Doing the Salkantay trek independently may be easier than you think. I decided to do this fantastic trek during the rainy season in February. There were a lot of questions in my head about how to do it properly, and only a few answers were available. That’s why I decided to write this blog series to help you.
In this Machu Picchu series, I will share details on how I did the Salkantray trek in five days without a guide. It took me six days to complete the trip, but the fifth day was only for resting. After hiking for four days straight, I decided that one rest day at the hot springs in Aguas Calientes was well deserved.
If you are here, you are also trying to figure out how to do the Salkantay independently. My experience will help you create a clearer idea about this trek. In this article you will find the details of doing the Salkantay trek without a guide on day 5.
This blog post is part of a series about doing the Salkantay trek without a guide. If you are interested to know more details about the other days of this trek, click on the links below:
Table of Contents
Day 5 - Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu
After leaving Aguas Calientes, follow the dirt road until you reach an intersection. The right road leads to Hidroeletrica, and the one on the left leads to the Machu Picchu Archaeological site. Follow the left road for a few minutes until you reach the first checkpoint.
At the first checkpoint, there’s a bridge and a counter with a person to check for your tickets. I booked my tickets for Machu Picchu at the end of day 3 when I was in Llactapata. On that day, there were only two time slots available. I picked up the entrance from 7 am to 8 am.
Once your tickets are verified, you are ready to start the uphill hike to the entrance of Machu Picchu. It’s a very steep hike on the stairs. It lasts for 40-60 minutes, depending on your physical condition.
I found a cute dog at the bridge near the first checkpoint. The dog followed me to the top, at the entrance of Machu Picchu. He was always waiting for me, trying to ensure I was on the right trail. On the way, the trail will cross a dirt road several times. On this road, buses always drive tourists to Machu Picchu.
After reaching the entrance of Machu Picchu, the stairs and the uphill is over. It’s time to check your tickets for the second time. This time, they will ask you to leave bags in the storage and check for some ID/Passport. I left my backpack in storage, but I saw some people carrying bags inside Machu Picchu, so I’m unsure about the rules.
The rainy season
Many people told me they wouldn’t visit Machu Picchu during the rainy season. The reason is the fear of not seeing the site and taking the infamous picture you see everywhere on social media. They were not wrong; it was foggy in the morning, and I couldn’t see anything when I arrived at the site.
For a minute, I was sad because I didn’t even know what to see; a gray mass covered everything. So, my fear of not seeing one of the world’s wonders started eating me. After seeing the faces of people around me, I could see that everybody was thinking about the same thing.
I decided to sit and wait to see what’s coming next. A few minutes later, it started raining, and the water was dropping heavily on me, along with my hope to see Machu Picchu.
Still, I decided to wait more. After 30-40 minutes, the blue sky started to show up, and the clouds moved faster. It was my first time seeing something; my hopes were suddenly up. I was confident that I would see Machu Picchu!!!
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The archaeological site
When the clouds started to move, it was clear to see the archaeological site!! It’s time to start moving and do the tour!! You should know that you can’t go back in the same direction once you start walking on the archaeological site. A group of people’s job is to ensure that nobody is walking back to the top or sitting on the edges of the walls.
The walk is magical and pleasant; you can feel a lot of history there. There’s a special aura in Machu Picchu that I can’t explain with words. I guess it’s the intense energy of the surrounding mountains and the site itself. Many llamas are just chilling near the tiny houses located at the down part of the site.
From the site, you have the option to hike to Huayna Picchu. There’s a counter where they check your tickets so you can start the hike. Since I only did the Machu Picchu tour, I bought the circuits 1 and 2 tickets. It gave me the right to walk on both top and down parts of the archaeological site.
Hiking back to Hidroeletrica
After finishing my tour in Machu Picchu, I planned to hike from the archaeological site to Hidroeletrica and take a colectivo to Cusco. There are several people offering rides for 50 soles per person. During the hike, the police stopped me to say the road was blocked.
A few days before, there was a landslide, a big one. Some people were missing, and others were injured. Workers were cleaning the road, but when I left Aguas Calientes, they didn’t allow me to continue to Hidroeletrica. My only option was to take the train to Ollantaytambo.
I knew the trains from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytambo were costly. They were charging 60 US$ for the ride. I and a group of people didn’t find it fair that now we were forced to buy a train ticket to leave Aguas Calientes, so we went to the municipality.
The Perurail x Municipality Saga
This section is about what happened after I and a group of people went to the municipality of Aguas Calientes. Our goal was to find a solution to leave the town. Since a natural disaster happened, we couldn’t leave the town hiking to Hidroeletrica due to the landslide.
Around 1 PM, we spoke to a representative of the municipality, and she informed us they would talk to PeruRail. Their goal was to find a possible discount for the train ticket. The discount was a fair solution because I wasn’t planning to take the train and contribute to this expensive ride.
Two companies are operating in Aguas Calientes: PeruRail and Inca Rail. After talking to them and asking about the prices of the rides, I saw they range from 45 US$ to 60 US$. The next train for me would cost 60 US$ for a one-hour and 20-minute ride. I didn’t find this to be a fair price.
The final decision
The person from the municipality told us they sent some documents to PeruRail and that we needed to return in an hour for more information. After one hour, I returned there, and they told me that nothing had been solved yet. So the person told me to be patient and return later, around 5 PM.
So I did; around 5 PM, I went there again, and they told me they would put us on a train around 9:50 PM and that the ride would cost 20 US$. However, the person told me to return to the municipality again around 8 PM to confirm the information they had.
I was killing time in a coffee, and around 8 PM, I went to the municipality for the last time. They told me they were sorry but couldn’t do anything. They said that PeruRail refused their appeal to offer the discount to all of us and there was nothing they could do.
So after waiting for more than 8 hours, there was nothing else to do. I had to go to PeruRail and buy the ticket, paying the total price. After leaving an angry review on Google Maps about what happened, PeruRail replied to me saying that no documents were received from the municipality. In the end, I don’t know who is wrong or right in this situation. The municipality should do more to help people in this situation after a natural disaster.
Conclusion
This guide explained how to do the Salkantay trek without a guide on day 5. If you want more details about the other days, click on the links below.
The fifth day was the easiest day of all. If you hike back to Hidroeletrinica, it will add 10 kilometers. Visiting Machu Picchu through the Salkantay Trek was a great decision!! I did one of the best trekking tours(link to chapada trekking) in South America!!
It was a five-day trek, 96 kilometers, facing different weather conditions: warm, chilly, rainy, and sunny. The condition of the trails changed based on the mountains and villages around them. This fact interested me because it made the trek more dynamic.
Machu Picchu is incredible because you can reach it in several ways: If you don’t want to hike, you can take a train to Aguas Calientes and a bus to the archaeological site. However, if you can do the Salkantay, I recommend you not miss this incredible experience!!
This is the end of the Machu Picchu series; you learned how to do the Salkantay Trek in this blog post series. The trek begins in Mollepata and ends in Aguas Calientes, the base for visiting Machu Picchu. If you want to follow my route for this day, here is the link.
Thanks for reading about my adventure and this series!! I would love to know about your experience on this trek and how you plan to do it. Now, it is clear that you can do the Salkantay by yourself at your own pace.
See you on the next adventure!! Bye!!
