On the Inca trail you don’t call the people who carry the bags porters, or even sherpas, the correct term is chaski.

The chaskis on our trek were amazing, carrying everything from food to a dining table, to tents, to dishes, etc. Their packs weighed upwards of 40 kilos each and after serving us breakfast each morning they packed up camp and ran ahead of us to set up lunch…then did it all again to have our tents arranged and dinner started when we arrived in the evening. To top this off they (to our embarrassment) cheered for us as we reached camp each day…after they ran there!!!

Other examples of their extreme kindness and generosity include: helping us drag our bags into our tents when we were too tired to move after hiking all day, heading back up the trail to help slower members of the group (most of us who were sick) by offering to carry our daypacks for us, blowing up Amanda’s air mattress at the end of the longest day when we were lucky to be breathing at all, providing stomach soothing tea and jello when 1/3 of the group was trying not to throw up all over the campsite.