Porters work many years without seeing Machu Picchu
It is a myth that porters who work on the 4 day Classic Inca Trail get to enter Machu Picchu while working as a porter on the trail. While tourists enter Machu Picchu on day 4 via the famous sun gate, all porters MUST descend down the mountain from the last campsite and take the train back to Ollantaytambo. In fact, they are not allowed to enter Machu Picchu while on the job. So, most, if not all porters do NOT see Machu Picchu despite working as a porter for 1, 5, 10, 20 or more years.
This is yet another form of discrimination against the porters, most of whom are from Quechua communities. Machu Picchu is intertwined with the heritage and culture of the Quechua people. To bar them and never see their own national tressure deprives them of their own connection to their heritage. To have the rest of the world see Machu Picchu but bar those who have direct historical ties to the place to experience it is illogical and unfair.