Woke up to a
little bustling about outside my tent. The porters were up and going,
and they woke us up with a hot cup of coca tea. I put in my contacts
without a mirror (rare and sort of difficult). Half the porters were
staring at me doing it. Must be something sort of new for them to
see. I had actually woken up a bit earlier because it was raining and
I thought we might have to start our hike in the rain. It stopped
before we left, so all good....We set off and had quite a difficult
uphill hike for the first 4 hours. Halfway up it did start to rain
again, so we stopped off, put on our rain gear and had a snack. It
wasn't raining too hard but was a nice steady rain, it was kinda
nice. I like rain though. We kept on. The hike up was difficult,
climbed a lot of elevation quickly, and the oxygen is low b/c of the
altitude, so I'd walk up about 30 steps and have to stop for a
minute, and I was already going pretty slowly, taking like ½ steps.
We finally got up to Dead Woman's Pass, the highest point of our
hike, nearly 14000 feet. I treated myself to one of my Clif bars. The
hike up was mostly rainforest type terrain, as opposed to Day 1,
which was high desert-ish.
The way down
wasn't any easier, really. The weather all day was cloudy, foggy and
misty, but it was breathtaking views of the valleys with the clouds
rolling through and the sun peeking in every now and then. On the way
down, it was hundreds of stone steps, each one giving your knees a
jar and having you concentrate on each rock you're about to step on
so as not to fall. At the bottom, camp was set up and we were ready
for lunch. There has been Robert and Valerie, who are much older and
slower in our group, and this morning they left an hour before the
rest of us to try and offset this. We passed them about ½ way up the
hill, and they arrived about 1.5 hours after us at the lunch spot.
Many of us were worried at this pace that they may not make it to
night camp before dark, which would suck. We had another delicious
meal and laid around the campsite. There was a beautiful waterfall
right behind us and a mist covered valley in front of us, and a
creek/waterfall going right through camp.
Forgot one thing,
the poop I had to take this morning! May beat the record for worst
place ever. It was a hole in the ground with a ceramic urinal of
sorts, the floor was wet with mud/poop and super smelly, and I had to
hover poop at about 430 am, great way to wake up though! Anyway...We
left lunch camp and did another uphill climb, difficult, but not too
crazy. At the top, there was a great view. I took a video and a
panoramic photo set. We all climbed up a bit extra to take pictures
of each other and had a good time. It hailed a little bit, just BB
sized, but we all threw on our rain gear again anyway. It was almost
like a fire drill, we all were geared up in about 20 seconds. After
that, another big descent, steep and a bit slippery, but not as tough
as the previous one. There were a couple of cool Inca ruin sites, and
our guide, Marco, told us all about Inca history, culture and other
good information. On the way down, we got to look around a larger
Inca site, but didn't really get a tour of it. It was very impressive
though. Many rooms, windows, terraces, all stone. What looked like
ladders, bathrooms, waterfalls, rooms with tables, lookouts and all
sorts of cool stuff. By far the biggest ruin we've seen yet. After
that, a very short downhill hike through the rainforest as the sun is
going down. Back to camp for the night. We had hot water waiting for
us, the porters boiled it and set it in little tubs for you to wash
up. I washed all my parts that needed washing, changed into my “Pjs”,
which consisted of a base layer, fleece, thermal leggings,
sweatpants, and fresh socks. I watched the sun go down and it was
awesome. The clouds opened up a bit, and there was a giant “U” of
huge, fluffy clouds as the colors slowly changed, it was magnificent.
Then happy hour with tea, popcorn, and crab rangoons without the
crab. Then a little talking and story time about the Inca, then
dinner. Rice, zucchini, potato cakes, sliders, corn soup, chicken
roulade and strawberry torte for dessert. The usual mint tea and a
story from Marco.
He told us why
the company is called Llama Path. The llamas were indigenous to the
area and when the Inca came to build the trail, they basically
followed the llamas to know where to put the path. 45 km of huge
stone walkways. The llamas showed them the best places to build. We
outside the tent and looked at the stars for awhile. One of the best
stargazing places I've ever been. The southern cross, scorpion, and
the whole milky way, space cloud/dust as well, all clearly visible. I
called it a night after that, Mark talked with Alex and Branwen for
awhile and then joined me in the tent.
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