Peru: Day 4 (aka Inca Trail: Day 2)

On Day 2, we were woken up at 5:30am with some hot tea. After packing, we ate some breakfast (pancakes, toast, and porridge), and then had a brief introduction with our porters:


We were on our way by about 7am, but were quickly passed up by our porters, aka the "Red Army":


Raul had warned us that we would start Day 2 by hiking 4 hours uphill to Dead Woman's Pass (4200m / 13,779ft), an ascent of over 1000m (nearly 4000ft) from our campsite at Ayapata (3000m / 9842ft). He was right in that it was a hard climb, but I think because of the advance warning, we were all mentally prepared, so we reached the summit in pretty good shape.

just before the top:


view from the top:



It was a great feeling to have made it up to Dead Woman's Pass, and we spent a few minutes enjoying it and taking silly jumping pictures before proceeding. Unfortunately, the downhill climb proved to be harder than it looked:


I was too tentative at first which put a lot of pressure on my leg muscles, and the descent was about two hours long, so by the time we got to the lunch stop at Pacamayu (3550m / 11,646ft) I was almost too zonked to enjoy the excellent (as usual) food:



After lunch we had about 30 minutes to rest, which was very much appreciated:


We then embarked on a second uphill climb, this time for about two hours, on our way to the Runkuraqay Pass (4000m / 13,123ft):


About halfway up, we stopped at the confusingly-named "Runturaqay" (as opposed to "Runkuraqay" which was the second pass). (By that time, I'd given up taking photos due to exhaustion, so I had to steal this shot from someone else):


We spent quite a bit of time here, listening to Raul talk about Inca history and culture. I admit I didn't pay much attention, as I was cold and tired. But, as a result, I had recovered pretty well by the time we left the site, so I actually able to enjoy reaching the second pass, Runkuraqay. It was not as pretty as Dead Woman's Pass, so I didn't bother to take out my camera.

We were soon on our way down again:


This time I seemed to have gotten the hang of the downhill rhythm, and I made good time down the hour-long descent. We passed another small Inca site along the way; unfortunately I've either forgotten or never knew the name of it:


At the bottom, Raul gave us the choice of taking a 20-minute detour to see the ruins of Sayacmarca, or going directly to camp. I thought some people looked exhausted, but not one person wanted to pass up the opportunity, so we all climbed up to the site together.

I think it was worth the effort! (Here, I did take out my camera):



From there it was about half an hour of relatively easy ("Peruvian flat") terrain to our second campsite. At this point my legs and lungs were in good shape, but I was starting to get a dehydration headache. Unfortunately, I was also afraid to drink more water, because I had to pee (the last toilet had been four hours back). I was quite happy when we finally arrived at our camp at Chaquicocha, around 6pm. It had been a very long hiking day.

Happy hour and dinner went by in a blur, as I mostly concentrated on drinking lots of water. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get rid of the headache, so I finally just went to bed.