Should You Visit Kuélap, Peru’s Alternative to Machu Picchu?

I’ll admit to not being a huge follower of travel lists published by the big travel companies (even if I’ve contributed to them over the past few years).

Although they can be a great way of highlighting truly fascinating travel destinations that would otherwise get overlooked, they can also help to perpetuate the challenges that many growing tourism destinations face.

One of these is Kuélap, a mountaintop citadel built in the sixth century by the Chachapoyas culture that overlooks the Uctubamba Valley in northern Peru, has been on the receiving end of increased global attention.

Ranked at number 29 on the New York Time’s 52 Places to Go in 2018 list, the “experts” really think you should add it to your travel bucket list this year (another term that I just can’t get behind).

Regardless of its appearance on this list, I’ll admit to having been excited about the prospect of visiting the ruins for as long as I’d known I was going to be heading back to Peru.

Unlike Macchu Picchu, a photo of which you can’t go more than a few steps into the country without being bombarded with from all angles, I thought that it had a sense of being untouched by tourism, seemingly resistant to the effects of mass visitation – largely because, plonked strategically on the top of a mountain, it remained difficult to access.

Broadening access to Kuélap, the cloud warrior fortress

But things have changed. Last year, a French company received a contract to build a cable car from Nuevo Tingo at the base of the mountain to the ruins, streamlining a journey that had taken anything from 90 minutes (minibus) to four hours (hiking) down to a mere 20-minutes.

The resulting transport is run with the precision that I wasn’t aware was even possible in this country: in the waiting room just above the town, a screen indicates the timing of the next minibus that will take you to where you board the cable cars (ours left at exactly 10.17 for example).

You’re even expected to queue up in an orderly fashion five minutes ahead of your allotted time slot to ensure the smooth running of the schedule.

It’s certainly efficient; within 20-minutes, we’d faced a somewhat hairy plunge down into the valley, before being yanked back up the other side and spat out at the visitor’s centre.

En route, my guide pointed out holes in the mountainside where the interred bones of previous inhabitants of the region were visible from our seats in the cable car.

Once we arrived at the top, it was another 10 minutes on foot to reach the ruins – although enterprising locals were on hand to provide horses for those who weren’t sure about the required exertion.

It was at this moment that the dream of this mystical stone fortress atop a mountain, a place from where the Chachapoyas had surveyed their territories and protected themselves from their enemies before finally being subsumed into the Inca empire, started to fade.

As we passed the dramatic stone walls that surround the Kuélap fortress – not nearly as slick as those for which the Inca are famed, but still reaching up to 18 metres in height – we could see many being rebuilt, an act that I can only hope does not see the ruins following those at Machu Picchu – which I’ve been told have been rebuilt to almost beyond recognition.

Entering the ancient city from the east, we climbed upwards to the first level of circular stone houses, only to find ourselves competing with another group busily taking selfies and standing on the ruins themselves.

This was much to the annoyance of our tour guide who was repeatedly being forced to break off from her explanations and chastise members of other groups for this behaviour.

Visiting Kuélap, Peru: can it be done responsibly?

I enjoyed my trip to the ruins, although the experience certainly made me aware that there’s little energy being spent by the Peruvian government or tourism board on controlling access to the ruins so that they don’t end up facing the same challenges as Machu Picchu.

What this means is that it’s on us, as travellers, to consider how best we can visit the ruins responsibly. These are my suggestions for visiting Kuelap Peru:

• Head to Kuélap out of high season (June-August), where possible. This helps to spread out the arrival of visitors, which is not only a bonus for you, as you’ll be sharing them with few others, but helps to ensure tourism is a year-round source of income for the local families who rely upon it. Bear in mind that February-April is the rainy season and access to Chachapoyas can be difficult, so these months are best avoided.
• Consider taking the old route that passes through local communities, rather than the cable car. Yes, the cable car was beautiful (if a little terrifying at times), but adding an extra 90-minutes to your trip time isn’t the end of the world – but can make a real difference to local people. Even better, consider spending the night at one of the accommodations close to Kuélap; not only will your money go into local coffers, but you’ll also be able to enter the site before all the tour groups get there.
• Don’t wander on the stones! Even though the site is very open and you can visit without a guide, this doesn’t mean you can stand on the ruins themselves. Some of the parts of the path are very narrow and difficult if you’re trying to pass another visitor but hey, don’t step on the stones!