Alturas de Macchu Picchu is a studio album by the Chilean rock band Los Jaivas, released in October 1981 on SyM label.

It is a concept album that musicalizes the homonymous poem by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda that appeared in his 1950 book Canto General.

After the release of Canción del Sur in 1977, Los Jaivas along with their team migrated to France and arrived in Paris on March 23 of that year.

[6] They spent a season in Biarritz,[7] and in the town of Les Glycines, in the outskirts of Paris, they found a mansion that they would use to live for many years and continue their creative work.

[8] In December 1980,[7] Daniel proposed that they make a concept album to musicalize Alturas de Macchu Picchu,[9][10] a poem from the 1950 book, Canto General by the Chilean Nobel prize winner, poet Pablo Neruda.

[6] As Los Jaivas had never visited Machu Picchu, they used an image of the place to be inspired by the creation of "La Poderosa Muerte", "Antigua América" and "Amor Americano".

[7] The main riff of the song was created from a minimoog used by Claudio Parra,[12] Alquinta used the Gibson Les Paul Standard acoustic guitar, the Rickenbacker bass, a Venezuelan cuatro, and zampoña.

[14] The album has two covers, one showing the sacred Intihuatana stone designed by René Olivares,[14] and another where a dancer with the Bolivian mask and a ball in his hand is shown.

[14] Camino called them to confirm that the Peruvian president, Fernando Belaúnde, had allowed them to hold their television special in Machu Picchu.

NaciónRock's Gonzalo Ugarte C. wrote that it "represents the result of experimentation as a constant creative process and how it became the backbone of a group that gave this column a body, forming an amazing, sublime sound that returns the listener to the throbbing American land.