Day 5 “Looking back is sometimes better than looking forward”

After our first wet cold night in the Peruvian Andes, we were awoken quite early by one of the porters presenting at our tent a selection of hot teas and of course the local delicacy coco leaves. In keeping with tradition we chose the coco tea. It was these small gestures that made the whole experience with Andean life so enjoyable. Although it had been quite damp the previous night, the sun was out and the scenery spectacular .Today by all accounts was fore warned to be the hardest day of the trail and it certainly delivered. Breakfast was excellent and another surprise ... Can you believe crepes with fresh fruit?? After breakfast it was pack up and get ready for the long day, but not before a formal introduction to our hard working kindly porters. They ranged in age from 18 to 46 and as said before and I am sure I will again they gained our respect more and more each day. After all the formalities is was off on the trail again. The early morning was a steep but very pleasurable assent though a green forest that sheltered us from the sun and a meadow known as Llulluchapampa... Streams of water flowed across the path almost every 500 yards it seemed. It was at this point and at many times thereafter that I realized that sometimes looking back is better than looking forward. When climbing for so long you sometimes become so focused on what is immediately in front of you that you can miss so much what is behind you and many times the view is better in addition to the awe that can sweep over you as you really appreciate what you have already accomplished. We stopped periodically at the few points along the trail where toilets had been built and it was at one of these stops that it was brought to our attention by some of the girls that one of the porters from another group was taking pictures of them while relieving themselves. Kind of funny I suppose and at first no one really wanted to deal with it, not the guides for sure, but by the end of the day it had become so bad that our porters took matters into their own hands and confronted him. He of course denied it and was visibly shaken, but it was enough for him to be thrown out of his camp. Back on the trail we began to leave the forest and continued up to the trails highest peak or the legendary Dead Woman’s path @ 14500 ft or so. It was hard and although the altitude never made me sick it certainly slowed me down in this regard, especially the last hour of the climb. I had to rest every 100 yards or so on the last leg. Getting to the top was certainly a feeling of accomplishment, and a comfort to know you had completed the most difficult section of the trail. It was all down hill from there LOL ask Elsa ;) From the morning camp I swear we hit just about every climate imaginable to this point. We were so high our heads were literally in the clouds. An early morning cool walk in the forest, followed by scorching heat where I stripped down to my shorts, then the daily rain, and finally freezing cold at the top of the pass. I swear just an hour earlier I was sweaty and hot to now freezing wishing I had taken my woolen sweater. The decent from the pass was quite steep (when was it not I guess) but a long hike fore sure. What goes up must come down and this was the part of the trail which gave Elsa the most difficulty, but she was a trooper and was in no way ever going to give up. At the valley floor most of the other tours setup camp for the night even though it was just lunch time, but I guess they figured they had pushed their groups hard enough. NOT us we ate and went back on the trail. Being at the bottom of the valley floor we of course had to go straight up again. The assent this time was almost equally brutal as the one before, but the views were fantastic. I had a theory that even if the Spaniards had found this trail the paths were so steep and narrow, that a small group of Indians could have literally held off an army with enough rocks to throw. We passed the ruins of Runkuracay which has an awe-inspiring view of the valley. At this point of the trail the paving now becomes for the most part original, up until now the path had been rebuilt or “built” to make certain parts safer. Again being at the top there is always another steep decline to look forward to. As most of the other groups decided to stay further back for the night, and with Elsa’s knee slowing us down we had the good fortune of having long stretches of the trail to ourselves and it truly was a beautiful stroll as we passed the ruins of Sayacmarca and to our campsite at the edge of the cloud forest. This was probably the prettiest campsite and again we were greeted to an exquisite meal and then straight to bed, a truly exhausting but rewarding day.
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Inca_trail Day 2