Please rate your tour operator from 1-5, where 5 is the best rating: 4

How much did you pay the tour operator for your hike?: 390

Website of Tour Operator: http://www.waykitrek.net/

We chose Wayki Trek because they are indigenously owned and also because they had an added experience where we could stay in the village of one of the porters. We like to meet the locals so the chance to spend time in the village was a real draw for us.

The Booking

We found from looking at many different companies that it isn’t usually possible to simply pay a deposit or the cost of the trip with a credit card. That is a real drawback in our opinion as we found it necessary to wire money to the company. Didn’t like paying the additional fee, but had no choice.
It would be nice if PayPal were a possibility. The other problem was that we would have to pay the reminder of the cost when we arrived in Peru, which meant that we would be carrying around a significant amount of cash – or would have to find an ATM and pay yet another fee. (We now have a debit card that doesn’t charge fees for using foreign ATM’s if they are a member of the same network.)

We found the company responsive to our questions and their response time was good as well.

First Meeting

When we arrived in Cusco, we met with the tour operator as requested. This meeting was at a most inconvenient time and basically meant that our last day before our village experience was cut up so that we really couldn’t do anything. Not wanting to return to our hotel because of time constraints, we brought what we needed for the hike with us.

We met our guide and met another couple in our group at the orientation where we went over the each day’s hike and high points. A few hours later, we were on our way to the village for our experience.

The Village Experience

We took a collectivo-style van from Cusco along with our guide. The van was packed to the brim with residents of outlying villages. On the way to our village, we stopped to buy rice and beans for our hosts. Unfortunately, it started to rain, which really did impact our experience, part of which consisted of assisting the hosts with their farm chores. It was far too muddy for that.

Knowing that our experience would be rustic, we prepared ourselves for less than luxurious accommodations. We knew that we would be sleeping in a tent. However, we did not realize that there was NO toilet in the entire village and would simply have to find a spot as our toilet. Hygiene standards are poor to non-existent. The philosophy was that the rain would wash excrement away. We never saw anybody wash his or her hands.

Our hosts were friendly and accommodating. We don’t speak Quechua and our Spanish is virtually nonexistent, but our guide accompanied us and acted as translator. Our experience was unforgettable.
We ate cuy, drank the homemade hooch and used the world’s largest bathroom.

We slept in our tent within kicking distance of the donkeys and did worry that we might suffer intestinal distress because of the lack of hygienic standards and the change in diet. This would not be pleasant for the hike. Fortunately, our intestinal fortitude prevailed and we suffered no detrimental side effects.

The Big Day

The rest of our group picked us up in the village on the way to Ollytantambo. There we stocked up on last minute supplies and used a regular toilet. We continued in the van to Kilometer 82, where we organized the packs. We had hired half a porter to carry our additional items and one of us carried our own pack with rain gear, toilet paper, snacks and photographic equipment.

The Guide

Our guide was young and very knowledgeable. Our group having two couples and one single was a small group. We were the age of the parents of the other three members of the group. We stopped and shot video and lots of photos and at some times our guide seemed to be rushing us along and somewhat annoyed that we stopped for photos so often.

The Porters

The porters work very hard and have the strength of oxen. They always had our tents and washbasins set up and the meals that they cooked were excellent. We can’t say enough about the service that they provided us. It’s probably not the nicest comment, but the porters do cover the trail at a fast pace. It would be nice if they had the chance to bathe or had enough extra space in their packs to carry a change of clothes.

The Equipment

The two of us slept in a 3-person dome tent with a vestibule. The tent was clean and provided adequate protection during some rainy periods. The sleeping bags and pads that were provided were also clean and comfortable. A separate large tent was set up at each meal with table and chairs.

The Negative

The one thing that we were really disappointed in is that the website said, and still says that there is a toilet tent. During our research, several hikers suggested going with a company that had its own toilet tent so that was another consideration for choosing Wayki Trek. When we commented after the trip that there was no toilet tent, we were told that they are no longer permitted on the trail and that it wasn’t the fault of Wayki Trek. Of course, they don’t make the IT rules, but they should not falsely advertise.

Another point of concern was that some of us wanted to climb Huana Picchu when we got to Machu Picchu. That has a limit to the number of hikers, so we asked our guide the first day who assured us that it would be no problem for us to get tickets. Well, that wasn’t the case, when we arrived at Machu Picchu, we were unable to climb that. If this is something that you want to do, it seems like it would be best to try to arrange it before hand or to stay an extra day in Aquas Calientes, which we would have done had we had it to do all over again.

This post was submitted by Tess.