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Experience the best of the remains of the Ancient Inca stone quarry on this full day Cachicata Trail popularly known as Inca Quarry Trek.
Cusco, the former capital of the Inca Empire in South America, saw rapid development during the rule of Pachacutec. He built many notable sites including Machu Picchu and Choquequirao. Ollantaytambo was the administrative capital of Incas. The Incas built many sites here.
Cachicata Stone Quarry is located near the village of Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. During the Inca civilization, they planned a massive construction work which was never completed due to Spanish invasion. All stones were cut and carved in the Cachicata stone quarry.
On this Cachicata Trail, accompanied by a local tour guide, you will be visiting the remains of the house of the architects who worked in Cachicata. You will also visit the Inca ruins of stone quarry where you will get to see remains of the finely carved pink marble stones scattered around.
Cachicata Trail is not as popular as the Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu or Inca Trail. It however, has a lot to offer. On the Inca Quarry Trail, you will be retracing the footsteps of Incas on the way through which they transported stones from the stone quarry to Ollantaytambo.
Ollantaytambo is now a popular place among travellers to board a train to Aguas Calientes town. It is also the gateway to the emblematic Inca Trail 4 Days to Machu Picchu.
Happy Gringo Tours is a fully locally owned tour operating company in Cusco. We have state of the art campsites and camping and cooking equipment. We operate all the treks under the guidance of a local tour guide.
Our tour guides, as locals, have an extensive knowledge about the Inca Sites, culture and history. Most of them are mountaineers and have plenty of knowledge and experience on high altitude treks and dealing with altitude sickness.
Check out our reviews on TripAdvisor.
Please note it is best to hike Cachicata Trail during the dry season – between March and November.
If you want to combine your Cachicata Trail with a visit to Machu Picchu, then do take a look at our Cachicata Trek to Machu Picchu itinerary.
Cusco Hotel Transfer
0700 AM
We will be picking you up from your hotel in Cusco. Then in our private transport, we will be driving through the Sacred Valley of the Incas to Ollantaytambo. This is the starting point of his full day hike.
We will be crossing a small bridge that connects the two towns on both sides of Urubamba River. Then we will be hiking from Ollantaytambo (2792 metres above sea level) to Cachicata (3900 metres).
The hike normally takes about two and a half hours. Although mostly up the hill, you will get pristine views of the Sacred Valley of the Incas dotted with snow capped Andean peaks.
We will then give you a guided tour of the complex. Once you have had your fill and if desired we can hike further 450 metres high to the Sun Gate (Intipunku). The Incas used this place to worship their Sun God (Inti).
You will also get a panoramic view of the snow capped peak of Veronica from here.
Once you have had your fill of this, we will hike back down to Ollantaytambo. Here we will be meeting our transport for a drive back to the city of Cusco.
The Inca Quarry Trail, also known as the Cachicata Trail, is a short trek of just 1 day that starts at the ruins of Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley. The path is not too hard, however, before taking the trek you must be acclimatized to avoid suffering from altitude sickness.
Each review from our users is important to continue growing and offering the best service to each of our clients. Our priority will always be that you enjoy your trip to the fullest while our professional team works to fulfill it.
Our vacation was great to the land of the Incas in Perú with Gringo Tours.
We strongly recommend traveling... read more in Cusco. We had an amazing experience.. Thanks to our guide Juan!
We highly recommend booking the Machu Picchu day tríp from Cusco with Happy Gringo!
Everything else was a dumpster fire that had us waiting for two hours for a guide to show up (he stated he hadn’t been notified from the travel agency even though we went to the physical Happy Gringo location to check in the day before AND provided all requested information in person and again via WhatsApp). If we hadn’t reached out to them on WhatsApp, I’m certain we would have still been standing outside of the train station waiting. The information you get when you get to the Machu Picchu location is also confusing, telling you to go to a Pueblo, but when you look it up on the maps, there are several listed, which further added to the confusion. Very much underperformed our expectations for nearly $800.
Final thought, Machu Picchu is very much worth the visit, but not with this outfit.
My family had difficulty to find a travel agent to book the Machu Picchu tour, however the workers of Gringo Tours were very helpful... read more to assist us with our trip to Machu Picchu.
The pick up was on time, the journey from Cusco to Aguad Calientes town was amazing with fantástic views, and finally the tour guide at Machu picchu was very knowledgeable.
Highly recommended tour operator in Peru!
The communication was great, the pick up was on time, the box lunch was very delicious,... read more the hotel at Aguas Calientes was clean and our tour guide Wilder was very informative.
All the team of Happy Gringo tours were professional. Therefore, we hughly recommend hiking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu with them and with Wilder!
¡Thanks for everything!
We booked the 2 days tour to Machu Picchu. The service was very well organised from Cusco, the Communication... read more was fsntastic with Ariana, the pick up ass on time and our tour guide Ivan gave us a lot of information of Machupichu site.
Strongly recommend our guide Ivan and thanks Gringo tours!
We noticed the sirious work and profesionalism that we received. Juan is the persona who gave us all his support. Therefore, we share our experience that Happy Gringo is the only company in Cusco that got our dream reop to Machu Picchu.
Thanks all the team of Gringo tours for your help and we highly recommend the travelers who want to ise this tour operator in Cusco.
Mind blowing experience with Marko as my guide. This was second to none. A very nice and professional tour company with exceptional service.
Marko gave a great tour of Cahicata Quarry, very flexible due to me not feeling the best due to sickness. Very knowledgeable of the site, rhe histort and the culture
We had Juan as our tour guide and he was incredible!!!!! Super sweet, knowledgeable and just a joy to be around. He gave us such an in depth tour and answered the millions of questions we had.
He made sure we were taken care of from beginning to end. He even walked our friend to the clinic after for his COVID test to fly home. I would highly recommend him for any tours as he is so smart and just very sweet to be around! Thank you Juan!