Inca Trail

The waiting list for the main Inca Trail in Peru can sometimes be months long. If you can’t wait or, better yet, you see merit in alternative pathways, try the less frequented, local route between Patabamba and Chinchero via the ruins of Huchuy Qosqo. The two-day walk, also in the footsteps of the ancients, is one of the most spectacular short treks in the region and the only one using llamas (not mules) as pack animals. It crosses the windswept altiplano, passes tiny frozen-in-time villages of traditional llama herders and finishes high above the Sacred Valley. If you travel with Chaska Tours, one of the region’s most responsible tour operators, on your third of three days, you still get a guided visit of Machu Picchu.

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Day 3 of hiking the Inca Trail, we climbed through the cloud forest. Stair by stair, we pulled through the white mist, and that night, we were above the clouds. We camped on a flat stretch at the top of a mountain, and everything was below us. Our legs were sore. Some of us dangled our feet and listened to our ipods while the energetic ones played soccer. The ball kept rolling dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. When the sun set, the whole sky turned orange, then pink, then purple. Quickly we were surrounded by darkness and we had to look below us to watch the sun continue its journey downward.

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