Inca Trail & Machu Picchu

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Inca Trail & Machu Picchu

The great chain of the Andes runs through Peru, more or less parallel to the Pacific coast, and divides Peru into three broad sections The largest cities, including the capital of Lima, are concentrated on a narrow coastal plain Inland, the Andes rise to well over 6000 metres in a number of ranges, or cordillera. read more

East of the Andes, the lowland forest and jungle of the Amazon Basin stretches for over a thousand miles into Brazil.

One of the most well known parts of the Peruvian Andes from a mountaineering and trekking standpoint is the Cordillera Blanca in the north of the country, with Huascaran (6768m) the high point of this range. Amongst its high Andean valleys, Peru has a selection of the world's finest trekking itineraries and one of these is the Huayhuash Circuit, in a region just south of the Cordillera Blanca. South again and accessed through the former capital city of Cusco, is a region world-famous on account of the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu and its Inca Trail tours. Built around 1460 and believed to have been lost for centuries, Machu Picchu is arguably South America's outstanding man-made highlight. Certainly, most visitors to Peru will include it in their travel plans. With its Inca and Spanish colonial history and spectacular variety of environment, Peru is popular with mountain biking and family groups, too.

Our trekking holidays through this beautiful country provide you with the chance to see some of South America’s most dramatic landscapes. The pinnacles of rock that make up the Andes are spectacular on their own but, when you add the Incan ruins that can be visited on our Inca Trail tours, you have an incredible combination of natural beauty and amazing, historic culture. This combination works equally well for family adventures and for cycling holidays. Mountain biking from Lake Titicaca across the altiplano to reach the Sacred Valley of the Incas and Machu Picchu itself, will show you a very different side of the country. You’ll also get the satisfaction of covering a much greater distance and can blast through some unique landscapes.

Although there is no climbing involved in any of our adventure travel holidays in Peru, many of these trips will take you high into the Andes. The newly discovered Inca site of Choquequirao, the circuit of Ausangate and the peaceful valley of Lares provide the basis for superb trekking itineraries that provide a valid alternative to the original Inca Trail. And, you don’t have to rough it; our full service camping is first rate and we even offer a version of the Salkantay Trail that uses luxury lodge accommodation. Whilst these mountain holidays don’t involve scrambling across sheer rock faces, they will provide you with the sense of satisfaction that comes after a day’s walking in the hills. A feature of each of them is exposure to a cross-section of the best landscapes in Peru, with unrivalled mountain views.

As well as the landscape and the awe-inspiring Incan ruins, it is the friendliness of the local people that most people will look back on with fondness on their return from one of our Inca Trail tours. From a historical perspective, walking amongst the remains of walls, paved ‘roads’ and buildings on the approach to Machu Picchu, gives a striking reminder of how civilisations can rise and fall. Machu Picchu itself is special because of its level of preservation; it allows visitors to get a clear appreciation of what it must have been like when the Incas ruled this corner of the world. Reconstruction has been ongoing at Machu Picchu for decades and the same process is now under way at Choquequirao. At both sites, numerous buildings have been restored and more work remains to be done.

With so much Incan history on offer, our Inca Trail tours are an excellent choice for those who want a trek which offers more than just challenging terrain and stunning views.

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