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Inkaterra's Sacred Valley Lodge Puts You Closer to the Incas Than Cusco Ever Could
In Peru's Sacred Valley, a 36-room hacienda-style lodge built around an organic farm and Andean design offers a lower-altitude, unhurried alternative to basing a Machu Picchu trip in Cusco.
By BigTravel.in Editorial Team · · 2 min read
Cusco sits at over 3,400 metres, high enough that many visitors spend a first day or two adjusting before they can enjoy it, which is one reason a growing number of Machu Picchu itineraries now start lower down, in the Sacred Valley. At roughly 2,800 metres, the valley floor around Urubamba is noticeably easier on newly arrived lungs, and it is here, on a hillside above the Urubamba River, that Inkaterra has built a 36-room hacienda-style lodge around an organic farm and a spread of Andean and Spanish colonial detailing.
An estate built around a working farm
Inkaterra Hacienda Urubamba sits on roughly 100 acres of grounds bordered by mountains on most sides, with 36 suites and rooms furnished with terracotta floors, beamed ceilings and hand-carved antiques drawn from the region's colonial and pre-Columbian past. The property runs its own organic plantation, and guests can walk through the orchards and vegetable beds that supply the kitchen before sitting down to a meal built from what was picked that morning.
A spa named for the river
The estate's Mayu Spa, whose name means river in Quechua, sits between the orchard and a peppertree forest and uses treatments built around native Andean herbs rather than an imported wellness template. It is a quieter counterpart to the more active side of a stay here, which tends to include hiking and birdwatching in the surrounding peaks, horseback rides through the valley and visits to nearby Inca agricultural terraces.
Why base here instead of Cusco
Basing a Machu Picchu trip in the Sacred Valley rather than Cusco is now a fairly standard piece of altitude advice, since it lets travellers acclimatise gradually before the city's thinner air, and it also shortens the train journey to Aguas Calientes, the town below the ruins. Urubamba is a little over an hour from Cusco by road, and the valley's other Inca sites, at Ollantaytambo, Pisac and Moray, are all within easy reach for day trips either side of a Machu Picchu visit.
Traveller tips
- The Sacred Valley sits roughly 600 metres lower than Cusco, making it a sensible first stop for altitude acclimatisation before Machu Picchu.
- Trains to Aguas Calientes for Machu Picchu run from Ollantaytambo, a short drive from Urubamba.
- The dry season, April to October, has the most reliable weather for hiking and valley excursions.
- Nearby Inca sites at Ollantaytambo, Pisac and Moray are easily combined with a Sacred Valley stay.
Where this is
Urubamba, Peru
