Cusco: Horseback Ride to Devil’s Balcony & Inca Ruins

4.93

(241 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

The first thing I remember is the smell—horses and that sharp, clean mountain air just outside Cusco. We’d barely left the city when our guide, Javier, handed me a helmet and grinned, “Don’t worry, these horses know the way better than I do.” The ranch was only about fifteen minutes out but already felt like another world—kids chasing chickens, a woman waving as she herded alpacas across a field. My horse was called Chaska. She seemed unimpressed by my nerves.

We set off along narrow trails that wound through little Andean communities. There were farmers bent over potato fields and someone whistling in Quechua—a sound I can still hear if I close my eyes. Javier pointed out wild herbs growing by the path (he called one muña, said it helps with altitude). The ride wasn’t hard—honestly, Chaska did most of the work—but there were moments when the path narrowed and you could feel how old these routes must be. At one point we passed some half-buried stones; Javier said they were once part of an Inca temple. He told us stories about the people who built them, pausing now and then so we could listen to nothing but wind in the grass.

The Devil’s Balcony itself sort of sneaks up on you—a huge rock split open with a river running underneath. There’s this natural stone window where you can look down at water rushing through a cave below. Some of us climbed down into the cool dark (I hesitated but went for it), and my hands came away gritty from the walls. It was quieter than I expected inside—just echoes and that cold damp smell you get in deep places. When we came back up into sunlight, everything felt brighter somehow.

I didn’t expect to laugh so much—Javier tried to teach me how to say “Balcon del Diablo” properly in Spanish and gave up halfway through (“Just call it ‘the balcony,’” he said). On the way back we stopped for water and watched clouds roll over Cusco in the distance. The whole thing took maybe half a day but left me feeling like I’d been somewhere older than time—or maybe just somewhere really good for thinking.