The Sacred Valley is more than extraordinary landscapes and ancient ruins. It is a living classroom where students explore what responsible leadership looks like across generations. Indigenous Andean communities and the Inca developed systems that balanced innovation with stewardship, individual contribution with collective wellbeing, and human needs with respect for the natural world. These values continue to shape life in the region today.

Throughout the program, students encounter leadership expressed through action. The engineering of Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu, the agricultural innovation of Moray, and the enduring traditions of the Maras Salt Mines reveal how communities have worked with their environment and managed resources for generations.

Learning extends beyond archaeological sites through partnerships with local educators, artisans, archaeologists, and community organizations. At Casa Kuska and Valle Sagrado Verde, students see how food, education, cultural exchange, and environmental action can strengthen communities and create meaningful opportunities.

Together, these experiences show that leadership is not simply a position or a title. It is the everyday work of protecting culture, supporting communities, solving problems, and creating a more sustainable future. Students leave with a deeper understanding of how innovation, service, and shared responsibility can inspire positive change.

Leave home behind and set off in search of adventure, new experiences and a different way of seeing the world.

Travel to Cusco, where you’ll meet the ALIVE team at Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport. Settle in to the hotel and join our local partner for an introduction to the centre of the Incan Empire.

An evening program orientation introduces the concept of ayni (reciprocity) and setting intentions for respectful cultural engagement. Begin to consider your role as a visitor and the responsibilities that come with cross-cultural learning.

Discovering Inca Innovation

Explore Sacsayhuamán, the engineering and dry-stone architectural marvel. Walk among the 100-tonne stones that are perfectly fitted without mortar and learn about its history as the site of Inca resistance against Spanish conquistadors.

Hold these stories with you as you walk to the historical center of Cusco. Each step carrying from the ancient stones to the living city.

After exploring the energy and history of Cusco, we make our way into the Sacred Valley, arriving in the remarkable town of Ollantaytambo. Known as a “living Inca town,” Ollantaytambo is one of the few places where the original 15th-century urban layout, stone foundations and flowing water channels continue to shape daily life.

As we explore, we begin to notice how the innovations of the past remain part of the present, while practising critical exploration: observing before judging, asking questions and considering the stories behind what we see.

Students spend two days immersed in the work of Casa Kuska, a community organization focused on education, creativity, technology, and wellbeing. They begin by meeting the Casa Kuska team, learning about their programs and vision for developing a technology and maker space for local youth. Through hands-on training and collaborative work, students help set up and learn to use 3D printers, contributing to an ongoing community initiative while exploring how technology can create new opportunities for learning and creativity. The experience introduces leadership as a shared responsibility, where meaningful contribution begins with listening, understanding local priorities, and recognizing the knowledge and strengths others bring.

As the maker space takes shape, students continue working alongside the Casa Kuska team to experiment with 3D printing and explore how the technology might be used in education and the wider community. Reciprocal language and cultural exchange activities bring students together to teach and learn from one another, sharing words, phrases, expressions, songs, games, and stories from their respective languages and cultures. By taking turns as learners, teachers, and cultural guides, students explore how responsible leaders create space for different perspectives, learn from others, and build relationships based on mutual respect.

Students also take part in a traditional cooking workshop, exploring the cultural and agricultural significance of Andean ingredients and food systems. Through cooking, conversation, games, music, and dance, they experience how shared activities can strengthen identity, reciprocity, and belonging. An evening of soccer or badminton, and a community campfire provides further opportunities for informal connection and exchange.

Across the two days, students experience community development in action, seeing that responsible leadership is not about having all the answers or being in charge. It is about listening, contributing, sharing responsibility, and using your skills in ways that support the needs and aspirations of a community.

Trade Routes and Inca Infrastructure

Start the morning with members of a Quechua weaving community for a hands-on workshop. After learning about how a Quechua co-operative operates, then hike six kilometres of the ancient trading route from Pumamarca to Ollantaytambo. This route follows the terrain once used to move people and goods between highland and valley communities under Incan administration.

Consider how geography and infrastructure shaped trade across the Inca Empire.

Ollantaytambo, a Centre of Inca Power

Explore the archaeological site of Ollantaytambo, a remarkable agricultural, ceremonial and military centre built to control this important corridor. See the ancient granaries, or qullqas, built high above the valley where cool, dry conditions helped preserve crops.

Consider how the Incas designed systems and infrastructure to support a connected and resilient economy.

Engage with Valle Sagrado Verde through hands-on conservation initiatives focused on environmental stewardship in the Sacred Valley.

Learn about local challenges, including waste management and ecosystem protection, while exploring how community-led solutions are developed and implemented.

Share a traditional Pachamanca meal, prepared using ancestral cooking techniques that honour Pachamama (Mother Earth) and emphasize the relationship between food, community, and the land. Pachamanca is a very special way of cooking food underground, developed even before ceramics were invented.

Through this shared experience, students deepen their understanding of reciprocity, sustainability, and the cultural significance of collectively gathering and preparing food.

Facilitated discussions connect Indigenous knowledge systems with modern environmental practices, encouraging students to reflect on how traditional values can inform more responsible ways of living today.

Board the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes.

Leave Ollantaytambo and travel to Moray, where enormous concentric terraces sweep into the earth. Explore how the Incas used these unique microclimates to experiment with crops and develop agricultural knowledge for communities across their empire.

Continue to the spectacular salt pans of Maras, where thousands of pools cascade down the mountainside. See how salt has been harvested here for generations, with local communities continuing a communal system that turns a natural resource into a livelihood.

Transfer back to Cusco at the end of this full day.

Explore the vibrant and bustling San Pedro Market, Cusco's primary food market and observe how tradition and modernity coexist. The perfect place to see ingredients and purchase souvenirs. This powerful example of the tourist economy working in partnership with the local economy makes this market so interesting.

Interacting with local merchants gives this experience an authentic and vibrant end to our immersion in Peruvian culture.

Participate in a facilitated transference workshop. Reflect on your experiences and identify how lessons from Indigenous and Incan traditions, such as reciprocity, sustainability, community, and respect for the natural world, can inform your own leadership.

After lunch, bid a fond farewell to the local team at the airport. Leave Peru with a clearer sense of how the interconnectedness of past and present can inform more thoughtful, responsible leadership.