My husband and I are thinking of hiking the inca trail sometime far in the future. What do hikers do about water? I know that in South America travellers need to be careful to drink only bottled water. If you take water out of a stream and treat it, is this good enough?

When I hiked the inca trail I bought in a drugstore (in Puno) pills to purify water, so I just filled my bottle with water taken from the little streams on the way and had no stomach problems!

Happy trails!

Porters!

I hiked the Inca Trail with a tour group and the porters boiled the water for 20 minutes.

There is one thing I should add. The last night on the trail at Phuyupatamarca (the City in the Clouds) the water is down a flight of about 100 steps! It flows through a set of Inca "baths".

Thanks to all for answering. Now I've just got to decide whether we're in shape to do this. We've camped at 10,000 ft. before, and hiked to a summit at 13,000 ft. But this journey involves being higher up for a much longer period of time.... I'm surprised that people aren't regularly getting "stuck" out there. But, it sounds like that isn't the case. I suppose you know how you're feeling in Cusco, and then you either decide to go or not.

For the first 2 days on the Inca Trail, you can actually purchase bottled water, juices, gatorade, snacks, etc. from trailside stands along the way. I think the last point to purchase drinks was at the lunch stop before dead woman pass. There's also a snack shop and restaurant at the last campsite. Your guides should be providing you with boiled water for the parts of the trip where you don't have access to bottled water. Just remember to bring small denomination currency for these purchases.

Most people don't really start to feel the affects of altitude until after 10,000 feet, so how you feel in Cusco may not necessarily mean you'll do well at 14,000. If you've been to 13k without many ill affects, you should do o.k. The highest pass is at 13,780 feet. You're not actually at the highest point for extended periods of time. Two nights are spent at around 10k, and one night is at around 11.5k.

What's important is that you already know how your body reacts at that altitude, and if you do sufficient acclimitization, you should do fine.

I recently hiked the Inca Trail. I wrote a trip report for slowtrav.com. Here is a link if you are interested. I talk about how the altitude was for me.
http://www.slowtrav.com/tr/tripreport.asp?tripid=1351

Janet. Your trip report was inspirational. Wow. Thank you for posting it. Gives me some encouragement (although that altitude sickness sounds pretty scary).

Thank you for reading it. The trip was life changing for me. My confidence level has soared in everything I do. Take the trip. you will nt be sorry.

Just because you CAN buy bottled water doesn't mean you should. Very little of that plastic gets recycled. I too bought purification tabs at a Peruvian drugstore (Micropur is the brand name) and they're tasteless--not like iodine tabs. Better still, get this cool Steripen purifier and you're set for any travel situation, no litter required.
http://practicaltravelgear.blogspot....brilliant.html

The porters will boil water at night, but that's not much help if you run out during the day.