[5] A partially navigable headwater of the Amazon River, the Urubamba rises in the Andes to the southeast of Cusco.

It originates on the slopes of Cunurana in the Puno Region, Melgar Province, near the La Raya pass.

A number of ruins of the Inca Empire lie in the Sacred Valley, including the Incan city of Machu Picchu, Patallaqta, Pikillaqta and Raqch'i.

He and two friends from Palo Alto, California, Art Post and Gain Allan John, navigated the river with its ferocious rapids by canoe and balsa rafts provided by the indigenous people.

John Walter Gregory, a British geologist, drowned in the river on June 2, 1932 while on a geological expedition to the Andes.