It wasn’t easy getting out of our sleeping bags on the
second day. Ice cracked and fell off the tent flap when the porters delivered
the morning coca tea at 6 a.m. It was warmer than the night before, but the sun
hadn’t crested the mountains yet.
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| The highest point of the trek. |
After breakfast, we started on what would prove to be our
longest day of hiking, climbing for the first hour to the top of the pass at
4,600 meters or just over 15,000 feet.
Coming from Colorado, Fran and I had a slight edge with
altitude, but the highest point of the trek was still three times higher than
Denver, and I found myself stopping every couple hundred feet to catch my
breath, as my heart was beating out of my chest.
When we finally reached the top, we were staring up at
Salkantay Mountain, a peak so imposing that no one has ever reached the summit.
There was an audible sigh of relief when the group realized
that the rest of the day would be primarily downhill. I did not share that
sentiment, however. I’ve run enough downhill races to know the toll it can take
on my body, and as I stared out over the distance to where we were heading, I
knew we were going to feel every step.
I was excited, though, that we were about to descend through
three microclimates during the course of a few hours.
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| Leaving the Andes and entering the cloud forest. |
We dropped pretty quickly, pulling over to the side
periodically to let horses pass. About two hours in, we walked through a
community of farmers mixed with several group campsites next to one of the
rivers we would be following for the next few days.
Throughout the trek, Ruben would stop us every 15 minutes or
so and say, “OK, buddies. Everybody good, good? Let’s take a baby break.
Everybody water, water.” Clearly he was well seasoned in the hike and knew we
needed to conserve energy and remain hydrated.
It was also at this point when Ruben told us that we should
reach lunch in “about two hours.”
The downhill march continued. After another 90 minutes, he
said we should get to our lunch spot “in about two hours.” Needless to say, we
were all starting to get a little hungry and some of us may have edged on
cranky.
As I expected, the downhill was doing a number on my quads,
and I think all of us stubbed our toes or at least kicked the end of our hiking
boots a couple hundred times that day. Fran, coughing and clearly feeling the
misery of the cold some idiot gave to her, started getting blisters on her feet
and her right big toe was starting to match the dark nail polish she had on it.
One look confirmed that she had a 0.002 percent chance of keeping the toenail.
When we finally reached the dining tents for lunch, the
whole group was pretty tired, and a few people were really suffering from heat
exhaustion.
Not knowing what kind of weather we would experience, we
packed for just about every contingency, carrying rain jackets and pants in our
daypacks. However, that would prove pointless since the sun shined every day
with almost no cloud coverage. As it turned out, the one thing we didn’t pack
enough of was sunscreen.
Flavio once again surprised us at lunch, serving up stuffed
avocados, soup and meat over rice. I was amazed at every meal with his
creativity and ability to cook somewhat lavish spreads while camping. Every
meal he made was delicious, and there was never a time I left the table hungry.
My feet were throbbing, and I wanted nothing more than to
take my hiking boots off. I was actually wearing my Brooks trail runners
because I figured out last year that I liked hiking in them more than I did
hiking boots. It was true again, but eventually I started feeling like every
rock on the trail was pushing through my sole, and the sides of my feet felt
like they had doubled in size.
We had descended 2,000 meters already, and we had another
800 to go before reaching our campsite another 3-4 hours away.
The march continued through the cloud forest and into the
rainforest.
Finally we reached a small town, took a hidden trail down to
the river and across a bridge before reaching a road. From there we could see
our tents in the distance.
There was a second Wayki group with us throughout the five
days, but we remained separated most of the time in order to keep the group
sizes more manageable.
But when we hobbled up to our campsite, which was actually
in someone’s backyard, the other group was celebrating. They were literally
throwing their hands in the air and giggling.
“There’s a working toilet, and it even has a seat,” one of
them said.
We, too, let out whoops of joy.
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| Our bathroom at lunch. Yes, that hole you see inside is the toilet. |
I know it’s strange, but the thought of an actual bathroom
was among the most beautiful sites we had seen during a day when we had seen
thousands of beautiful sites.
People don’t talk about it much, but toilets are one of the
most common differences between countries.
In Peru, many toilets, including the ones at the Cusco
market and at our lunch spot on this day, are simply holes to straddle. I
honestly have no idea what the proper way to use that type of toilet. Fran
keeps telling me it’s not that hard, you just straddle it. I’m pretty sure I
would pee all over my pants while trying and/or fall in the hole.
Most of the ones we ran across in Peruvian cities had basins
but no seats. You had better be prepared with your own toilet paper if you need
it, too, because almost none of the bathrooms in Peru have it. And, like most
places in Latin America, you can’t flush toilet paper because the pipes can’t
handle it. Instead, there are small trash cans near every toilet. Needless to
say, it all takes a little getting used to.
And, of course, the celebration about the toilet at the
campsite was completely justified. To top it off, there was also a shower. It
was free if we wanted cold water, or 10 soles if we opted for hot water. Ten
soles is about $3.33. Almost all of us made the investment.
Being in the rainforest meant a significant number of bugs.
We sprayed most of our clothes with permethrin before we went, and I had
sprayed myself with bug spray throughout the day.
However, after I took my socks off and stood in line for the
shower, I was bitten 21 times by mosquitos. Every single bite was below my sock
line. Mosquitos generally love me, so it was not a big surprise. The bites
generally get pretty swollen on me, but these bugs left small, flat red circles
with a dark spot in the middle, almost resembling tiny nipples (which must have
meant that I had 23 nipples at the time).
Freshly showered, we ate another great dinner and laid out
our plans for our third day of hiking.
We were halfway to Machu Picchu.
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