The film was made for US$370,000, with one-third of the budget paying for Kinski's salary. It was filmed on location in the Peruvian rainforest, Machu Picchu (the stone steps of Huayna Picchu), and on the Amazon River tributaries of the Ucayali region. Aguirre was shot in five weeks, following nine months of pre-production planning. The film was shot in chronological order, because Herzog believed the film crew's progress on the river directly mirrored that of the explorers' journey in the story. The director and his cast and crew floated in rafts down the Huallaga and Nanay rivers through the Urubamba Valley in Peru.