The short answer to this question is: in my opinion, probably yes to some degree - or at least, some people probably knew about both places - however, this cannot be proven.

Trade networks in pre-Columbian America are primarily reconstructed through a combination of historical evidence: documents produced by the Spanish on their arrival, and, more importantly, archeological evidence. Archeological evidence proves without a doubt how far goods traveled, but cannot tell us how far people traveled. After all, an object that is traded fifteen or twenty times or more might cover hundreds and hundreds of miles, without anyone going further than the next village over. Documentary evidence can help us piece together the human stories that go along with the objects.

The Inca empire extended well into southern Colombia, with the northernmost major imperial center at Quito. Within the empire, the Inca regularly moved goods and people around through trade, much of which was state controlled, along an extensive road system. Information moved rapidly through the use of runners, while goods moved more slowly by llama. The workings of the Inca economy are still debated, but my understanding is that trade for the Inca was not really reliant on markets or currency, but rather was done primarily through either moving goods which were bartered or, especially at the height of the empire, expropriated and distributed by the state, as well as moving labor. The Inca had a system of mobile labor that essentially, to simplify the matter a little, allowed people to pay their taxes by traveling and working someplace other than in their own home village.

In modern day Ecuador and Colombia, societies were set up a little differently. Most human communities were organized into chiefdoms of varying sizes. These chiefdoms were politically and economically complex, hierarchical, and stratified, and one of the key ways that elites came to control wealth was through control over medium and long distance trade. Generally speaking, basic goods like food will only be transported over short distances, while luxury goods, which are generally both less bulky and more valuable, will be traded much further. In these societies, a class of traders moved through a web of relationships that stretched down into Peru and north well into Central America.

Finally, what about Aztec trade? Here, as in northern South America, a specialized class of long-distance traders, pochteca, controlled the trade and distribution of goods through markets, much as in modern economies. Major trade routes stretched through Mesoamerica and Central America, and different urban markets even specialized in different kinds of trade goods. The trade with central America was particularly important, particularly cocoa grown on the Pacific plain of central America. Throughout Central America, Nahuatl (the language of the Mexica) was used as a lingua franca in trade, and as far south as Costa Rica there were Nahuatl enclaves of Central Mexican traders, some of which were under the direct political control of the Aztec.

So here we’ve seen three systems of trade, each of which heavily overlaps the other. The Aztec Empire trades intensively with Central America and the Inca Empire controls Southern Ecuador. Between the two, the chiefdoms of what is today Colombia have their own trade specialists who trade with both Central America and Peru.

So the question that remains is, what did the Inca know about the Aztec, and what did the Aztec know about the Inca? The short answer is: we can’t ever know because the Aztec’s books were largely destroyed, and the Inca did not have a written language. However, we can say that if some people had some idea about the other empire, it was not important or widespread knowledge, and it did not have any cultural or political impact. The Inca rulers and Aztec rulers did not perceive of their world as one that incorporated another large empire.

That said, it is entirely possible that some people had been to both places. Furthermore, an ambitious trader from northern South America may well have met Nahuatl traders in Central America and Inca traders in southern Colombia with frequency. Some confirmation for this thesis is that Colombia is how far south Spanish conquistadors had to travel before they learned about the wealth and power of the Inca empire, and Columbian trade with Central America, where Nahuatl traders were well established, is also clearly seen in the archeological evidence.

Now, on very thin ice, historically, I personally feel that some people from Peru and Mexico probably moved through both of these networks, whether from wanderlust, chasing profit, or just running away from something or someone. I would venture that there were at least some people in both places who had been to the other empire, if not necessarily to its heart. But this is ultimately only speculation, not sound historical argument. In the end, it is impossible to know how much the government understood of the empires to their north and south respectively (though probably not much if anything), versus how much a wealthy trader knew, versus how much a sailor who traveled through trade networks knew, versus how much an ordinary person on the street knew (again, probably nothing).

There is one final complicating factor. There is some fairly persuasive evidence for cultural exchange between the Northern Andes and Western Mexico. Most of this evidence is based on the similarity of some cultural practices and material culture. There was extensive maritime trade on the Pacific Coast, with balsa rafts that could carry up to 150 people seen by the Spanish – people often seem to assume that Native Americans did not have good maritime technology, but this is a major error. Yes, they did not have ocean-going vessels like the Spanish, and they could not have crossed the Atlantic, but large trade canoes could hold dozens and dozens of people comfortably, and sophisticated rafts even more.

Based on these two pieces of evidence, some scholars have convincingly hypothesized that maritime trade stretched from Peru to central Mexico, and that there was enough exchange for cultural ideas to be transmitted, which would argue for a cultural connection of some kind between the two regions. Again, however, this does not really tell us what the governments of each empire knew about the other.

Sources that directly relate to your question: Rebecca Storey “The Pre-Columbian Economy.” Prepared for delivery at the 2001 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, D. C., September 6-8, 2001.

Roger Blench, “Two Vanished African Maritime Traditions and a Parallel from South America” African Archeological Review, Sept. 2012, Vol. 29 No. 2-3, pp. 273-292.

Edit: missed a source: Patricia Anawalt, Ancient Cultural Contact between Ecuador, West Mexico, and the American Southwest. Latin American Antiquity, Vol.3, No. 2, 1992

Other sources I used to answer the question:

Frank Salomon, Native lords of Quito in the age of the Incas: the political economy of north Andean chiefdoms (1986)

Murdo MacLeod, Spanish Central America; a socioeconomic history, 1520-1720 (Berkeley, 1973)

There is always room for discussion, but perhaps the section Pre-Columbian Trade and Contact from our FAQ will answer your inquiry.