 5 hours. But in this zone we found comfortable chairs where we could lie down, which Lesha and I did and slept in turn for 1.5 hours.

Online scoreboard airport Jorge Chavez (Lima)

Fly 1 hour.

Cusco - Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is the lost city itself. All tourism infrastructure in the form of hotels, cafes, etc. located in a town at its foot called Aguas Calientes. It can be reached by two rail companies Perurail and Incatrail. You can also walk.

Perurail Hiram Bingham tourist train from Poroy station to Aguas Calientes. The cost was 200 USD, now 475 USD per person one way, including food and drinks.
Other variants of the same Perurail company and from the same Poroy station, but already 85 USD each way per person
A combination of a two hour drive to Ollantaytambo station and from there by train. The cost of the train was 38USD dollars one way. Now it has risen in price to at least 55USD.

We chose the third option. And at the Cusco airport, at the tourist information desk, they booked the entire route to Machu Picchu with a transfer and entrance tickets to Machu Picchu.

It turned out like this: taxi Cusco - Ollatayambu - train to Aguas Calientas - bus to Machu Picchu - entrance ticket to Machu Pukchu and transfer back to the hotel in Cusco = $ 250 per person.

It was possible to try to organize logistics a little cheaper, but there was a risk that there would be no tickets, and time was running out.

Yes, get to Machu Picchu not so easy!!!

Cusco - Ollatayambo

They took us to the office, where they issued all the tickets, copied our passports and put us in a car to Ollatayambo. It was already around 10 am the next day, counting from Valparaiso. In the car, Vlada and I fell asleep and on the way took a little picture of Lesha.

Ollatayambo - Aguas Calientes

The taxi dropped us off near the railway station, where we had to wait another 2 hours for the train, and we were already so tired. :-(We found Cafe Mayu with Internet access at the train station, drank coffee, and some milk. :-) Instagrammed. :-) We tried the most popular drink in Peru - Inca Cola, we taste Duchess.

Train to Aguas Calientes

Boarded the train at 12:58. The train is cozy, with panoramic windows in the roof. They served snacks and hot coffee.

The views were already beginning to open up simply cosmic, mountains, raging rivers .. But it was raining incessantly. This is what we were afraid of - now the rainy season is here.

Around 15:00 we were in Aguas Calientes. The journey from Valparaiso to Aguas Calientes took us more than a day - 27 hours!

Upon arrival, Lesha ran out onto the platform and bought raincoats from enterprising Peruvians.

Aguas Calientes - Machu Picchu

From Aguas Calientas to Machu Picchu you can get:
1. By bus. 8 kilometers along the mountain serpentine. $25 round trip. The first bus leaves for Machu Picchu at 5 am. The last return bus leaves at 17:30.
2. On foot. 500 meters up a steep hill. Free. Taxi no.
  Sometimes there is no choice, as we did not have.
Entrance fees to Machu Picchu. It is better to buy entrance tickets in advance, 3 weeks in advance on the website http://www.machupicchutickets.com or the Spanish version of the website http://www.machupicchu.gob.pe/.
There are 2 mountains on Machu Picchu, where it is advised to climb and watch the view from there, so tickets are sold with one mountain already included, you can’t just buy an entrance ticket.
1. Mount Cerro Machu Picchu, which takes 1.5-2 hours to climb, is the highest and offers the most beautiful view from it.
2. Mount Wayna Picchu, smaller and more popular with tourists. Climb it for 1 hour. But there is a limit of 400 people per day. The first 200 people enter at 7 am, the second 200 people at 10 am. You must buy tickets for this mountain in advance! On a general view of the village of Machu Picchu, in the background is just this mountain.
3. You can't visit two mountains in one day - also a kind of limitation.
  We took tickets Machu Picchu + Cerro Machu Picchu 140 soles (about 50USD) per person. More precisely, these tickets were included in our package for 250USD, which included the bus for 25 dollars. But, it's like a free ticket supplement.
  Lonely Planet also advises buying tickets to Aguas Calientas so as not to stand in line at Machu Picchu itself. You can do this at any local travel company.
  Passports are required at the entrance to Machu Picchu!
Restrictions in Machu Picchu.
After checking your entrance tickets, i.e. in Machu Picchu itself, it is impossible to buy water or food.

So everyone brings everything with them. Apples, chocolate, sandwiches go well. :-)

In lonely planet it is written that even water in plastic bottles cannot be brought in, but as experience shows, it is possible! They carry everything and do not even hide it in backpacks.
Rain season
In February, because of the rain, there are no buses to Machu Picchu at all. In the rest of the "wet season", which lasts from November to March, the weather can be very unstable, the rains here are torrential and long, and climbing into the mountains in the rain can be dangerous and even impossible. Therefore, when planning your trip at this time, you should take at least 2 days in Aguas Calientes to increase the chances of seeing all this beauty! Which is what we did.

But we have planned

The idea of conquest ancient city of the Incas" Machu Picchu settled in my subconscious, it seems, even in deep childhood, when I led rescue operation Mira in the computer game "Spy Fox". One of the locations of the “red James Bond” was the jungle of Peru with Machu Picchu proudly sticking out in the background (although it seems to be located in the mountainous part of the country ...), in which it was necessary to find rubber (the last rubber fever there was like at the end 19th century ... and where does it come from at all?). But all this is not important, because then, 10 years ago, I did not even suspect that someday I would be lucky enough to go to that same Machu Picchu from the screen of a thick CRT monitor.

The best time to visit Peru and, in fact, Machu Picchu itself is July - August. At this time, winter is in Peru, during which the most comfortable temperature is kept (about +20) and the minimum amount of precipitation falls. The only problem is that this “velvet season” is known to a good half of the world and this good half of the world is simultaneously coming to Peru. Therefore, each winter season for Peruvians is like a salary once a year, because “Machik” feeds almost the entire state with money for tourists.

But, more to the point.

Before the trip, I studied dozens of forums with practical information for the trip, but none of them had a clear explanation of HOW you still need to organize a Peruvian trip.

Machu Picchu is located in the mountains, quite far from civilization (about 3 hours by train among wild natural landscapes), although a tiny village called Aguas Calientes still attached right at the foot, which helpfully receives tourists, offering several hotels, cafes and a tiny market. It is from there that regular buses go to the mountain, to the entrance to the city of the Incas.

So, to get from Moscow to Machu Picchu you will need:

Hotel in Cusco. So you are in Cusco and this is the closest one to Machu big old City Inca Island, where you should stay for at least a week, and from where you can visit many of the cool ruins and natural wonders of Peru. A separate story about where to live, where and how to travel from Cusco will be. For example, you can stay at this colorful Peruvian in an old mansion in the city center for $250 per person per week.

Tour or self-guided tickets to Machu Picchu. This is where the fun begins. Cusco is overflowing with travel agencies that don't give you access independent travelers. Agents redeem entrance tickets and seats on the train to Machu Picchu so that they can be sold at a huge markup to naive tourists at a price of $ 200-300 and more for a herd excursion day in a group of 50 people of the same rams. In some cases (for example, if you travel in the backpack-hostel-in-kind exchange style and are ready to get to Machu for about a day by minibuses and walking along the rails for a crazy $100), agencies can help you. However, having experienced all this "divorce" on myself, I can safely say - spit on all travel agents and go yourself. So we did, spending a magnificent 2 days on independent trip to the mountain of the Incas with a total budget of just over $ 200 (train + hotel + entrance to Machik).

To do this, you need to buy train tickets (it is better to do this in advance, from Moscow) from the monopolist http://www.perurail.com or from its tiny competitor http://incarail.com. PeruRail has several departure stations, but it’s better not to invent and take a train from the nearest one (Poroy, which is a 20-minute taxi ride from Cusco). Depending on the class and train, the price of tickets varies: you can go "millionaire" (for $ 400) in Hiram Bingham, where you will be pampered with delicious Peruvian dishes and entertained by musicians, or "poorly" (for $ 140) in on Vistadome/Expedition trains with skylights and modest sandwiches. In any case, the main thing in this 3-hour drive is the views from the window. Framed by the brick-colored Andes, dried-up valleys give way to green tropical vegetation and raging rivers. The sun illuminates the embossed snowy peaks of the mountains so brightly that you constantly squint from the great beauty of nature outside the window.

Arriving in Aguas Calientes, the first thing to do is to take care of buying an entrance ticket to Machu Picchu. And although in Cusco we were assured that the tickets were all sold out for several weeks in advance, since “there was a high season in the yard,” a portion of entrance tickets for the most courageous is always kept at the Ministrio de Cultura box office in the main square of Aguas Calientes. Tickets for the next day are on sale from 14:00 on the present day. The cost is $ 43, if you present a student ISIC, then a 50% discount. You need to have your passport with you. The ticket only includes entrance to Machu Picchu, but if you are a very heroic traveler, you can also climb the neighboring mountain Huayna Picchu. The rise is limited, only for 200 people per day, in two calls at 7 and 10 am. A ticket that includes Wine is not much more expensive - $ 50, but the climb itself is very difficult (takes about 2 hours on dangerous road) and the places are all booked up for several months in advance, so such an adventure should definitely be booked from home 4-5 months before the trip.

Last step up the mountain - bus tickets. From the village of Aguas Calientes to the entrance to the city of the Incas, along an asphalt-free zigzag wild road among dense vegetation, they ply tourist buses. It is not difficult to find a stop in the village - there is always a long tail of the queue. Fortunately, the traffic is quite organized and the line moves quickly. The ticket, again, is extortionately expensive. Every year the prices for tourist attractions increase exponentially and by this moment the bus to the mountain costs almost the same as the student entrance to Machu - $ 20 in both directions (the road to the mountain takes 10-15 minutes). I would advise you to save on the descent and arrange yourself a mini-hiking through the jungle. Go down the tourist route down steep stairs for about an hour (don't forget to take plenty of water with you), but all this torment is compensated by the views around.

Tickets are already on hand and now you are on the line to your dream. In order not to spoil the impression with a crowd of tourists or the sunrise at Machu missed because of this crowd, I would advise you to go up there 2-3 hours before closing (15:00-17:00). This is the perfect time. The flow of people has already subsided, the caretakers are already tired and allow visitors to lie on the lawns, and the sun gently warms the mountains with the farewell rays.