Things to do
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Ollantaytambo Archaeological Complex
Inca fortress and temple complex built in the 15th century under Pachacuti, featuring precisely fitted stone masonry and agricultural terraces carved into the mountainside. The site occupies roughly 60 acres and contains the Temple of the Sun with its distinctive trapezoidal doorways.
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Ollantaytambo Town
A colonial town built directly atop Inca foundations, with narrow cobbled streets, traditional adobe buildings, and a main plaza that retains its original Inca ground plan. The town serves as the main rail hub for trains to Machu Picchu.
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Museo CATCCO
Private museum in the town centre housing pre-Columbian textiles, ceramics, and metalwork from Inca and pre-Inca periods, with an emphasis on local Sacred Valley provenance. The collection includes intact polychrome vessels and fine weaving examples from the Ollantaytambo region.
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Ollantaytambo Market
A working indigenous market in the town below the Ollantaytambo fortress, selling fresh produce, textiles, alpaca knitwear, and pottery direct from local suppliers.
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El Albergue
The 1925 station house at Ollantaytambo turned into a small hotel with a garden, an organic farm across the tracks and its own cañazo distillery. Guests walk onto the Machu Picchu train from the front door. The restaurant serves visitors who are not staying, and the distillery runs tours between the trains.
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Ñaupa Iglesia
A carved cave shrine in the cliff above Pachar with a stepped altar cut from a single boulder and a doorway to nowhere, reached by a short climb from the road. It is an oddity and it is empty. The climb takes about twenty minutes and is loose in places, and no ticket covers the site.
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Pinkuylluna
The Inca storehouses on the hill facing the Ollantaytambo fortress, a steep 45 minute climb from a doorway in the old town, with the whole of the terraced site laid out across the valley. Free, and best in the last light.
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Piscacucho
Kilometre 82 of the railway, the trailhead where the classic four-day Inca Trail begins with a checkpoint and a footbridge over the Urubamba. Permits are 500 a day including porters and sell out months out; the trail closes every February. There is nothing here beyond the checkpoint, and vehicles from Ollantaytambo take about forty minutes along the river.
