Cable car set to carry thousands of tourists to remote Inca refuge

That is about to change. Peru’s government has approved what will be the nation’s first aerial tramway. Bridging the deep canyon of the Apurimac River, it will make Choquequirao reachable in just 15 minutes from the nearest road.

The three-mile long cable car is designed to whisk 400 people an hour in each direction a half mile above the river.

The president of the Apurimac state government, Elias Segovia, anticipates the £29m tramway will attract about 3,000 tourists a day after it opens in late 2015.

“This is going to generate tourist services. It will generate great investment in hotels, restaurants and other amenities,” he said.

The idea is to shift some of the tourist burden from Machu Picchu, where authorities have a limit of 2,500 daily visitors and where reservations are now required for people who wish to hike the famed Inca Trail to the ruins.

Currently, most visitors to Choquequirao must fly to Cuzco, the former Inca imperial capital, and then drive four hours on mountain roads prone to landslides and flooding.

Then it is another 12 to 16 hours on foot – little wonder it gets only about five visitors a day.

Choquequirao, which means “cradle of gold” in Quechua, is believed to be the last refuge of Incan rulers who fled Cuzco after its leader, Manco Inca, was defeated by Spanish conquistadors.

It is draped over the fold of a lesser mountain in the shadow of Salcantay peak, surrounded at 9,950ft by steep precipices.

Its buildings and irrigation canals meticulously hewn into rock are as well-preserved as those of Machu Picchu, its “top-of-the-world” views equally spectacular.

Not everyone is happy about the cable car.

Arturo Almiron, of the travel agency Tours a Cuzco, believes it will put off a certain kind of tourist who wants to be thrown back spiritually to the era when the city was the Inca capital, to watch condors soar in the quiet stillness of untrammelled hills.

“Cuzco’s very character is in the preservation of its historical center and archaeological sites,” he said.

“If we build a tramway, that preservation is altered. A touch of modernity is added that isn’t very attractive. Authenticity is lost.”