Choquequirao

Got back on Tuesday from a week-long visa-renewal trip to Peru, four days of which were spent hiking to and from an Inca site called Choquequirao (pronounced Choke-uh-key-raoh). It's about 100 kilometers west of Cusco and not too far from its more famous neighbor, Machu Picchu.

Although they are close to one another, of similar styles, and were constructed virtually contemporaneously, there are many distinctions between these Inca settlements. I've not visited Machu Picchu (yet!), but was told repeatedly that it is an "intact" ruin, while Choquequirao was plundered by French treasure hunters in the early 20th century. Furthermore, Machu Picchu was rediscovered in 1911, and its buildings are far more completely (if not entirely) excavated. Only over the last twenty years has Choquequirao been the focus of archaeological study, and to date less than one-third of its ruins have been uncovered.

But what really distinguishes Choquequirao (and what initially attracted me to visit) is that, when compared to the mega-attraction of Machu Picchu, Choquequirao is all but empty. While Machu Picchu can be reached by a Peru Rail train, Choquequirao sits 32 kilometers away from the nearest town - and that route is only accessible by foot or by mule. So it's not surprising that Machu Picchu gets 100 times as many visitors in a year as Choquequirao does. And the trail, although it was hard, incorporating five vertical miles into its 24 horizontal ones, was quite peaceful and quiet, aside from the occasional passing mules and a few other trekkers. That's a far cry from the parade of 400 tourists who start the classic four-day "Inca Trail to Machu Picchu" every day. Depending on whom you ask, it takes somewhere between a week and a month for the Choquequirao trail to see that many hikers.

More on Choquequirao to come; in the meantime, I've put up a bunch more pictures here.