High in Peru’s Andes Mountains, nearly 8,000 feet above sea level, you start to feel the onset of what locals call mal de montaña—altitude sickness. Your head pounds, your body feels weak, and your fellow traveler’s annoyingly dumb jokes suddenly seem hilariously funny. The spectacular view from your mountainside perch—over Putucusi, or “Happy Mountain,” a jungle thick with orchids, and the angular, Tetris-like ruins of Machu Picchu—begins to seem dizzying.
Luckily, all you have to do is call room service. Within minutes, the staff at the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge will deliver steeped coca leaves, a local cure-all with a green tea–like taste, and the fog in your head will lift. Then you’ll realize once again how perfect your whereabouts are: you’re cocooned in comfort, but still on top of the world.
Km 7.5, Carretera Hiram Bingham
Macchu Picchu, Peru
Machu Picchu’s remote mountaintop ruins feel amazingly accessible when you’re staying next door; the Sanctuary Lodge (part of the Orient-Express group) is the only hotel to abut the 15th-century ancient Incan site. It takes a four-hour trip by train and bus to reach Machu Picchu (from the nearest city, Cuzco), but you’ll be whizzing past Jungle Book–worthy vistas en route. Want to arrive like Hiram Bingham did when he “discovered” the place in 1911? Take the old Inca trail (a five-day journey by foot) and bring your bug spray—mosquitoes here are no strangers to human sacrifice. From Mountain View Rooms (which, unfortunately, have twin beds), you’ll see the looming, craggy peaks of Huayna Picchu as well as the Urubamba River valley—with its 300-odd species of orchids—from your personal garden-side deck.
