Restaurants & Hotels

Restaurants & Hotels

The town of Aguas Calientes near Machu Picchu has numerous restaurants (although the menus don't vary much) and the employees will do everything they can to entice you to eat in their establishments. Lunch is served between 1 and 3, the busiest time for restaurants here. Dinner begins around 7, and most restaurants start winding down service at about 9. Most places do stay open in the afternoon if you wish to dine outside these hours.

A few in-town lodgings line the railroad tracks—that's not as down-at-the-heels as it first sounds: the tracks are one of two main streets in Aguas Calientes. Those hostelries have rooms facing the Vilcanota River. Aguas Calientes' budget lodgings are utilitarian places to lay your head, with a bed, a table, a bathroom, and little else. A handful of hotels offer surprising luxury for such an isolated location. Their rates can be shockingly luxurious, too.

The Big Four lodgings here (Sanctuary Lodge, Inkaterra, Sumaq, and Hatuchay Tower) meet their guests on the rail platforms—look for their signs when you get off the train—and deliver your luggage right to your hotel room. (They deliver your luggage from hotel to train for your departure, too, but reconfirm this; the train might pull out with you, minus your bags.) Smaller hotels usually meet guests with advance reservations just outside the train station.

Lodgings keep surprisingly early checkout times. (Hotels free up the rooms for mid-morning Cusco-Machu Picchu trains.) Expect to vacate by 8 or 9 AM, though this is less strictly enforced in the off-season. All hotels will hold your luggage if you're not leaving town until later in the day.

Most hotels keep the same official rates year-round but unofficially discount rates during the off-season of mid-September through May.