Adventure #9 Peru Day 5 - 2nd Day of Hike

The morning view from the "facilities"

On Day 2 of the hike we were woken by the porters at 5am. "Olah!!"  We were brought hot Coca tea right to the tent.  What a view!!

We were served a wonderful breakfast of quinoa porridge, pancakes and toast.  I was very hungry since I skipped dinner the night before.  It was a cool crisp morning.  I was pretty nervous because this was to be the most challenging day of the hike.  We would start out by going up a mountain to "Dead Woman's Pass".  This would take about 3 to 4 hours.  Then down the other side for about 1&1/2 to 2 hours, then lunch, then up the next mountain for about 2 hours, and then down again for 1&1/2 to 2 hours and then arrive at camp.

Javier and Donny enjoying their breakfast

Donny looks so serious!

Kevin and Kelly and Annie

Good Morning Mountains!  I have come to conquer you!! (I think)

The hike quickly took us into the high jungle.  Amazing how different the foliage was at different altitudes!

I really like this picture, and it gives you a good idea of the terrain!

And these ladies practically skipped right past us.  As my cousin pointed out, they also did so without $300 hiking boots!

Those ladies in the picture above, turned out to be carrying beer, sodas, and animal crackers to sell to us at our next stop!

Dane #2 decided to try being a porter for a little while.

At this point in the hike, we can now see Dead Woman's Pass (see below) where we are headed.  It is supposedly named that not because someone died there, but because you can see the shape of a woman.  I think the breast is fairly obvious, then if you look to the right, you will see her face -- chin, mouth, nose etc.  I said she had a pretty perky breast for a dead woman.  We are headed to the "saddle" -- the area to the left of the "breast".   There is a smaller bump there which we climbed on when we got to the top to take a picture.

Jake on the way up to the pass.  He looks much more energized than I remember feeling at this point in the hike!

and we're walking....

and we're walking .....

This one captures the steepness of the trail - and the clouds below us!

And I made it!!!

Here we are on that little bump.  That's the Dead Woman's "breast" behind us.

Everybody ready????

JUMP!!! 

As you can tell, when we reached the top, we were now in the clouds.  It went from hot and sunny to cold and wet almost instantly when we hit the top of Dead Woman's Pass.  From there it was down the other side of the mountain for 2 hours -- on very slippery wet rocks.  I ended up falling 3 times - even with a walking stick.  Thankfully, they were all "good" falls.  I think yoga helped with that -- I actually think I landed in pigeon pose once!  Part of the problem -- besides the rain, and the ankle biting rock path, was that my legs were so shaky.  When I would stop for a minute, they suddenly felt like jello.  I believe this was because of climbing all morning, and I actually think I was getting a little hypoglycemic too.  That sort of sneaks up on you.

If you look closely at this picture, you can see how the path snakes around and continues down fairly steeply.  You can see people below on the path -- they look tiny!

Unfortunately due to the rain, I had to put my camera away and did not get too many more pictures of Day 2.  After climbing down for about 2 hours, we saw a bunch of porters from the various groups sitting and pointing for us to leave the path for our lunch camps.  My third and final fall of the day was right in front of all the porters.  Rather embarassing! 
When I got to camp, Donny took my pack off my back so he could put it in a tent to keep it dry.  He said "Wow, you're carrying a lot of weight in here!".  I couldn't decide if I felt proud, or if it just made me feel more tired! 
We had lunch in our dining tent and it was pretty rainy now.  It was noon and we had been hiking since 6:30am.  I was cold and wet.  After some warm soup and tea, the last thing any of us wanted to do was get our packs on and start walking again - especially since the next part was about 2 hours up steep steps to the top of the next mountain.  Javier had warned us that this would be the worst part of the day.  I don't know if it was psychological, or because of the cool rain, but I actually had the best hike of the trip over the next few hours.  In talking to others, nobody agrees with me, so I must have just gotten into a zone.  It was definitely slow going on the "up" part -- especially with a full belly, and lots of slippery steps.  When we reached the top though, and started heading down, I just felt so good.  maybe it was partly because I knew the worst part of the whole trek was behind me.  Also though, the rain had turned to drizzle, and even in the fog the scenery was beautiful.  I headed out on my own and soon, I could not see or hear anyone behind me or in front of me. I walked like that the whole 2 hours -- just getting into a nice rhthym with my walking stick.  No falling this time.  It was very meditative and I just felt "high".   It's weird that this was my favorite part, and yet the one that I don't have many pictures of.  Below is a picture I took as I neared our camp -- at around 4:30pm.  It looks like a fairy land to me!

And below is the view from our Night 2 camp.  We settled in, had dinner and hit the tents pretty early.  The tents were so close together, that we could all have conversations from our sleeping bags.  Dane had been asking some of the Australians to point out the Southern Cross in the stars, but nobody could find it.  At one point in the tent he was saying to Jake, I can't believe I've asked all the Australians, and nobody can show me the Southern Cross.  Then from a few tents away we heard a voice say "You didn't ask me mate!".  We all laughed at that one.

Unfortunately the closeness of the tents and acoustics meant that everyone could hear all the snoring too.  I'm pretty sure I was a major contributor that night.  I don't think I am usually a snorer (a drooler maybe!).  But that night I kept waking up with my mouth wide open and completely dry.  Poor Annie!

It was very chilly that night.  Annie said she was freezing all night.  Her sleeping bag was -5 and mine was a     - 20.  Not that it was anywhere near that cold, but it apparently made a difference because I was toasty warm.  When we first got in the tent, we realized that we were sleeping on a slope and one of us was going to end up rolling on top of the other during the night.  So we decided to shift our positions 90 degrees so that we would just be sliding down towards our feet.  We were already in our sleeping bags when we decided this, and were too cold and tired to get out.  So we just scooted around on our butts until we were repositioned! 

Side note here about equipment.  When I went to EMS before the trip, I had a lot of fun shopping for all my stuff.  However, I also felt like a little bit of a "poser"  since I needed EVERYTHING.  I was pleased to find out that I would not only use it ALL, but also be very grateful that I had it :  new lightweight hiking boots, my headlamp,the super warm sleeping bag, a great backpack, hiking socks, fleece pants to sleep in, a rain poncho, a microfiber towel, a sun hat, a cold weather hat and new very lightweight, sunglasses.  I rented a walking stick from SAS when I got  there.  I wasn't quite sure what I was even supposed to do with that, but it turned out to be one of my favorite things.  I might even buy my own now!  Poser no longer!! I am a true trekker now!