Peru - Part 2: Cuzco & The Sacred (Inca) Valley

18 May 2025

In  a continent with more than its fair share of both natural and historical wonders, what we witnessed in and around the ancient capital of the Incas was perhaps the most amazing experience of all. I had been waiting to tick this particular box ever since I was a child, when I first learnt  of the Incas in a beautifully illustrated history book at my local library.

Cuzco (also known as Cusco, or Qosq’o in Quechua) is the undisputed archaeological capital of the Americas and the continent’s oldest continuously inhabited city. It is also the gateway to Machu Picchu. It was Hiram Bingham, an enterprising Yale academic who "rediscovered" Machu Picchu in 1911. In Cuzco, 70 miles away, the ripple effect signaled the end of four centuries of inertia: over the next century, the former Inca capital has emerged as the hub for the greatest tourist honeypot in South America.

Our heads reeled as we stepped out from our PeruHop bus on to its streets and not only because of the altitude. We found ourselves in a city which seems to thrive with a measure of contradictions. Ornate cathedrals squat over Inca temples, massage hawkers ply the narrow cobblestone passages, a rural Andean woman fed bottled water to her pet llama while the finest boutiques sell pricey alpaca knits.

While Cuzco is best known as the gateway to Machu Picchu, it is a magnificent destination in itself. Centre of the Inca Empire (stretching from Colombia to Chile) for centuries, it offers history and culture that could take weeks to discover. Original Inca thoroughfares and temples, gleaming colonial cathedrals and fantastic restaurants with out-of-the-ordinary Andean ingredients all await, while cobbled streets soar to serendipitous plazas and reveal terracotta rooftops, cupolas and mist-slung mountains.

As for big sights, the cathedral on the Plaza de Armas is a treasure trove of escuela cuzqueña (Cuzco School) colonial art. Or behold the indigenous and colonial architecture combining at fabulous Qorikancha, where a conquistador-constructed church rises over the one-time wealthiest temple of the Inca Empire. After Pizarro arrived in 1533 on his mission to establish "New Castile", the Spanish used the precisely cut Inca stones as the foundations for opulent churches, monasteries and convents.

Meanwhile, festivals enliven Cuzco daily and museums illuminate topics from sacred plants to chocolate and, of course, the Inca civilisation. But for the most compelling foray into the realm of the Inca, you have to travel above Cuzco to its quartet of ruins from the Empire’s heyday: Q’enqo, Pukapukara, Tambomachay and Sacsayhuamán, in its way, as impressive as Machu Picchu. Massive stones, some over 30ft tall, were used to build walled terraces, ritual spaces and fortifications. Here the annual Inca Festival of the Sun is held.

For the Incas, Cuzco was the belly button of the world. A visit to this city and its nearby ruins tumbles you back into the cosmic realm of ancient Andean culture – knocked down and fused with the colonial imprint of Spanish conquest, only to be repackaged as a thriving tourist centre. Beyond the city lies the Sacred Valley, Andean countryside dotted with villages, high-altitude hamlets and ruins linked by trail and railway tracks to the continent's biggest draw – Machu Picchu. But there is so much else to see first.

The verdant valley of the Urubamba River is sacred to indigenous people because of its many Inca-era ­monumental sites. For example, Moray, an agricultural complex, featuring innovative circular terraces, Maras, a salt mine, and Pisac, which boasts a large site spread over a mountainside. The most impressive however is surely Ollantaytambo.

Both a fortress and a  temple, the huge, steep terraces that guard Ollantaytambo’s spectacular Inca ruins mark one of the few places where the Spanish conquistadors lost a major battle. The rebellious Manco Inca had retreated to this fortress after his defeat at Sacsaywamán. In 1536 Hernando Pizarro, Francisco’s younger half-brother, led a force of 70 cavalrymen to Ollantaytambo, supported by large numbers of indigenous and Spanish foot soldiers, in an attempt to capture Manco Inca.

The conquistadors, showered with arrows, spears and boulders from atop the steep terracing, were unable to climb to the fortress. In a brilliant move, Manco Inca flooded the plain below the fortress through previously prepared channels. With the Spaniards’ horses bogged down in the water, Pizarro ordered a hasty retreat, chased down by thousands of Manco Inca’s victorious soldiers. It would however prove to be a short-lived victory.

Though Ollantaytambo was a highly effective fortress, it also served as a temple. A finely worked ceremonial centre is at the top of the terracing. Some extremely well-built walls were under construction at the time of the conquest and have never been completed. The stone was quarried from the mountainside 6km away, high above the opposite bank of the Río Urubamba. Transporting the huge stone blocks to the site was a stupendous feat. The Incas’ crafty technique to move massive blocks across the river meant carting the blocks to the riverside then diverting the entire river channel around them.

There is so much to marvel at in and around Cuzco - not only the architectural genius of the Incas - but also their technical ingenuity and ability to harness the power of nature and their natural surroundings to their greatest advantage; all this while respecting the sacred Gods they believed inhabited the surrounding mountains, rivers and forests and protected them.

When the Spanish arrived, the golden age of the Incas abruptly ended. We can be thankful for what has been left behind.