🇵🇪 Peru · The Highlands and the Andes
Choquequirao is the 'sacred sister' of Machu Picchu: a great Inca citadel perched high above the canyon of the Apurímac river, in the remote Vilcabamba range, reachable only on foot. Just as monumental and enigmatic as its famous sister, but infinitely less visited, it offers something rare these days: walking a first-rate Inca site almost alone, after a demanding multi-day hike through one of the deepest canyons in the Americas.
The name, from the Quechua 'Chuqi K'iraw', is usually translated as 'cradle of gold'. The citadel preserves plazas, temples, buildings, terraces and, as a singular feature, the famous llama terraces, decorated with camelid figures made of white stone set into the terrace walls. Only a part of the site is thought to have been excavated, which adds mystery to a complex still not fully revealed.
This guide covers how the trek to Choquequirao works —the classic route from Cachora, its difficulty and length—, what you see at the citadel, the essential preparations and why this destination, for now reserved for walkers, is one of Peru's great Inca treasures. The warning is clear: getting there takes effort, but the payoff is exceptional.
Choquequirao was an important Inca citadel, tied to the final period of the empire and to the Vilcabamba region, the last stronghold of Inca resistance after the Spanish conquest. Ceremonial, administrative and agricultural in function, it preserves temples, plazas, terraces and the singular llama terraces. It remained largely covered by vegetation and only a fraction has been excavated. Today you can only reach it on foot, which keeps it one of the least visited of the great Inca citadels.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Choquequirao is one of the great Inca citadels of Peru, built high on a mountain overlooking the deep canyon of the Apurímac river, in the Vilcabamba range, between the present-day departments of Cusco and Apurímac. Its name comes from the Quechua 'Chuqi K'iraw', usually translated as 'cradle of gold'. The setting, spectacular and hard to reach, follows the Inca logic of building important centers in strategic and symbolically powerful places, above the great gorges of the region.
The complex is laid out in different sectors and levels: ceremonial plazas, temples, residential and administrative buildings, fountains and water channels, all in the careful stonework characteristic of Inca architecture. Around the core stretch broad systems of agricultural terraces that used the slopes for cultivation. Among all these elements the famous llama terraces stand out, their walls decorated with camelid figures formed from inset white stones, an exceptional decorative feature.
Choquequirao is thought to have had ceremonial, administrative and agricultural functions, and to have been a center of some importance within the Inca network of the area. Even so, much of the site is still covered by the dense vegetation of the cloud forest and only a fraction has been excavated and made visitable, so its true extent and its exact function remain, largely, an unsolved puzzle.
Choquequirao sits in the Vilcabamba range, a region of deep importance in the final chapters of Inca history. After the Spanish conquest and the fall of Cusco in the sixteenth century, the Incas did not surrender completely: a group led by Manco Inca and his successors withdrew to the inaccessible Vilcabamba region, where they set up a neo-Inca state that held out for decades, until its final fall in 1572. This mountainous, jungle-covered and hard-to-reach area was the last bastion of Inca independence.
Because of its location in this region, Choquequirao has been linked to that final period and, although it was probably built earlier, its history is intertwined with that of the Inca refuge of Vilcabamba. The area preserves several sites from that time, and Choquequirao, together with Machu Picchu itself and other complexes, is part of the rich Inca heritage of this range between the Andes and the Amazon, the setting for the last resistance against the Spanish.
The remoteness and the ruggedness of the terrain that protected the rebel Incas are the same features that, centuries later, keep Choquequirao away from the crowds. The site was never 'rediscovered' and publicized with the force of Machu Picchu, and the lack of easy access has preserved its atmosphere of a lost citadel, sunk in vegetation above the great canyon, much as the first explorers must have found it.
After the collapse of the neo-Inca state of Vilcabamba at the end of the sixteenth century, Choquequirao was abandoned and progressively swallowed by cloud-forest vegetation, sunk in oblivion for more than a century. The first known record of a European visitor reaching the site dates from 1710, when the explorer Juan Arias Díaz Topete traveled through the area, though his find had little impact at the time.
During the nineteenth century, various travelers and scholars took an interest in the ruins lost above the Apurímac canyon. The Italian scholar Antonio Raimondi, who traveled across Peru documenting its geography and natural resources, learned of the site through colonial chronicles -in particular that of Father Antonio de la Calancha, who as early as the seventeenth century placed a 'last Inca residence' in that region- and helped put Choquequirao on scholars' radar. The French explorer Eugène de Sartiges and the Peruvian landowner José Benigno Samanez also visited and described the ruins in the nineteenth century, on expeditions that gradually mapped out the Vilcabamba range.
The most famous episode came on 7 February 1909, when the American explorer Hiram Bingham -who barely two years later would 'rediscover' Machu Picchu for the academic world- reached Choquequirao after a grueling march along narrow, steep trails. Bingham found long Inca agricultural terraces covered in vegetation and was captivated by the site, though at the time he did not fully grasp its scale or its exact role within the Inca world. Only between 1987 and 2001, with more systematic archaeological work, did the true size of the complex begin to come into focus, revealing that it was far larger than believed: today it is estimated that barely 30% of its area has been excavated and made visitable.
Today Choquequirao is one of the great Inca treasures of Peru and, at the same time, one of the least visited, precisely because it is so hard to reach. Getting there takes a demanding multi-day trek through the Apurímac canyon, generally from the village of Cachora, with big elevation changes and camps along the way. That requirement filters its visitors —prepared walkers and archaeology lovers— and offers them, in exchange, the rare experience of walking a first-rate Inca citadel almost alone.
For years there has been discussion about improving access, including projects such as a cable car that would connect the area with the citadel and drastically cut travel time. Such projects promise to multiply visitor numbers and income for the communities, but they also raise serious questions about conserving the site and preserving its unique atmosphere. The debate between accessibility and protection is still open.
In the meantime, Choquequirao remains a destination for those willing to walk. Continued excavation could reveal still more secrets of this complex, much of it still under the forest. For today's traveler, walking its plazas, temples and llama terraces after several days of effort is one of the most memorable experiences Inca Peru has to offer, a chance to experience a great archaeological site as few can today: without crowds, deep in an Andean canyon.