Earn your first glimpse of Machu Picchu with just a one-day hike on the Inca Trail | Canada Voices

Only an hour into a one-day trek on the Inca Trail and I’m already doubting myself. The 12 kilometres to Machu Picchu started out flat but I’ve been climbing what feels like an endless set of stairs and switchbacks. Maybe it’s the thinner air – we’re about 2,500 metres above sea level – or the relentless sun or the burning sensation in my lungs with every breath. I don’t know how I’m going to make it six more hours to our destination.

Our guide is a patient Andean woman in her 50s who has done the Inca Trail in Peru hundreds of times. I see her register the struggle on our faces.

How travellers can prepare for a high-altitude adventure

“Breathe in and out of your nose, not your mouth,” she reminded us. “You’ll get less dehydrated that way.”

Hiking to Machu Picchu has long been on my bucket list. That a 600-year-old abandoned town built by the Incans is still standing – one of the seven new wonders of the world as of 2007 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983 – boggles my mind.

But the classic four-day, three-night camping trek, spanning 40 kilometres with brutal inclines, was intimidating. I opted for a one-day hike instead. We still needed permits and a guide, and would walk the same main trail as the multiday trekkers. But my group of eight would take a train most of the way, arriving to hike the last quarter of the Inca Trail.

The trek is part of an eight-day tour led by Intrepid Travel that began in Lima before we flew to Cusco to get used to the altitude for a few days. Cusco is Peru’s largest city in the Andes, sitting at 3,399 metres above sea level. Here, even walking up a dozen steps left me short of breath.

We toured Cusco and learned more about Spanish settler history. We whitewater rafted down the Urubamba River and visited a weaving community in the mountains. We passed several guinea pig restaurants on our travels, some even showcasing rodents being rotisserie-cooked outside, but no one in our group was brave enough to try it.

When our day for hiking arrived, we boarded an Inca Rail train at 7 a.m. from Ollantaytambo and disembarked at what’s called the KM 104 checkpoint. Trail staff verified our passports and permits since the number of daily trekkers is capped, to prevent overcrowding.

The route started easy with a kilometre of flat trail through the rainforest. After an hour, we began to ascend. At first, the exertion felt good, similar to a dopamine high from a run. But that soon turned into exhaustion.

Reaching our stop for lunch after four hours of mostly uphill hiking felt like an incredible and improbable feat. Our guide told us the hardest part was over – the trail would be relatively flat until just before the Sun Gate, another Incan archeological site, where we’d catch our first glimpse of Machu Picchu.

With the terrain mercifully level again, I could properly take in my surroundings. The rainforest valley views, winding around the Urubamba River, never got old for the hours I trekked. This was undoubtedly the most stunning hike I’d ever been on.

Then we reached what our guide called the ‘Oh My God’ steps. The uneven stone climb that felt nearly vertical at times seemed a cruel joke after what we had just endured. I can’t imagine how the Inca Trail’s four-day trekkers would have felt, let alone the Incan messengers of yore who travelled this route as part of a 40,000-kilometre road network spanning from Colombia to Chile.

Machu Picchu looked just as majestic as I imagined, if not more so. We took what felt like hundreds of photos as the sun set behind the mountains – of the site, of ourselves, of each other. We needed photographic proof of our accomplishment. After we were done, a bus took us down to the tourist town of Aguas Calientes where we’d stay the night, followed by a return to Machu Picchu the next morning to properly tour it and learn of its history. (Intrepid arranged for our overnight bags to be sent straight to the hotel so we didn’t have to lug them around on our hike).

That night, I thumbed through my phone’s photo folder to see how my shots turned out. As the day goes on, my appearance becomes decidedly more disheveled, culminating in the ultimate photo bomb at Machu Picchu itself. In several shots, the warm sunlight of golden hour hits my sweat-glistened face, making my wide grin and look of achievement all the more triumphant.

If you go

To do the one-day Inca Trail trek, you must travel with a registered tour operator who will purchase the required trekking permit. You should book at least three months in advance. Tours run year round, except in February.

I travelled with Intrepid Tours, and while it does not offer one-day Inca Trail hikes, it’s part of the itinerary for their seven-day Premium Walking & Hiking in Peru trip, priced at $5,060. However, local tour operators Salkantay Trekking and Quechuas Expeditions book one-day hikes in the range of $600 to $677 a person.

For the trek, pack sunscreen, a hat, bug spray, layers of clothing and lots of water. Intrepid lent us hiking poles and rain ponchos. Bring altitude-sickness medication to help ease symptoms such as headaches, lethargy and nausea.

The writer was a guest of PROMPERU and Intrepid Travel. They did not review or approve the story before publication.