Holy Week in Cusco
The one week of the Andean low season in which Cusco behaves like high season.
What it is
The Señor de los Temblores — the Taytacha, the city's patron since the seventeenth-century earthquake — is carried through the centre on Holy Monday, and the whole city stops to watch it pass from the Plaza de Armas. The week combines Catholic liturgy with Andean ritual and closes around a cuisine specific to those days. It is the people of Cusco's own festival rather than a show for visitors, and that is exactly its strength.
What to offer
Five to seven nights based in Cusco, with Holy Monday reserved for the city and the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu spread across the rest of the week. March is still wet and April is already dry, so the same programme sells differently depending on which side of the calendar Easter falls.
How it operates
Hotels in the centre commit for that week well above the rest of March and April, and on Holy Monday street closures around the Plaza de Armas affect transfers and timings. It is the exception to the highlands' low-season reading: an agency quoting low-season rates finds no space.
When to book
Four to six months ahead. Outside that week, March and April are settled in half the time, which makes this easy to underestimate.
Groups & MICE
A window to avoid for groups: the city is in religious festival, hotels are taken and movement in the historic centre is restricted.
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