Read my tips and budget for the Inca trail here and my post about reaching Machu Picchu here.
Hiking the four day Inca Trail is a once-in-a-lifetime experience connecting astonishing scenery, ancient Inca ruins and breathtaking mountain tops (quite literally speaking). It is genuinely difficult, but it’s also the most dramatic way to arrive at Machu Picchu. Traversing the Andes Mountains with thousands of steps, it passes through cloud forests, jungle, alpine tundra and Inca archaeological sites before you’re rewarded with the majestic sight of Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate.
Introducing: Team Wayki
We booked the tour with Wayki trek, and they invited us in for a briefing a few days before departure. This was in order to meet the rest of the group and to get briefed on the plan for the days to come. Our group of seven consisted of Phil & Sarah from UK/Ireland, Freya & Manuel from Australia, us and José, our guide.
And then there were the porters. Most of them were farmers, and their job was to carry our tents, sleeping bags, food, clothes and such (up to 20kg each). During the day, they race ahead to the campsite and make everything ready before the group arrive, then cook and serve three-course menus. These guys are pros – do not try to race them, because you will fail. Miserably. They literally blazed right past me each time I was leaning against a mountain side gasping for air and a defibrillator.
Read more about prices and my review of Wayki trek here.
Day 1
Day one started bright and early at 6am. We got picked up at 7am, drove 1,5 hours to the porters’ village in the mountains and had breakfast. After that we went to the village of Ollantaytambo at 2.750 meters to buy supplies – water, plastic ponchos, snacks and such. We then started with a five-hour push towards the Wayllabamba campsite where we'd break for lunch at 2.950 meters.
