Choquequirao

Choquequirao sits on a ridge at around three thousand metres with the Apurímac river roughly fifteen hundred metres below it, and the only way in is on foot. The site is large, with plazas, terraces, water channels, storehouses and a truncated ceremonial hilltop, and one group of terrace walls is inlaid with white stone figures of llamas in procession, a decoration found nowhere else. Perhaps a third of it has been cleared; the rest is under cloud forest. Because access is hard, visitor numbers are a tiny fraction of Machu Picchu's, and it is entirely normal to have a plaza to yourself. A cable car has been discussed for years and remains unbuilt.

History

Choquequirao is a 15th- and 16th-century Inca settlement that grew in two stages, perhaps founded by Pachacuti and enlarged by his son Tupac Inca Yupanqui, and features of Chachapoya design suggest Chachapoya builders worked on it. The oldest known written mention is in the Memorial of the Spanish explorer Juan Arias Díaz of 1710, published by the historian Lorenzo Huertas in 1973; the cartographer Cosme Bueno described the site in 1768 (Wikipedia, Choquequirao).

What you'll find

• The llama terraces - terrace walls inlaid with white stone llamas in procession.
• The main plazas - the cleared ceremonial core on the ridge.
• The truncated hilltop - the flattened ceremonial summit above the plazas.
• The canyon - the Apurímac running far below on both sides of the ridge.

When to go

May to September only, in practice. In the rains the trail is dangerous and landslides close it. Start walking from Cachora at first light, because the climb out of the canyon in the middle of the day is brutal heat. Book mules and a guide in Cachora the day before rather than assuming they will be waiting.

Good to know

This is a hard trek, not a walk. From Cachora you descend about fifteen hundred metres to the river and climb the same again, then repeat it in reverse. Four days is the minimum and most people take five. It is hot at the bottom and cold on the ridge, water is scarce on the climb, and mules carry bags but not people. Do not attempt it unacclimatised or unfit.

Nearby

Cachora village is the trailhead; the road back leads to Abancay and on to Cusco.

Key facts