Every Salkantay trek has two sets of heroes: the travellers who walk it, and the porters who make the walking possible. Long before the first hiker zips open a tent at 5am, our porters have already boiled water, packed the mess kitchen, and started up the trail with loads most of us would struggle to lift, let alone carry over a 4,600-metre pass.
The people behind the trail
Most of our porters come from Quechua-speaking communities in the high valleys around Mollepata and Soraypampa. Many have walked these routes since childhood, following the same paths their grandparents used to move salt, potatoes and llama wool between villages. What looks to us like a wilderness is, to them, a working landscape rich with names and memory.
Fair weight, fair wages
We cap every porter load, provide proper gear and boots, and pay wages well above the regional minimum. It is not charity. It is the only way a trek can be genuinely sustainable. When you tip at the end of your journey, you are not rewarding a service so much as honouring a partnership.
- Ask their names, and use them.
- Learn a few words of Quechua before you go.
- Share a coca leaf at the pass, the old way, with the mountains.
The Salkantay is a spectacular trail. But years from now, it is the porters, singing softly as they overtake you on the switchbacks, that you will remember most.