Inca Trail Part II

Day 3: The Hardest Day. At 5:30, we were awakened by Ramón, our waiter, who served us our hot coca tea, soothing my sore throat after breathing in the cold air all night. When we opened our tent to receive our tea, stretched out before us was a beautiful, foggy and mysterious valley, not yet touched by the sun - we sat and marveled for a brief few moments before hurrying to pack up our things and get to breakfast. They served us fruit, granola, yogurt, pancakes, hot quinoa to drink, and more tea. I'm certain that quinoa gave me the energy I needed for the touch climb ahead. This day, we hired porters to carry our backpacks - and I'm so glad I did! It remained misty that day, which was perfect for hiking to the first pass at 13,776 ft. My backpack was securely strapped to one of our Inca-blooded porters and then covered with a tarp - so it remained perfectly dry and was waiting for me at our campsite. Let me just say those porters are incredible! Young guys and old, carrying up to 60 pounds on their backs, and just hauling it up the mountain and then running down the other side. We got very used to saying, "A la montaña!" when we heard them coming - which meant to cling to the mountain-side of the trail to let them pass, so they don't knock you off by accident. We started off as a group, but soon the three guides stayed at the back to help anyone that needed it and they sent us ahead at our own pace. Mesha and I stuck together the whole time and found ourselves with three other guys at the front of our group. The climb was pretty steep and the air much thinner up there, but our little group (Guy, Julian, Sam, and us) just stopped as we needed and did a lot of laughing along the way. Before we knew it, we had reached the misty "Dead Woman's Pass," kinda by surprise because we couldn't see it through the clouds until we arrived. The pass got it's name because the profile of the mountain resembles a woman lying down. As we headed down the mountain, the wind picked up and it was colder. It also continued to be misty, so the rocky path was a little slick - we were really glad we had our walking sticks to give us extra support as we descended for the next hour and a half into a lush valley, with a couple waterfalls and an incredible view, all the way down to our campsite. We arrived just before 1pm and had the rest of the day to rest, eat, hang out with our new friends some more, and then listen to ghost stories from our guide about the campsite that was apparently built on top of a cemetery. The night was so clear, we could see the Milky Way - I have never seen so many stars in my life! It was magical! There was hardly a spot in the sky where there weren't stars. We were both so tired that night, but hardly slept because it was quite cold and the ground was very uncomfortable .



Day 4: The Longest Day. We were awakened with our coca tea at 5am and were awed to watch some clouds move into the valley before us. Again we packed up and headed to breakfast where they served us omelets! Soon we were off to discover the ruins of Runkuracay on our way to climb the second pass at 12,916 ft. We had the blessing of being able to see clear across the valley to the snow-capped mountains beyond - absolutely incredible! Here, everyone was encouraged to have a special ceremony to commemorate completing the most challenging day - Mesha and I just found a little spot to sing praises to the Lord and pray together. It was one of my favorite memories of our trip, singing "Thy Mercy, My God" together there. From this point we descended to the ruins of Sayaqmarka to explore a bit before decsending more to a plain where we had lunch. The rest of our day consisted of one more ascent to 12,000 ft, going through the two Inca tunnels, visiting more ruins (Phuyupatamarka), and descending precisely 2,721 stairs (our guide counted once) before arriving to our campsite in the late afternoon. When we arrived, we were exhausted but really wanted to visit the ruins that are right next to the campsite, Wiñayhuayna (which means "forever young"). This site was more recently discovered, and just beautiful! I felt privileged to be able to visit it and it was worth the extra effort at the end of the day. We returned to the campsite, that was luckily right next to the trekker "restaurant" and hot showers - ahhhh....that was really beautiful. Mesha and I stayed up late just talking that night, so excited that we had completed the majority of the hike - again the ground was pretty hard to sleep on.