Walking The Inca Trail: Part I

In Part I of this series on my Inca Trail experience, I will discuss the history of Peru’s most popular hike, and provide some practical information for would-be Inca Trail-ers. Part II will look at the day by day experience of walking the Inca Trail, culminating in the archaeological wonder of Machu Picchu.

The Inca Trail: A Potted History

The Inca Trail. 43 km (26 miles) in length, from Kilometer 82 or Kilometer 88, all the way to Machu Picchu. It is by far not the fastest or most convenient way to get to Machu Picchu. It’s actually quite a big detour, and takes you up to 4,200m above sea level (Machu Picchu is at 2,430m). But it is a classic hike – the most famous in Peru – and is undoubtedly a magical way to arrive in Hiram Bingham’s ‘lost city‘.

Like Machu Picchu, the Inca Trail would not be as well known today without Hiram Bingham. Because in fact this 43 km stretch is not the Inca Trail, it is an Inca Trail, part of tens of thousands of kilometers of Inca roads, from Colombia and Ecuador to Argentina and Chile. Some of this network still exists, some has been replaced by modern roads, and some has disappeared. This section was very overgrown back when Bingham was doing his exploring, to the point where he took a completely different route to Machu Picchu in 1911.

It was in 1915, on a return trip, that Bingham realised he had found an Inca road leading from the Sacred Valley to Machu Picchu. The purpose of this slightly impractical road has been debated ever since. It’s not a simple path from A to B. Could the difficulty of getting to Machu Picchu by this means make it a sort of pilgrimage route? What does that imply about what sort of place Machu Picchu itself once was? Was the Inca Trail to do with honouring the regions many sacred peaks (apu)?

Bingham’s ‘scientific discovery‘ of Machu Picchu created a sense of mystery and romance around the site, which has fed ever increasing tourism in the century since. Machu Picchu became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983. About 20 years later the Peruvian government began introducing restrictions for the Trail’s protection. Today, with a little forward planning, it remains a popular and inspiring option as part of a trip to Peru.

Preparing Your Inca Trail Hike

Because the Inca Trail is the most famous hike in Peru, you can’t just wander up and start walking. It takes advance planning. To reduce erosion, the Peruvian government allocates a maximum of 500 permits per day. Around 200 of these are for hikers, and the rest are for porters and guides; another of the regulations is that everything must be carried in and out, so the porters take tents, food and other equipment over the trail for every group.

So you need a permit, and you need a guide. By far the easiest way to arrange all of this is to go with an organised group tour. After doing some research, I went with G Adventures, on their Amazon to the Andes option. It was important to me to go with a company who looked after their porters, and I felt this was the case with G Adventures. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that G Adventures seemed to be the only company (or one of the few) employing female guides on their Inca Trail hikes.

Going with a travel company takes all the hassle out of organising an Inca Trail hike. They will buy your permit, get you to the starting point, give you a packing list of what to bring, and guide you through the (typically) four day hike plus a half day at Machu Picchu. They then have all the train tickets and additional transport waiting to get you back to Cusco at the end of your journey. There might be a way to do it outside of the group tour structure, but why would you?

Just make sure you plan well in advance – tickets in the high season sell out early. The Inca Trail is closed completely in February for maintenance. Also check the average weather for your dates: I went in early/mid-May which is the end of the rainy season. We only had 30 minutes of rain while we were hiking so were very lucky!

Is the Inca Trail For Everyone?

Unfortunately it is not. Of our group of 13 who started out together, 11 of us made it to the end. And some found it harder than others. This comes down to a few factors:

1. Fitness. You don’t have to be the fittest person in the world (I’m not). But I did work on my fitness before doing the Inca Trail, with a combination of strength and cardio exercises. I was really glad I did: the hike still wasn’t easy, but I never felt like I couldn’t do it.
2. Altitude. You won’t be able to predict how altitude will impact you ahead of time. With my G Adventures tour I didn’t have a whole lot of time to acclimatise. Just the best part of a day in Cusco, and a day in the Sacred Valley. I was fine, others had headaches or felt unwell in other ways. Some people were taking altitude sickness medication, others weren’t (I didn’t). You could do all the training in the world but be so affected by the altitude that you’re unable to complete the Inca Trail.
3. Equipment. A lot of this is obvious. Break in your hiking boots ahead of time! Bring clothing for different temperatures. Bring plenty of sunscreen because the sun is stronger at high altitude. I brought snacks but I didn’t really need them in addition to what G Adventures gave me. A good tip is that with my phone on flight mode, a single external battery pack was enough to get me through to Machu Picchu. Not related to whether you will complete the hike or not, but still handy!

The rest is about mental fortitude. I found it helped a lot to focus on the unique experience I was having. There are several Inca sites along the trail which you can only visit on foot. There is Patallacta, a settlement destroyed by Manco Inca as he escaped the Spanish. Or Runqurakay, a tambo (resting point) for Inca runners, an efficient system of messengers and couriers over the original road network. My absolute favourite was Wiñay Wayna, a site next to our last campsite which has a sort of amphitheatre of terraces. As much as you are able to, stop and explore the archaeological sites along the Inca Trail. It’s an experience you won’t get again unless you do the whole thing once more.

Is It Worth It?

In my opinion, yes it is! Whether or not the Inca Trail was designed as a pilgrimage experience, it has become a modern pilgrimage. I had wanted to go to Machu Picchu via the Inca Trail for absolutely years, and for me it was worth it. There’s nothing like the sense of accomplishment of getting to Machu Picchu in the early morning, and knowing that you’ve successfully completed the Inca Trail. You can’t help but feel that the tourists who arrived by bus from Aguas Calientes don’t know what they’ve missed out on.

HOWEVER. It’s not for everyone, as I outlined above. If you start out on the Inca Trail and can’t complete it, it quickly becomes expensive. You must be accompanied back to the start, and must cover that guide’s costs as well as additional hotel nights and your transport to get to Machu Picchu. So think carefully before committing. In addition to this, I recommend the experience so highly because I was lucky with the weather. If I had had four days of rain, it would have been a miserable experience and I would have cried my way over the high passes. And as much as I told myself I wouldn’t mind if I got to the Sun Gate on Day 4 and it was too cloudy to see Machu Picchu, I would have been disappointed. These are all things to take into consideration.

But I’ve never had an experience in my life that was as satisfying to my inner archaeologist. I loved being out in stunning Andean landscapes, walking towards an Inca site just over the next ridge. And to end the hike at Machu Picchu certainly felt like a pilgrimage, at least to me.