Plans for building a cable car up to Machu Picchu might be off the table, Peruvian Minister of Culture, Roger Valencia, disclosed.
In August 2017 the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism, announced that his ministry in collaboration with the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Environment are working on plans to significantly expand Machu Picchu’s visiting area and create additional access routes and entrance points.
Back then the public was as well informed that potential alternatives to reaching Machu Picchu by train / bus and on foot on the Inca Trail are studied and the possibility of building a cable car, as successfully done up to the archaeological complex of Kuelap, would be assessed.
Now however, Valencia informed that while the tourist flow was improved and additional access routes and entrance points are still assessed, “everything that increases the visual or other impact on Machu Picchu is ruled out". So, a cable car might be off the table.
He further confirmed that a study which includes a tunnel under Machu Picchu with an elevator up to the Inca citadel was made but hasn’t been presented yet.
He added that the interesting thing about Machu Picchu is to think of it as one piece of the legacy the Incas left us and to include other pieces which were part of the Inca Empire such as the Sacred Valley and other valleys, Choquequirao and Vilcabamba in new concepts.