4-Day Inca Trail Hike to Machu Picchu

This day starts really early in the morning. Your porters will wake you up with a hot cup of cocoa tea to get ready with your belongings before enjoying a big and delicious breakfast for the trek. However, you need to know that it’s going to be the longest day of the entire trek.

We’ll hike for about 4 hours until arriving at the first highest pass on the trek: Dead Woman’s Pass (4 205 m / 13 796 ft). We’ll stop here for a short time to take epic pictures and enjoy the striking scenery of two valleys called Pacaymayo and Cusichaca.

We’ll start to descend for around 2 hours until Pacaymayo, where our buffet lunch is already waiting for us. After lunch, we’ll continue walking to visit the next archaeological site located halfway to the second pass, Runkuraqay (4 125 m / 13 901 ft). Then, we start the downhill for 2 hours until we reach our next campsite, and of course, we’ll visit a couple of archeological sites on the way down, such as Sayacmarca and Conchamarka.

We’re going to stop for a quick explanation and rest along some Inca towns with the sunset over the Vilcabamba mountain range in the background. It’s then just 25 more minutes of walking to Chaquicocha, which means dry lake (3 600m / 12 132 ft.). Don’t forget that when you arrive at the campsite, your tent will be ready with hot water in bowls to clean yourself.

We’ll have our end-of-day two happy hour with some hot drinks and something to eat while chatting about our experiences of the hike so far. After that, it’s time for a buffet dinner, and if you are not too tired yet, we can stargaze and talk a little bit about Inca constellations. The campground is so far away from artificial lighting, making it ideal for stargazing.

After sleeping like a baby, thanks to climbing the 2 highest passes the day before, we’ll wake you up at 6:00 am with a hot cup of cocoa tea. You have the chance to enjoy the unmissable views of the beginning of the high jungle while organizing your belongings at the same time.

While your breakfast is prepared by your professional chef, well before starting the trek,  we´ll enjoy our delicious breakfast just for champs (yourself included). After this, it’s time to start our third-day trek with some stunning views of the Cloud Forest. It’s a bit different than the first and second days as this section will be more gentle and flat. 

Enjoy walking through a couple of tunnels created by the Incas for 2 hours, and eventually, we’ll arrive at this fantastic place called Phuyupatamarca, an astronomical Inca site (3 600 m / 10 826 ft.). This is where we start our downhill walk for about 3 to 4 hours to arrive at our lunch spot and campsite.

The campsite is known as a Wiñay Wayna (forever young) and is the most spectacular Inca site of the trek after Machu Picchu. Many people call it the “baby Machu Picchu” because it’s so beautiful, and the locations make you wonder how and why these people were even built here.

Before arriving at the third campsite,  we’ll visit a couple of sites, including Phuyupatamarca (a town in the clouds) and Inti Pata (terraces for the sun). Then we’ll arrive at our lunch spot and campsite around 1 pm roughly.

Note that you have time to relax and recharge your energy for the following day, which is the most important day of the trek. But at the same time, you’ll have the time to ask as many questions as you want about the local culture, nature, history, and politics, or simply just relax as you want.

As we did the days before without exception, this day, we’re going to spoil you with one unforgettable feast shared with our porters and chefs. It’s also part of the tradition (happy hour) to do a small event in the evening to introduce everyone again, as we did on the first day. It’s also an opportunity to say thanks to the guides and staff, and if you wish, you can give them a tip during this small ceremony.

Then we recommend going to bed early because the following day, we’ll wake you up really early in the morning to watch the sunrise over the Machu Picchu ruins.

As we’ve mentioned already, we’re going to wake you up super early at 3:30 am. Before leaving the campsite, you’ll enjoy breakfast at 4:00 am. Then, wait at the checkpoint to be one of the first to start the trek to make it to the gate at 5:30 am.

After we pass the checkpoint, we’re going to walk for around 1 hour and 30 minutes until we arrive at the sun gate, from where we’ll see one of the new seven wonders (Machu Picchu).  Surrounded by beautiful mountains, remember that we’ll just have one hour to visit, touch, and feel this fascinating building.

There will be a two-hour tour roughly with the same tour guide for everyone. If you want to visit by yourself, you can couple up. But before this, your tour guide will provide your bus ticket for Aguas Calientes town. This is the small town from where you´re going to meet your tour guide, who will give you train tickets and explain how to take the train back to Cusco.

If you´d like to climb up to Huayna Picchu Mountain, it takes around 50 minutes to reach the summit. From here, you can see Machu Picchu and have a once-in-a-lifetime moment since the scenery is so surreal. But if you want to hike to this mountain, just let us know in advance (the cost is $65).