Your Personal Guide to Sky Lodge Adventure Suites, Cusco, Peru
Would you stay here!? The WORLD’S first-ever hanging lodge… sitting 1,500 feet above the Sacred Valley of Cusco, Peru… 🤩🧐😏
WHAT an experience… I have to say, if you’re anywhere near Cusco, Peru, it is so well-worth it to put this on your to-do list.
Let me give you our personal run-down because our experience was beyond amazing.
We flew into Cusco and rented a car because we were doing more than just this experience and wanted the freedom of being able to drive around and explore on our own. (To rent a car in Peru you just need your license and to be able to drive a manual transmission) However, Skylodge Suites provides transportation from your hotel in Cusco to the base camp site in Pachar, which is about a 90 minute commute. Once at the base camp, you have the ability to use the restrooms and fill up water bottles before you start the climb. You get a safety briefing and learn how to secure your own harness and carabiners. Once everyone is ready, you begin the climb! The climb is about 1,500 feet in elevation and takes on average 90 minutes to climb. (We did it in 51 minutes because it was raining and we were on a mission to get to the top! Haha) The climb is relatively simple if you are an experienced climber or if you are athletic. If not, it is definitely doable, but just might take you a little longer…thats okay!
We felt VERY safe throughout the entire climb. You have two safety carabiners attached to a cable at all times, which has the ability to hold 10 tons. Trust me, you’re secure! There are a few parts that are direct verticals which are more challenging, but still not bad. You have a guide throughout the entire climb leading and following the group and you are able to stop for water, photos, or just a break to admire the epic view. We felt absolutely no pressure to go at a pace faster than we were comfortable with, it was perfect!
The first place you arrive at is the “dining hall,” which is where you eat your dinner and breakfast, which they cook on the spot and serve to you. Everything we ate was absolutely DELICIOUS. Also, hunger is the best seasoning, ya know what I mean?!
We arrived at the dining pod a little early, so we were able to go to our pod for a little down time before dinner was ready, which was really nice. Our guide, Bryan, came with us to explain the setup and the functionality of the toilet. It is a dry-system, meaning that you have to separate liquids from solids (yes…in better terms, this means you have to separate your number 1 from your number 2 lol so maybe not a place to take a first date…haha) It is super sanitary, however, and we had absolutely no issues.
There is no electricity on the pods, which is one of the things we should have been better about knowing beforehand. This means you can’t charge anything in the pod. I would recommend bringing a laptop or portable charger so you have the ability to charge things overnight if you need to. We brought a laptop but didn’t know that the charger chord wouldn’t work…whoops!
Because it was raining throughout the duration of our climb, we were soaaaaking wet when we got to our pod. So we changed out of our climb clothes before heading back to dinner. Dinner was made for us by our guide and OOOOF it was yummy. We had a pumpkin soup, salad, chicken cordon bleu, and for dessert, a crumbled quinoa cookie with chocolate sauce. OH plus they have one bottle of wine per person that you are able to have. We ate every last crumb/drop of our food and one bottle of wine, and took the other bottle back to our pod for later. Once we got back to the pod, it was completely dark. There is no wifi and essentially no service on the mountain, so we ended up playing a few rounds of card games and finishing off the other bottle of wine before deciding to turn in for the night. We had had suuuuuch a long day up to this point. Earlier that day, we had explored around the Cusco center plaza, rode horses to Inca ruin sites, and rode four wheelers up the mountain to a site called “Balcon del Diablo,” so when 8pm hit, we were ZONKED.
The pods come with 3 beds. One queen (the back bed that reaches from one side to the other side of the pod), and two twin beds that are in the middle/sides of the pod, separating the main bed from the toilet area. Meaning, there is a max capacity for 4 people per pod. I had someone ask if its a strictly couple experience and my answer was: DEFINITELY NOT! It is such a good friends trip too! Take the girls, take the boys, whatever you want, its an amazing experience! (The only restrictions are the minimum age is 12 and the maximum weight is 265 lbs)
To be honest, we didn’t have the most quality sleep…and im not really sure why! The pod was very comfortable and the bed was cozy, we were very warm and safe, but neither one of us slept very well…but ey that could of been a personal problem, im not too sure haha. We ended up waking up at 3am and dozing in and out of sleep for a few hours before really getting up and getting ready. Each pod has a private bathroom area with a water dispenser filled with bottled water, so you can brush your teeth, wash your face, use the bathroom, etc. Its almost like “glamping,” just on the side of a mountain, 1500 feet above the ground! HAHA
Breakfast was served at 7:30am in the dining pod, and was absolutely delicious! We had coffee, juice, yogurt with granola, fruit and honey, toast with ham and cheese, bread and butter, and eggs. After breakfast, if you buy the plan with the photographer, you have time in the pod for a little “photoshoot.” This was so much fun! Our photographer, Keko, was amazing and super easy to work with. He knew all the good angles and captured some really special moments for us! It was well-worth the 300 PEN ($78).
THEN WE HAD A PERSONAL TRAGEDY… RIP MY PHONE.
While we were waiting for the zipline guide to get to us, we decided to fly our drone around for some cool video shots. The drone we have was a little cheap one off amazon (linked here) which connects via bluetooth to operate. It has a spot for the phone to click into the controller so you can see your view while directing the drone. After flying around for a few minutes, my boyfriend went to dismount the phone from the controller and ended up springing it out instead… we then watched as my phone took a LONG 1500 foot drop down the side of the mountain. WOMP WOMP.
Our guide was SO kind to scale down the mountain looking for it for about 45 minutes before we decided we had accepted our fate and wanted to proceed with just one phone instead of two… :(
ANYWAY, back to the experience…
The last part of the Skylodge Suite Adventure was zip lining down to basecamp. There are 6 lines to go down with 70 meters being the shortest and 800 meters being the longest. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN.
The morning ended around 10am (because we had spent 60-80 minutes looking for the lost phone). Our car was parked at their office, about 20 minutes away so we were bussed back to the car. They offer transportation back to your hotel in Cusco if needed!
All in all, the experience was about 24 hours from start to finish. In general, you start at about 11am in Cusco for pickup and get dropped back off wherever you were picked up at around 1pm.
Whether you are in Peru or just looking for your next adventure, id definitely recommend booking a stay with Sky Lodge Suite Adventures! It is HANDS DOWN unlike anything else you will ever do…
How to book:
You can book directly throughout their site at:
You send an email to request a booking and they get back to you with all the information they need from you. It is super timely and easy!
Pricing details:
For the package of climbing, one night stay, and ziplining down, it comes to about $415 per person. I HIGHLY recommend the full experience!
Other package offerings can be found on their site.
Tips:
-bring a portable charger
-bring 2 bottles of water per person (you can fill at base camp and with water in your private bathroom, but always better to have more than not enough)
-put your phone on a cord of some sort lol. Like a lanyard or something…
-make sure all your information from your phone is uploaded to the cloud directly before the climb starts! Just in case…
-bring layers! It was raining when we climbed up, but warm on the way down. Layers is important!
-Dont bring any electronics, its a waste of space
-pack light! Really all you need is what you wear up, what you want to wear to sleep, and what you want to wear to zipline down. Be sure to look at the weather and pack layers accordingly.
-bring snacks! We didn’t bring any snacks, and honestly didn’t need any necessarily, but just a thought if you tend to get hungry
-if you have a digital camera, bring it!
-be in the moment. As cool as the pics are, the best thing about this trip was the memories and the small moments of appreciating the view with my favorite person right next to me.
Anyway…SAFE TRAVELS and HAPPY MEMORY-MAKING, my friends! Let me know if you end up going! I’d love to hear about your experience!
