Around 1995 or 1996, the Inca Trail was a very different world.
There were no porter regulations.No weight limits.No minimum number of porters required for a group.No real protections at all.
Most travel agencies tried to operate with the smallest possible number of porters, which meant the men carrying the equipment were often overloaded far beyond what anyone today would consider acceptable.
Fifty kilograms would probably be an understatement.
Back then, tourists usually walked faster than the porters themselves.
It was simply another era.
Every trek began in Urubamba, where the tourist bus would stop so I — the guide — could select the porters for the expedition.
There were always so many of them waiting for work.
Thirty.Forty.Sometimes more.
All raising their hands at the same time:“Take me.”“I want to work.”“Please, guide.”
Most came from humble farming communities.Poor men wearing simple rubber sandals, dusty clothes, tired faces, and hopeful eyes.
There were tall ones, short ones, skinny ones, heavy ones.
And because I already knew the loads would be extremely heavy, I usually selected the men who looked physically stronger.
One day, two of them proudly told me:“We just finished military service. We’re soldiers.”
I thought:Perfect.These men must be strong.
So I hired them.
Big mistake.
Only one hour into the trek, both men were completely exhausted.
I looked at them in disbelief.“What happened? You’re soldiers. Commandos!”
One of them answered, breathing heavily:“Yes… but we’ve never carried weight like this before.”
There was no alternative.We had to continue.
So I moved ahead with the tourists while the porters struggled behind us under the burning sun.
They barely managed to reach the first lunch stop — and honestly, the first day of the Inca Trail is relatively easy for almost anyone who can simply walk.
But the heat and the weight destroyed them.
That afternoon, they disappeared.
When I finally arrived at camp later that evening with the slowest tourists in my group, the cook approached me nervously:“Boss… the two soldiers are gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“They never arrived.”
At first, I thought maybe they had somehow passed us on the trail.
Then I thought perhaps they were still far behind.
I left my backpack at camp and ran back down the trail searching for them in the darkness.
Nothing.
By then it was already eight or nine at night.
The tourists were hungry.
And the missing porters were carrying a large part of the food supplies.
Back then, the Inca Trail was not commercialized the way it is today.The local shops were tiny and poorly supplied.You could maybe find potatoes, sugar, canned tuna… and not much else.
By ten at night, desperation had fully arrived.
I had a group of exhausted tourists with almost no food left.
We did whatever we could.
A local family eventually helped us with a chicken, and together with the cook we prepared a late-night soup with potatoes and whatever noodles we could find.
But not everyone waited.
Some tourists came to me around ten-thirty and said:“José… do you at least have some fruit? We’re too tired to wait for dinner.”
We found a few apples, cut them into pieces, and gave what little we had.
Half the group went to sleep hungry.The other half stayed awake for the midnight soup.
That night, I had no choice but to be honest with the group.
I explained the situation:the missing porters,the lost food,the uncertainty.
“And what are we going to do now?” someone asked.
The truth was:I didn’t know.
The next morning, we improvised breakfast with potatoes, yucca, and whatever ingredients we could gather from nearby families.
I explained to everyone that the next few days would probably be difficult.
And somehow, little by little, we survived.
Near Huayllabamba, we found a small fish farm where we managed to buy tiny trout and a few vegetables.
Other trekking groups sold us extra pasta and soup ingredients.
The tourists received the best portions.The porters, the cook, and I mostly survived on boiled potatoes with salt.
And somehow…we kept moving forward.
It was a hard trek.
A difficult trek.
A hungry trek.
I think it was difficult for everyone:for me, for the tourists, and certainly for the porters.
I will not complain about the sleeping conditions because, back then, we were already used to sleeping outdoors and improvising our way through difficult situations.
Throughout the journey, I tried my best to keep the group’s morale high.
. I told stories about the Incas.Stories about the mountains.Ghost stories from the Andes.
Some travelers understood the situation very well.They embraced the adventure, laughed with us, and in the end we even celebrated together back in Cusco.
Others complained about everything:the food,the lack of service,the discomfort.
Some even requested refunds.
And honestly, as you can probably imagine, the guide received no payment at all.
I worked for free.
But that no longer matters.
What truly remained was the lesson.
That experience taught me something important:when choosing porters, strength alone is not enough.
Experience matters.Mountain experience matters.The trail itself teaches who can truly endure it.
It became one of those treks that never completely leaves your memory.
Now, when I think about it years later, all I can do is laugh.
Because somehow, despite the hunger, the chaos, the missing food, and the impossible circumstances…
we still made it through the mountains together.
And whenever I see modern trekking groups crossing the Andes today — with organized logistics, proper porter regulations, fair weight limits, and better working conditions — I quietly smile.
Because I remember the wild years of the old Inca Trail
“Every step through the Andes tells a story older than time.”
