Cusco’s Most Underrated Day Trip? | The Ultimate Sacred Valley Tour
In our last video, we were in Cusco,
walking the cobblestone streets to explore this ancient capital of the
Incas. Now we’re ready to head outside the city and venture into the Sacred
Valley, a place where ancient history, vibrant culture, and stunning
landscapes all come together. And to get us there, we booked a
one-day tour with AB Expeditions that will not only take us to some of
the most iconic sites in the valley, but also give us some authentic experiences
that we’re still talking about to this day. So hop on the bus with us as we take you to the
Sacred Valley. We’re Erin and Will. Since 2020, we’ve been finding ways to travel more
while balancing our full-time jobs, and we’re on a mission to see
as much of the world as we can, starting with challenging ourselves
to visit 10 new countries in 2025. We want to bring you along with us as we stretch
our PTO and budget to experience new cultures, go on wild adventures, and check
off our ever-growing bucket list. So join us as we turn part-time
travel into full-time adventure. We began our day in Cusco before being picked
up from our hotel and making the 1-hour drive to our first stop of Chinchero. Before we get
there, something you should know is that you will need to bring some soles with you to get into
each location. If you don’t already have one, the Cusco tourist pass will get you into
three of the locations on this tour, as well as 13 others around Cusco and
the Sacred Valley. It costs 130 soles per person and can be purchased at any of the
sites. The ticket is valid for the salt mines of Moras, which are a separate fee of 20
soles per person, and both are cash only. Now that that’s over, let’s dive in. Wow, this place is beautiful. Welcome
to the town of Chinchero. So this town is known for its natural dyes that they use
to dye the fabrics because it’s the textile community. It also has 12 indigenous
Indian communities that live here. What was once an Inca royal retreat was
destroyed by the Incas to keep it from falling into Spanish hands. Chinchero is
now a proud community where centuries-old weaving traditions are still practiced
and passed down through the generations. And if that’s not interesting enough, this
place is also believed to be the birthplace of the rainbow. You can definitely see this
influence when we were visiting the weaving communities for a demonstration. Here, we
got a firsthand look at how they prep the fibers for coloring by washing it with natural
root, then hanging it to dry before spinning it. She also let us know about the other activities
she gets into while spinning the thread—making, dancing, cooking, working, carrying the baby,
kiss that my husband, all while spinning. Once the fibers have been spun, they then move on
to the coloring process. This is done by boiling clean threads with natural dyes made from local
plants and minerals. For different yellow color, kiku kiku flower, the q’olle flower and the
retama flower. For different green color, the ch’illca leaves or jilca leaves. The same is
the brother with the coca leaves. It’s the vibrant color. That cochineal mixed with the salt for
other color. You can see for change in the color. Once colored, they showed us how they set
the thread out into different patterns of colors with different meanings
before weaving it into the most amazing blankets and ponchos and
whatever else you can think of. One thing to keep in mind when visiting is
it is customary to buy something from them as a show of thanks. But unlike the ticket
to get in, they do take all forms of payment. So I got this blanket. They said the black
represents Mother Earth, and it’s 100% alpaca. Before we left, we made sure to feed the employees
to keep their coats lush for future merchandise. “Do they spit on people?”
“Well, do you guys do that? That’s the only reason why I’ve been
staying back. I don’t want to get got.” And we got to play a quick
Peruvian bar game with our guy. “Oh, I’m not even close.”
“Oh, you’re just bad.” “That was pretty close. That one got me
some coins, and that’s the important part.” After calling Gary bad, here’s all you get to see from my attempt because it was the only
one that actually made it on the table. So we are now leaving Chinchero. That
was such a cool experience—watched how ladies knit the textiles together. They
talked about how they make all the dyes naturally and how they make each different color
by different kind of fruit or berry or whatever. And now we are heading to Mo, the
agriculture center. It’s in a spiral like this, like a spiral amphitheater.
I’m really, really excited about this one. So we are in Moray Agriculture Center.
This place is cool because it’s like an agriculture laboratory that the Incas built.
Each level is like its own microclimate, and that’s what makes it so cool—so
they can grow different crops at different levels to figure out how they
grow the best. And that’s how they wind up with so many different species. Like,
Peru has over 3,000 species of potato. Isn’t that just wild? Like Erin said, the Incas treated this space
like a laboratory for crop production—almost like their own personal greenhouse—to practice
different methods of farming using temperature ranges in between to help create a multitude of
different types of corn, potatoes, you name it. Our guide actually told us that you
can find just about any kind of fruit or vegetable in Peru, partially due to this
experimentation from the Incas in the past. While learning more about this fascinating place, our guide had mentioned that Inca mothers
give their daughter-in-laws guinea pigs as a way to test them—to see if
they’re a good fit for their son. And that’s when we began learning about
how to prepare one. Steps for a guinea pig: “So for example, you got to make sure to boil
water. So you put the guinea in the hot water, and as quick as you can, you slap it into
the skin of the guinea pig to take the fern out. If you don’t do as quick as you can
do, then you’re going to take all the skin out with the hair too. It has to be really,
really fast as you can. As fast you can do, otherwise it gets cooled down, my friend, and
then you won’t be able to get the guinea out.” Now that we were properly informed and
partially traumatized, we made our way down into the terraces to get a feel
for the different climates ourselves. We’re like walking down into the bowl
down here, and you could tell that it is getting warmer and warmer and warmer. This
is wild how the Incas, like many years ago, just cut all this out, and each layer is
a different temperature so they can test different crops. It’s just insane that they
were able to figure this out way back then. So each layer, they said, is about maybe
like three—I don’t know—a couple feet tall. They said that they’re small because
they’re Inca-sized, because Incas are small. Day two. It’s not getting
any easier to go up hills. Next up is the salt mine. Once we finally crawled
our way out of the Inca greenhouse of Marai, we then made the short 15-minute drive
over to the famous salt mines of Moras. Even though the drive was short, it was a
little bit more eventful than we thought it was going to be.
“It’s straight down.” “There are some times where I
can’t see the road anymore.” “I’m getting tired. Like this picture’s—” The hillside is covered in over 4,000
salt ponds, each meticulously maintained and harvested by local families who have
passed this tradition down for generations. We have arrived at the salt mine. The
journey was a little bit treacherous. I thought we might have gone off the cliff a
couple times, but we didn’t. Everything’s fine. So we just got down here to the salt mines.
One thing that did catch me off that I was not prepared for is that our Cusco day tourist
ticket did not cover this. So it was actually 20 soles per person. So if you’re going to do
a tour like this, just know that this is not covered in the tour ticket. I was not prepared
for that, but we had the soles, so we made it in. But this place is—oh my
gosh, those things are wild. It’s really hard to show with a
camera how impressive these ponds are, especially after finding out it’s
estimated to be over 2,000 years old. But maybe our guy overheard me talking about
how this wasn’t included in our tourist pass, so he gave a great explanation why it wasn’t: “This is not owned by the government.
It’s owned by the local community, my friends. So that means the fee that you
guys paid stays at this local community, my friends. It doesn’t go anywhere else,
my friend. It stays in this place. So that means they get the money from you know, from
you guys. So that’s why, my friend—I mean, it’s good, my friend, because at least
these people, this local, maintain the road, or they do something cool, like bathroom, you
know, proper bathroom, you know, nicer, you know.” So our guide just taught us that each one of these
salt ponds is about 10 cm—so about 4 inches—deep. The bottom is made out of stone so it can’t
evaporate out, and there’s a dam system that they use to back off the water, because all the water
that goes to fill up these salt mines is natural. Like Erin said, the water that is flowing between
and filling up these ponds is naturally occurring. And according to our guide, the water
rises from a natural hot spring at 32°C from a prehistoric saltwater lake buried deep
underground. These salt lakes are thought to have formed over 500 million years ago, when
this region was deep under the ocean surface. Keep in mind that we are almost at 11,000
ft in elevation. And when our guide asked if I wanted to give it a taste test,
I said yes for some unknown reason. “Oh my god. Look. That’s worse than the ocean.” “Oh really?”
“It is. Yeah. Holy crap. Holy crap.” Trust me when I tell you, I can still
taste the hot salt water to this day. On our way out, we passed a bunch
of vendors selling salt from the mines that you can pick up as
a souvenir if you would like, and we got one more look at just how massive this
operation is before heading on to our next stop. So we are leaving the salt
mines now. That was really, really cool. We learned that there
are three different kinds of salt there. There’s the pink salt, which is the
highest quality. There’s the white salt, and the white salt is like general use. And
then brown salt, and that’s for industrial salt. Now we are leaving. We are
going to go lunch—I’m sorry. All right, so we just made it to the
town of Pac. We got some lunch at a local place in Urabamba. It was like a
restaurant or a buffet-style restaurant. It was about—I think it was—what was it? “I think it was 60 per person.”
“Yeah, it was 80. 80 soles per person.” But it was pretty good. They had all kinds
of different options. We’ll show a couple of videos from what we took there. After that, we stopped at a local bar
and we tried a little drink called aka, which is a corn mash or corn drink that they
make here locally. And they call it aka because when it hits the back of your throat, it
makes you go “ah!” because it’s so sour. “You have to do it right. To Mother Earth.”
“Mother Earth.” “Okay. And then to the mountain god.”
“To the mountain god.” “I’m going to show you how we drink it. He’s going
to drink it. It’s like a sour beer, you guys.” That was really cool. We got to see
some guinea pigs, which is ironic. The guinea pigs like to hang out in the kitchen
because they slop, you know. It’s kind of sad. Anyway. Anyway. Now we are at Pag, which is a bunch of
Mayan ruins. It’s so pretty. So, so big. “Oh, I didn’t even notice
that it’s over there too.” So this place is a lot like the Moray
agricultural laboratory because it’s in elevations, so each tier has its
own microclimate, which is good for raising crops so you can figure out what
kind of crop grows best at each altitude. This is a pretty fun one.
We’ve learned quite a bit. So this place, PC, was a checkpoint
basically for the people that were traveling further into the Sacred
Valley. And it’s also one of the largest agricultural sites here in
Sacred Valley and Cusco in general. As you can see behind me, there’s just
terraces on terraces on terraces where they used to grow all these crops. And
then all these buildings up here and around the top up here is where they put the
crops, because it’s windy and cold up there, so it would preserve the crops for a little
bit longer if they stuck them up there. This guy has taught us so much stuff. It’s been really informational. It’s just
been an awesome experience so far. But next, I think we’re going to go to the
alpaca farm—at least that’s what he says. Somewhere between here and there, we made our final stop of the night
at the alpaca farm, and it was fun. Okay, so we got one bonus last
stop, which is the alpaca farm. “What’s the difference between
an alpaca and a llama?” I’m glad that you asked. An alpaca is taller,
they have a longer nose and pointy ears, while a llama is shorter and has a short face. This is an alpaca. This is a llama. Both the alpaca farm and the bokeh bar were small
additions that weren’t on the original itinerary that really put the icing on the cake for our
day trip. Our guide and driver did an amazing job on this tour of the Sacred Valley and made
us really feel like we got a local experience. “This guy right here—he’s a good-looking alpaca.” “Photo. That one is friendly.” “Are you a deer? Maybe. Maybe deer. Maybe deer. Maybe deer. It looks like a deer.
Maybe wierd llama. Hello deer!” If you made it this far, thank you so much for
watching. If you’re thinking about coming here, please make sure to leave us a comment. Until next time—had to bring Erin to
the salt market because she’s salty. “What? See what makes this little—this hill is so steep. I got to be still.
Such an unflattering angle.”
Planning a Sacred Valley day trip from Cusco? This one-day tour hits all the highlights
We left the city of Cusco behind for a full-day adventure into the breathtaking Sacred Valley of Peru!
In this video, we visit some of the most iconic and fascinating sites in the valley:
🧵 Chinchero – Known for its vibrant textile traditions and Inca ruins
🌿 Moray – A mysterious circular agricultural site used by the Incas
🧂 Maras – Stunning salt ponds carved into the mountainside
🏔 Pisac – Colorful markets and hilltop ruins with epic views
Along the way, we also experienced a few authentic local moments that made this day unforgettable—and we’re still talking about them!
If you’re planning a trip to Peru or looking for the best day trip from Cusco, this Sacred Valley tour is a must.
🎥 Watch next: https://youtu.be/8f99wH8s-n8
💬 Have you been to the Sacred Valley? What was your favorite stop? Let us know in the comments!
Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
01:00 – Something you should know
01:23 – Chinchero
04:21 – Moray
06:50 – Maras
10:33 – Pisac
13:08 – Alpaca Farm
14:17 – Funnies
#Cusco #SacredValley #PeruTravel #DayTrip #Peru