Heavy load for porters on the Inca Trail

Unlike porters with other agencies, Victor didn't have a water bottle and his dry, cracked toes jutted out from the end of worn-down sandals, covered in dust from the trail.

Jorge Villasante, Peru's vice labor minister, acknowledges that enforcing the 2003 law is a problem.

The Labor Ministry's inspections of the trail in June of 2007 found that some 80 percent of tour agencies were violating the law — their porters had overloaded packs, inadequate food rations and poor sleeping conditions.

"Every agency reports that they pay their workers the minimum wage, but we know from talking to porters that many receive only $8 or $9," Villasante said in an interview.

But Villasante believes weigh stations at the start of the trail and fines of up to $1,075 for tour operators that violate the law are slowly improving porters' conditions.

Jose Antonio Gongora, 39, founder of Llama Path tour agency, believes it is up to tour operators themselves to improve porters' conditions, rather than relying on what he calls a corrupt and inefficient government.

Gongora started on the trail as a porter in 1992, working his way up the ranks to a guide, before founding his own agency in 2004.

Porters frequently carry 90 pounds because their employer knows workers at the weigh station, Gongora said.

He said the money from fines should be used to help exploited porters.

"Why not force a company that is operating incorrectly to use the fine to buy clothes for all of their porters?" Gongora told me back in the Llama Path office in Cuzco.

Llama Path and SAS Travel were the only agencies I saw on the trail that outfit their porters with matching sport-grade uniforms and hiking boots.

Llama Path porters were also the only ones I spoke to who receive medical insurance. Porter Letona proudly told me that he injured his right foot hiking the trail last year but didn't pay a dime for treatment.

In the past, when they got hurt working for other agencies, the companies would say "See you," Fredy Condori, 31, Llama Path's head porter, said as he displayed his staff's medical insurance forms.

"The food was terrible," Condori said, recalling his past experiences. "In four days we didn't eat much and when we slept on the ground the water seeped through. It was a disaster."

Condori, who is the representative of Llama Path's workers in a 6,000-strong porter union based in Cuzco, said such conditions are still common on the trail.

Llama Path is trying to change that culture and turn the work of a porter into a stable, protected occupation. Gongora and Condori have trained some 85 porters to hike on fixed rotations, bought them medical insurance and worked to improve food rations and sleeping conditions.

"The idea is to humanize the work" and to "provoke change in other agencies," Gongora said.

But such an operational shift isn't easy, or cheap. "It requires a lot of money," Gongora said, adding that Llama Path wasn't able change its operations and improve porter conditions until this year, its fifth.

"For a porter there's no rain, no sun and no cold, so we have to do all we can to provide them with the facilities and conditions they need," Gongora said.

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