Best trekking company for Machu (non-classic 4 day)

We just completed Salcantay with a company called Chaski Ventura. info@chaskiventura.com

They were awesome. The trek was great. Highly recommended. Tell them Matt Kelley said to call.

And enjoy!

jc,
go to www.andeantravelweb.com. They have listings & website links of all the inca trail tour operators. Most, if not all, of these also lead the alternative treks to Machu Picchu.

there are soooooo many agencies, how can they all be booked? I will have to look in my journal to see which one I used, If you really want me to I will. Just let me know. Also just wait until you get there. I remember that we stayed in San Blas Hostel , which was great, clean and very nice people, we were able to book our trip right then and there, it was around 100 us dollars a person, which included tents, food, someone to carry our bigger packs and entry into the ruins(4 days to arrive) oh ya it also inicluded a full peruvian dinner on the last night.

#3, not the agencies are all booked, the permits for the classical Inca Trail are all booked up for the coming months.

JC, how can you figure out how to post a new post, but not how to read the questions asked over the last week? Your exact question had been asked and answered numerous times over the past days. And every time it included a referral to the Inca Trail FAQ thread which also has posts about alternative treks.
I wonder how much longer before the Salkantay trek also becomes so popular that it gets booked up months in advance....

hello
i did a while ago the trail wioth an belgian / peruvian travelagency peruplanet www.peru-planet.net</a><BR>they did a great job !a lot of information , great guide and food , but i think you already to late for the incatrail , on the official incatrail website INC i saw that the trail is already ful till 1 september
The other options are salkantay and lares , i hear both are also good treks but a bit harder
enjoy beautiful peru !

Just another good experience with Chaski Ventura:

There is always an enormous amount of talk about trekking in Peru, and for good reason! It is beautiful! I just wanted to share my experience with trekking last August (2008). Like many people, I was all caught up with wanting to take the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, but then I found all the slots were sold out (big surprise). Anyways, I started looking for some other treks (Salkantay etc), but ended up going on a totally different route (as suggested by someone on this forum).

Two of my friends and I took a trek from a company (Chaski Ventura) called "The Last Secret of the Ayllus (farmers)" which goes through the arid highlands instead of the more forested area around Machu Picchu. We had an amazing time, and our guide (Ricardo) was a native to the highlands, spoke Quechua [so he could communicate with the locals for us], descended from the Inca people, and was a wealth of knowledge about EVERYthing up there (farming, ruins, aqueducts, astrology, Incan/Peruvian history). We had a great time on the 5 day trip, and at the end of the trip we hiked down into a town [Urubamba] and took a train straight to Machu Picchu (well actually Aguas Callientes, but you get the idea). The whole trip we only saw 3 other non-native people on another trek, a stark contrast from the zoo on the Inca trail.

Really the only disadvantage this trip had to the Inca Trail was that it did not land you at Machu Picchu (and I know that is important to some people), but we had a great time. Consider it, and have fun.

If you are interested, I have some pictures of the trek on my website at www.NomadicPhotographic.com