Pallay Punchu Tour from Cusco

Pickup from your hotel at about half past four. It is a long way south and the aim is to reach the ridge before the afternoon cloud builds over the altiplano.

Bring cash in soles, warm layers and sun protection. Sleep in the vehicle if you can. The first stretch is on tarmac and easy going.

Two hours down the Vilcanota valley brings you to Cusipata, where breakfast is a buffet and there is no reason to be shy about it. This is the last full meal before the climb.

Use the bathrooms here. Facilities thin out considerably from this point on.

Another hour and a half of driving, turning west out of the valley into Canas province. Layo sits at 3,978 metres on the shore of Langui Layo, the largest lake in the Cusco region.

Your guide gives an introduction here, to the community, the lake and the ridge above it. There is free time for photographs before you go on.

From Layo the vehicle continues to the parking area at the foot of the mountain. The entrance ticket is bought here in cash.

The walk to the top takes about 45 minutes. It is uphill throughout and the ground is uneven, but there is no scrambling and nothing exposed. The highest point of the route is 4,770 metres.

Go slowly and let people pass. Your guide sets a pace that feels too slow at the bottom and turns out to be exactly right near the top.

The fins stand along the crest, striped from base to tip. They look thin from below and considerably more solid once you are among them.

Behind you the altiplano runs flat to the horizon. Below on the other side is Langui Layo, roughly 700 metres down.

You have time here. This is the practical advantage of a site nobody has heard of yet. If the light is wrong you can wait ten minutes for it to change rather than being moved along.

Down takes about half the time it took to go up. Lunch is served after the descent, at an altitude where eating is more comfortable.

The return route stops at Raqchi, and this is the part of the day most people do not expect.

The Temple of Wiracocha is one of the more unusual Inca structures anywhere. A central adobe wall runs the length of the building, still standing to around twelve metres, with stone column bases on either side that once carried the largest known Inca roof.

Behind it stand rows of colcas, the circular stone storehouses the Inca used to hold grain and dried food. There are more than a hundred of them here. Together with the temple they make Raqchi one of the best surviving pictures of how the Inca state actually fed and organised itself.

A short panoramic stop at Checacupe, where three bridges cross the same river side by side. One is a modern road bridge, one is colonial stone, and one is a rebuilt Inca rope bridge of woven grass. Five hundred years of engineering in a single photograph, which is why we stop.