Best Sacred Valley Tour with Moray & Salt Mines 1 Day

DAY 1: CUSCO – WEAVING CENTER – TARAY – PISAC – URUBAMBA – MARAS – MORAY – OLLANTAYTAMBO – CUSCO

One smooth loop through the valley: Pisac while the morning is still fresh, Maras and Moray once the afternoon light softens, and Ollantaytambo as the sun goes down. Very few full-day tours are planned in this order.

• Duration: Around 11 hours.
• Altitude: Cusco 3,400m/11,155ft – highest point at Taray 3,754m/12,316ft – Ollantaytambo 2,792m/9,160ft.
• Distance: 150 km by road, 3–4 km on foot in total.
• Difficulty: Easy.
• Meals: Not included. Have breakfast before pickup; optional buffet lunch in Urubamba.
• Accommodation: Not included. Back in Cusco the same evening, or stay overnight in Ollantaytambo.

We collect you from your Cusco hotel at 7:30 am. Make sure you eat a good breakfast beforehand, as our first meal stop is in Urubamba at around 1 pm. Leaving the city, the road heads northeast and descends some 600 meters into the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

Weaving Center & Camelid Farm

About 45 minutes from Cusco we pull into a weaving center run by a local family. Here you can get close to llamas, alpacas and vicuñas: feed them, take photos and learn how to tell them apart. The weavers then show you how raw wool is spun and colored entirely by hand using natural sources such as cochineal insects, indigo and native roots, with no synthetic dyes at all. A small shop at the end offers certified alpaca and vicuña textiles. Time here: around 30 minutes.

Taray Viewpoint

A short 10-minute drive brings us to the Taray lookout, the highest point of the day. The whole valley opens up below you: the Urubamba River winding through farmland and the Pisac ruins perched on the ridge in front. Your guide explains how the valley is laid out and why the Incas valued it so much. We pause here for about 10 minutes of photos.

Pisac Archaeological Park

We continue to the upper entrance of Pisac, often called the gateway to the Sacred Valley. Far more than a set of terraces, Pisac was a complete hillside city. With your guide you will explore the Intihuatana sun temple, the ritual baths and the colcas, storehouses placed high on the slopes where the cold air kept corn and potatoes from spoiling. On the cliff face above lie more than 2,000 tombs, the largest Inca burial ground in Peru. This is where you will find the finest panoramas of the day. We spend about an hour here, walking mostly downhill along stone trails.

Lunch in Urubamba

The road follows the river through the villages of Coya and Lamay to Urubamba, the main town of the valley. We stop at a spacious buffet restaurant with seating both indoors and in the garden. The spread includes soups, salads, hot dishes, desserts, coffee and coca tea, with vegan, vegetarian and meat choices. Lunch is not part of the tour price, so you only pay for what you want (45–60 soles). Allow about 1 hour.

Maras Salt Mines

After lunch we drive up to the colonial village of Maras and then walk down for about 15 minutes to the Salineras. Over 3,000 white salt pools cascade down the hillside, all fed by a single salty spring. Families have passed down ownership of their pools for generations and still work them by hand: they flood each pool, let the sun dry it out and rake up the salt crystals. It is one of the last pre-Inca salt mines still in production anywhere in the world. Your guide explains how the local cooperative works. Time here: about 45 minutes.

Moray Agricultural Terraces

A 10-minute drive takes us to Moray, where three enormous circular terraces sink into the ground like a giant amphitheater. Temperatures change from ring to ring, with a difference of up to 15°C between the top and the bottom. The Incas used the site as a farming laboratory, testing crops in soils brought from the coast, the jungle and the highlands. Its origins go back before the Incas, who later perfected it. We walk down to the lowest circle and climb back up, spending around 45 minutes here.

Ollantaytambo

The final stop lies 30 minutes further down the valley. Ollantaytambo is the best-preserved Inca town that is still inhabited today. We climb its steep terraces to the Temple of the Sun, built from huge pink granite blocks hauled from a quarry 6 km away. In 1537 Manco Inca defeated the Spanish here, the last great Inca victory against the conquistadors. Your guide shows you the unfinished blocks, the stone fountains and the storehouses on the opposite hillside, all bathed in warm sunset light. We spend about 1 hour 15 minutes here.

We depart Ollantaytambo at around 5:30 pm. If your journey to Machu Picchu continues from here, for example on our Short Inca Trail, we drop you at your Ollantaytambo hotel at no extra cost. Otherwise, we drive back to Cusco via Chinchero (about 1 hour 45 minutes), arriving at your hotel between 6:30 and 7:00 pm.