Written by: Vidal Jaquehua

On those mountains in Peru, a lot of people get lost easily. I was one of them. I grow up in Cusco and as a child, I played on the trails and in the mountains where I now guide the people.  But I did get lost one time.

I think the first year that I was working as a guide, one company ask me to take a group to Machupicchu on the 4-day Inca trail hike.  I did accept the group of 4, even though this day we had a lot of rain. But up on the trail, there was a lot of snow. So I got the wrangler, the people that was looking for to go to Machupicchu, and some porters.

The regular trail had too much snow so it was impossible for people or the horses to keep on this trail.  We did not have equipment for snow. Well it was on my hands to tell them we have to go back to Cusco.  Happen that if you lead a hike and you go back, there is no refound for the clients, and I did feld sorry for this people to tell them that will not get to Machupicchu because the storm. 

I did ask them if they were ok to take a different trail. So they were jung.  If I am not wrong, one of them was a US Marine. So they accept to go in a different trail. For some reason I thought that I could lead them, so I talk whit the porters and  the horsemen if we could take this other trail that some people were mentioning. Some kind of lost trail.  So we decite to take them, and eventually we were on the lost jungle trail to Machupicchu.

All the other groups that were there this day went back, but we just pack our staff and we keep going. So up to the other side of the Salkantay glacier and then down towards a place call Collpapampa. And from there we lead towards La Playa and from there we went up towards the place call Llacta pata. 

Back then, they were not that many sedlements, so we found this trail easily. But the archaeological site it was cover whit a lot of vegetation.  It was difficult to hike through this place. How ever the people that we took that time were crying because they had to hike twice the distance that they were planning to hike.  At least 12 hours or more each day.   2 and half days we hike in the snow.  The temperature was minus 4 celcius. They were not ready for it so they did some crying.

That time was the first time that I seen it, this lost jungle trail to Machupicchu.  The people took 5 days, not 4 to get to Macchupicchu and they did see the place. I took them to Machupicchu and they were so tired and happy at the same time. Follow this link to continue the story.

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