Uncovering the Inca Trail with Guido Huaman Serrano

LANDED Podcast 029

Uncovering New Sections of the Inca Trail with Guido Huaman Serrano

Ghetto Huaman Serrano is a native of Cusco, and a natural as a guide. He’s been scrambling around the Peruvian Andes for decades, leading expeditions on through the Sacred Valley and along remote stretches of the Inca Trail.

Recently, I organized a “black diamond” hiking trip with some friends I’ve known for years—likeminded men who, like me, needed some time to think. We needed a pause from our full plates of adult responsibilities to process questions of fatherhood, marriage, faith, and our careers. That route took us from Cusco to Machu Picchu through sections of trail none of us had explored before.

For that special trip, Guido was our handpicked guide. Guido helped us dig deeper into a landscape and a culture that I thought I already knew. Along the way, he dexterously stepped us through history, geology, cosmology, botany, ecology, and ornithology.

He’s one of those rare guides who, producing a handmade flute from thin air, can pipe an impromptu folk song that actually improves the moment. He’s organized, good humored, prepared, experienced, and unflappable. Need drinking water on a section of trail without any? He’ll find a way.

Guido and I talked throughout our journey, and I’ve compiled some of those daily conservations here for you.

“(This trip) has meant a lot of things. I think maybe mostly, gratitude. Just thinking about what we are blessed with. I think we were blessed in many ways (…). I definitely feel gratitude for both this world that’s been created and the opportunity to learn of other cultures and share that with the world.”