Travel Log: Sacred Valley, Peru

If you follow me on Instagram, you have already seen a peek at my recent bucket list Peru trip. This trip was one that I originally started to plan for spring 2020 and was rescheduled a couple of times; I was thrilled to be able to finally make this trip happen the last two weeks of May 2023. Our itinerary included visits to Cusco, Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley, Arequipa, Puno and Lake Titicaca, La Raya, Lima, and the last couple of nights in Mexico City. You can read my posts on Cusco here, Machu Picchu here, The Belmond Andean Explorer Train here, and What I Packed and Wore in Peru here.

The third stop of our Peru adventure was the Sacred Valley, or El Valle Sagrado de los Incas in Spanish, or Vilcamayo in the Quechua language. Technically, Machu Picchu sits in within the Sacred Valley, but for the purpose of this post I'll be sharing what we did after Machu Picchu. The Urubamba River flows through this valley, making it ideal for agriculture, and there is evidence of pre-Incan civilizations living in the Sacred Valley as early as 800 BC. The Incas lived in this area in the 1400's and 1500's and grew crops like corn, cocoa, and potatoes. They also discovered the area that is now the Maras Salt Mines (more on that farther down in this post) and mined salt. To get to the Sacred Valley from Machu Picchu, we hopped on an early afternoon train from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytambo (about 1.5 hours). The Belmond team arranged for a car to meet us at the Ollantaytambo train station and take us to our next hotel: the Belmond Rio Sagrado. Please continue reading to see more photos and details of how we spent our time in Peru's Sacred Valley. 

We treated ourselves to stay at two Belmond properties and a Belmond Andean Explorer train experience during our time in Peru because we celebrated our five year wedding anniversary this past May. The first hotel was the Belmond Sanctuary Lodge at Machu Picchu (you can see more on that hotel in my Machu Picchu post), and the second was the Belmond Rio Sagrado in the Sacred Valley. We arrived at the Belmond Rio Sagrado early afternoon via our pre-arranged transportation, were welcomed to the beautiful property, and shown to our suite. This hotel is also not cheap, we paid about $700 USD per night, and this hotel also kindly upgraded us to a Garden King Junior Suite with an average rate of $1,300 USD per night. Our room included breakfast, and we enjoyed lunch and dinner at the on site restaurant, El Huerto, for an additional cost. The room, food, and service at the Belmond Rio Sagrada were all exceptional and we felt that the experience was absolutely worth what we paid. You can see more of this hotel property and our room in my Instagram Reels.

While the Belmond Rio Sagrado has a heated pool, it was a bit chilly during our visit (May is technically winter in South America), and the afternoons were only about 65 degrees F (~18 degrees C). We visited the pool briefly but then went to the much warmer hot tub at the spa. The steam room and hot tub were both wonderful, and we were the only guests there at the time we visited. So relaxing!

One thing I absolutely had to do while staying at the Belmond Rio Sagrado was their baby alpaca feeding that occurs at 8:00am each morning. The hotel has the cutest little herd of baby alpacas that I am assuming are borrowed from a neighboring farm and returned when they get bigger? I didn't think to ask until after we were gone, but there was one adult alpaca named Valentina who is there full time and the little babies followed her around the property. These babies know exactly when feeding time is and showed up on the lawn like clockwork ready for their treat. They all wore little name tags and had names like Misky ("sweet" in Quechua), Pacha ("earth" in Quechua), and Chaska ("dawn" or "bright star" in Quechua). So much cuteness! 

We arranged two excursions through the Belmond team during our time in the Sacred Valley: a hike to the Maras Salt Mines and a horseback ride. Both were fantastic experiences, but I didn't take any photos on the horseback ride due to being in the moment and enjoying the ride. We started the Maras Salt Mines hike at the Belmond Rio Sagrado, meeting our guide and walking the 2.5 miles (4km) from the valley up to the salt pools. You can get an idea of the size of the Maras Salt mines from the first photo below; we walked up from the right side of the below photo, while tour buses arrive from the right side and guests who arrrive by bus do not get to walk up close to the salt pools like we did. The views were incredible and we learned so much from our guide. We learned that there are over 3,000 salt pools, all operated by local families, and the pools cannot be sold. If a family can no longer operate their salt pools, they are redistributed among the community according to family size and ability to operate or maintain them. We learned that there is an irrigation system set up to bring water to each of the pools, and that the process is to fill a pool with water, wait a few days for the water to evaporate, and then the salt is collected. If you visit the Maras Salt Mines, you can purchase salt directly from the families who operate them and I highly recommend doing so! We purchased three different types of salt, the prices were very affordable, and we had no issues transporting the sealed bags of salt back to the United States. 

Have you visited Peru's Sacred Valley? If so, please don't hesitate to leave me a comment to let me know your experience or favorite moment. I hope you enjoyed this Sacred Valley travel log, and please stay tuned for our Belmond Andean Explorer train experience next! Thank you for visiting my blog today, and I hope you have a fabulous week! 

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