Inca Trail : Day 2

Inca Trail Hike – Tales of my four day walk to discover Machu Picchu and the incredible Andes.

Ayapata – Dead Woman’s Pass – Pacaymayu – Chaquicocha

• Wake up at 5.30am
• B’fast at 6.00am
• Start Trekking at 6.30am
• Arrive at camp at 6.00pm
• Distance Covered: 12km
• Elevation Change: 3300m – 4250m – 3600m above sea level

Coca Tea

An early rise and shine but it was helped along with the friendly porters giving a smiley ‘Buenas dias senorita’ and offering us a cup of hot coca tea in our tents. (Coca leaves and Coca tea apparently help with altitude sickness and gives you an energy boost. The leaves can be infused into a cup of hot water and/or eaten directly. After chewing for about 5 mins they become moist and a bit gel-like as a liquid slowly produces and this is the liquid that gives your boost. It also numbs your mouth a bit, and that’s when I decided to spit my leaves out. Our friend Mike was chewing leaves the whole time and drinking tea at every stop, no wonder he was such an energiser bunny – not that he needed the coca for energy but he found it a great help in any case.)  Anyway, back to the lovely porters who woke us up at the allocated time offering hot coca tea along with another bowl of hot water to wash our face and hands.  This was to become the morning ritual, and there’s nothing better than a lovely bowl of hot water to wash away the night before and bring you into a new day. 

Buenas dias –  hot tea Miss? ….. Now that’s a nice way to start the day.

Not that I got much sleep really. We were all pretty tired from the early start yesterday and not many of us slept well. I had a little inflatable mattress which I kept rolling off onto the tent floor. No biggie but jut getting used to the confines of a sleeping bag and the natural sounds that come with being 3,300m up in the mountains. The rain also kept me awake. Anyone that knows me well knows that I hate being woken up at night with rain on a tin roof, very un-Australian I know, but I like my sleep. So the sound of rain on a tent was like sleeping next to Niagara falls for me.  I was praying to any soul above who would listen to my request of: ‘rain rain go away come back another day’ preferably not a day that I am hiking. In the end the rain did stop and I think I got a few more than 40 winks. Gracias. 

Take two for the loo!

Another morning, another go at getting the ‘aim’ right at the hole in the ground toilet. Thankfully it was only number 1’s so far today. Although something is definitely brewing. Lord help me. Also worth noting is that Peru is trying to be as eco-friendly as possible, so whether in a hostel or at a hole in the ground, they prefer you not to throw your toilet paper in the toilet or hole. No sir-ee. All toilet paper goes into a bin next to the loo. Seriously. ALL paper despite onsies or twosies. And it doth stinketh.  However, I am in their territory and so I comply. Well except mostly in the mornings when you are not yet awake and your normal way of doing things just happens automatically, and its not until you flush that you realise that you’ve thrown the loo paper down the hole.  Ooops. Must be more awake the rest of the day.

Breakfast: Let the food fest begin

Pancakes with the Peru logo written on top (seriously how good is our cook?) | fruit platter including peeled grapes| flat toasted rolls |oatmeal | Tea/coffee etc.

We came to learn that Elvis lies….. a lot.

So with Elvis’ words from dinner last night telling us that despite the hype of everyone saying that day 2 was the hardest, his sentiment was that at the end of the day people say – it wasn’t that bad. And so we set off with that in mind.  That turned out not to be true… probably a good thing he lies – it keeps us thinking it can’t be that bad. Just like my Kokoda Trek leader who would tell us that it’s just a cheeky little hill to come’. Piffle.

Our aim for the morning was to reach the summit of ‘Dead Woman’s Pass’, the highest point to which we would climb on this whole trek. It’s called Dead Woman’s Pass because the mountain formation looks like a woman lying down, and they say it’s a woman and not a man because down below the face there is what looks like a breast and nipple. So basically the formation of the mountain looks like a woman’s body. For the boys, their aim was now to get to the nipple, just get to the nipple. However – thankfully we didn’t have to climb it… the path stops below it. Probably very wise. 

Another day another million stairs, or so it seemed

The hike up to the pass was to take 4 hours and it did indeed take us that long. It is nothing but uphill the whole morning, really uphill. Fit people may not have a problem with this – it may be just a strain for them, but with the altitude even Mike and Ethan in our group stopped more frequently as we got toward the top. It’s a combination of stone steps, small, large and jagged, and pathways of soil, root systems, stones and anything else they could throw at you. The pathway also is pointed up. The trick to getting up to the top without exerting energy is to zig zag as much as you can on the way up, looking for the smallest part of the stair to climb… (some stairs were really high at one side and low on the other) and others had a rock you could step on that meant the stair above it was only half the height. So you were always looking at the easiest way to take the next step. And then there are some stairs that are just huge, and there’s no way around it but just suck it up, step up and over it. They are a killer for the legs. 

The group kind of broke into two during this time. The three yanks were usually ahead with Elvis, then me in the middle and with Lisa and Con behind me. A few times I was walking on my own between the others, taking my own time and style to climb up. Too slow for the yanks and just a little too fast for Lisa and Con. I didn’t mind though. I was not the best company during this time as I was consistently breathing quite heavily and taking lots of breaks to catch my breath. I was not really able to talk either so I would not have been much company.  Also, I was fluffing alot at this stage, exertion clearly taking it’s toll, so I was very happy that no one was around to hear or smell the results. Well I was out in the middle of nature anyway – and this is a natural part of being a human. Better an empty house than a nasty tenant they say… don’t they? It was good to hear that later in the trek some of the others were honest about their wind movements too, so it wasn’t just me being a freak.

Eh hem… moving on.

The trek continues

Again the scenery was spectacular all the way up, changing and morphing into vistas that make you shake your head at their beauty. I wasn’t really able to walk and look at the same time as you have to be careful where you put your feet, but I had enough stops during the 4 hours that I was able to take in the sheer might of the Andes and it goes without saying that they are just incredible. 

There were a few people along the track that we passed, then they passed us. We seemed to be climbing at the same pace, sometimes not looking or feeling the best, other times going ok. So we all got to know each other with – ‘How you going?’ or ‘Taking a break?’ and this continued all through the day. One man in particular was a gentleman who would have been in his 60’s, tall, dark hair, a German who had lived in Ireland for over 30 years and still sounded very German. He struggled through the whole day and we were constantly crossing him and he us. He seemed to take a liking to Mike who would always say hi as we passed.

In Kokoda I thought my lungs were going to explode every day. Today was equal to that, however in Kokoda we had the inspiration of the Diggers and their stories to push us through and not once did any of us feel sorry for ourselves or think any of it was too hard. I didn’t quite have that here, and so it felt more of a struggle in parts. Also, the fact I did NO training or preparation for this made me curse myself over and over. My penance…. just keep climbing sunshine, just keep climbing… and breathing.

I did feel pins and needles in my hands and forearms at times, perhaps the altitude, but that didn’t last long. I would just stop and rest for a moment when it started and then kept going.

Nearly there

About 400m from the top I caught the Yanks and we climbed together stopping as needed till we were about 50m from the top. Here we waited for Lisa, Con and Elvis so that we could reach the summit together, and we got Lisa to lead the way. 

We finally made it! We got to the top of Dead Woman’s Pass in just under 4 hours. Very happy to have made it but very heavy in the legs. I sat at the first rock I could find to take in the view and enjoy the moment. After a while a wry and cheeky smile crossed my face and I knew I was ok. It’s gorgeous up here, so serene (except for the 50 other groups of people here) and we celebrated by getting our German/Irish friend to take a photo of the group. He was in all sorts by this stage and shaking like a leaf so we had no idea if any of our group photos would turn out. Thankfully mine did.

Then – it was the downhill back end of the day. I am not a fan of downhill at all. I always have a feeling I am going to fall for some reason and it’s always harder on the knees , so the next 3.5 hours was something I was not looking forward to – especially in the wet. 

Downhill slope

Clearly the rains of the night before made the trails slippery, however when you are now walking a deep descent on slippery, jagged stones and rocks, it doesn’t give you a lot of confidence. This was in my mind as you pretty much had to focus on every step you took, and where you also put your walking pole was important in case it slipped and you lost your balance. Again, Ethan and Mike seemed to go ok here. Carli was more like me in being a little cautious, but Lisa, God love her was ok with downhill.  

About 30 mins in I had a fall, my right leg slipped and went under my body and my right arm was right back where I originally slipped. I was stretched out like a ballerina. I was fine though, and Con and Lisa who were travelling behind me gave me a 9/10 for gracefulness. Mustn’t have pointed my toes on the way down and so missed out on the 10/10.  All of us had a fall at some stage, and I had 2 other big slips but not falls. Downhill is hard on the thighs and knees so we just took it easy. Some rocks had water flowing right through and over them so we were walking over mini streams.  Toward the end we were getting tired and not picking up our feet properly which made for small slips but we all recovered. It’s just about going slow at this stage. All was ok.

All this before lunch!

1.5 hours of slow downhill walking later we made it to lunch camp. This was a big morning 5.5 hours and we were only just sitting down to lunch.

Just as we got into camp it started to rain. Hard. To be honest I was so grateful that we had made it to camp and could now just sit in the tent and wait for it to hopefully pass before we set off again. We still had 2 -3 hours to go.

Where we stopped for lunch was a camp site where a number of companies had set up tents for the night. Clearly giving hikers a shorter day after getting to Dead Woman’s pass was the go. At the time we initially thought – lucky buggers – as we had another couple of hours to go, but in the end, if it continued to rain, they had nothing more to do than sit in their tents for the rest of the afternoon. Getting further along for us was good, despite the heavy lifting day so far. 

Sites along the way

Also along the way there were a number of Incan Ruins that we visited and learned about their history. It was good to break up the day. with this. At one of these ruins we ran into a lady called Prue from Melbourne. A 67 yr old woman who was struggling with the hills. I went to see how she was going as it seemed she and the German/Irish gentleman were left behind from their group and had one guide staying back with them. I just told her to take small steps and stop as much as she needed to. She seemed grateful. She trekked 700km’s across Spain last year with her son but said this was the hardest thing she had done in her life. Interestingly enough, on the downhill she seemed to go ok and passed us and we didn’t see her again till camp the next morning. Clearly and thankfully she made it safely.

A couple of hours later we were at a point where Elvis made us stop and look back from whence we had come. We were looking up to where we had been only a short time ago. We were looking back to Dead Woman’s Pass. She seemed so far away now. When Elvis pointed her out to us ‘There she is – Dead Woman’s Pass’….  Lisa’s quick reply was …’That bitch!’ (GOLD!)   I couldn’t agree more.

Lunch

• Entree: Asparagus soup
• Mains: Large potato rockets (like big potato gems) with egg inside  YUM!  | Beef in a great sauce with vegetables | broccoli covered with sauce | salad | vegetarian option | rice
• Dessert: I forget

The Yanks kept saying ‘nom,nom’ when they were eating something they liked. Which is basically – Yum. So I learned some American today.

We continued our descent after lunch – down, down and down. Again, taking care with each step. In the end I was really looking forward to just getting into camp. About 20 mins before camp there was another Incan ruin to discover, however the near vertical steps to go up to visit it were beyond what I could manage. So whilst the three boys RAN up the stairs, yes – they ran, Carli also went up. Lisa and I stayed put. Happy to be on level ground and sitting. 

Then we finally made it to camp – with all the porters clapping us in. 

Our campsite was again in the open with amazing views. Snow capped mountains and waterfalls. The weather changes in a heartbeat here. One moment you are looking at a spectacular view, the next it is covered in with cloud and you can’t see a thing. Again, spectacular views all round us to take our mind off the day and realise exactly where we were and more importantly, what we had just achieved.

Happy hour with the best popcorn EVER, this time we also had a cheese pop tart style thing which had an interesting flavour.

Dinner

• Entree: Quinoa vegetable soup
• Mains: Fried rice came out looking like a cake! | mixed vegies in sauce | sweet potato and fried chicken | spinach and tomato vegetarian roll up’s | Pancake style omelette with Chorizo style sausage
• Dessert: Peach 

We all agreed that today was a hard day, even Mike and Ethan said they found it a little challenging. The climb, the altitude, the downhill. Everything in one day. And a long day – 11.5 hrs. However this means we only have a 1/2 day tomorrow and get to finish after lunch. We are happy that we kept walking and had the long day today. We’re glad it’s over and we made it to camp and can look forward to the rest of the trip being a little easier – apparently. (Please tell me Elvis has not lied again)

Despite the amount of food on, strangely most of us weren’t that hungry. I had been slowly losing my appetite over the day (altitude sickness side effect apparently) or could have been that I was a bit tired and couldn’t be bothered to eat. All of us looked like we could have fallen asleep in our soup around the dinner table this evening. We were all pretty exhausted. 

It was really cold at camp. I slept in my beni and gloves. 

Tomorrow will be a much easier day and I am looking forward to continuing on. Into my tent I go, rug up, curl up and try to sleep. I’m just grateful I got through pretty unscathed today. Mother Nature is amazing and unpredictable but I am so blessed that I get to sleep under her (rather dreary) skies again tonight.

Travel is the best.