Peru days 11 & 12 (Sept 19 & 20)

Sept 19
These were our trekking days. We did not do the classic "Inca Trail" because that has about 500 people per day on it! Insane. We wanted something more...rugged, so that's what we got. When we finally arrived in Agaus Calientes other guides were amazed at the route we did. Nice to astonish others.


So here we are starting out from Vilcabamba at 7:30 a.m.. This is actually the main street. Small town! :) We headed up past Nusta H'ispana again, but this time kept going. In the morning it had rained hard before we got up, but by the time we left it was warming up.

See, I'm already down to shirt and shorts. Man, convertible pants are the best! This day we did some ups and downs, but it wasn't terribly difficult. Here I am looking down into one of the beautiful valleys we passed.

We hiked for about 5 hours or so, waiting for the pack horses to catch up to us. They were carrying our tents etc, but also our lunch! We finally stopped here and took a good long 2 hour break. We weren't supposed to, but the horses were SO far behind us we eventually just had to stop and wait for them.

Turns out one of the horses was not working out, and they had to go back to Vilcabamba and exchange him for another one. They must have really pushed the horses to catch up with us. Took about another hour for lunch to be ready, but it all worked out in the end. During lunch they also repacked the horses, as their loads had shifted. Made me feel so guilty seeing them with all our crap!

We were incredibly lucky with the weather our entire trek. It threatened rain several times, sprinkled a bit once or twice, but never really truly rained. At least, not so us Vancouverites would notice! :) But every time the clouds came out we prepared ourselves. It was the start of the rainy season, so you can never tell. Each day followed the same weather pattern pretty much. Cold foggy morning, hot clear late morning/early afternoon, clouds rolling in late afternoon, usually clear cold evenings/nights.

Because of our really long "lunch break" we were way behind schedule. We were supposed to get into camp at about 5:30. Here's mom and I on the the pass before descending into camp. The pass was about 3,900 meters called Ja Jutiua.

Sept 20

This is our cook Dante in the cook-tent. He was pretty frickin' amazing with what he could conjure up.

Mom and I had spent our night in the "bad tent" to get it out of the way. There was one of the tents that was not as good as the others. It wasn't a tent for cold weather, and one of the poles was missing. They'd rigged up a branch to use as a pole, but it kept sliding. So each pair took one night in the bad tent. I'm so glad we got it out of the way at the lower elevations. Oh yea, and I discovered that while I thought my bag was to -15 degrees ....NOPE!!! It was a +15 degrees bag! I was ok in Vilcabamba and our first night out on the trek, but there were two nights when I was very cold. Me, cold!

Here are Carla and myself starting out our second day, at about 8:00 by the time we got everything packed up. The start of the day was a nice firm trail descending into a valley and following the river to the other end of the valley.

Along the way we met a local farmer and his family. We stopped to chat. Behind us you can see their farm. They're out in the middle of nowhere! These were one of the only people we saw during our trek. Wilbur had suggested we buy some pencils to give to the kids we'd meet along the way, so we gave away a couple of ours here. The kids loved them. Carla was really smart, she brought a bunch of toothbrushes and old clothes from home. They really really like those things!

After we reached the end of the valley we had to ascend for about 2 hours. Both Kim and Ken were really starting to suffer, so they rode for a large portion of this day.

We got into camp nice and early after descending a bit. The valley we camped in that night was just beautiful! It was also the highest we were going to camp at 4,100 meters (about 13,450 feet). This was the night I felt really cold, and was affected by the altitude the next morning. We camped right at the base of these huge glaciers that felt like you could reach out and touch them! They were called Suruquaca Double Massif. Can you see our tents? Those tiny white dots off in the distance...
But to get there we had to cross over a river that ran through the valley. Ken was still riding at this point, so he had it easier. It was the most incredible, beautiful valley. When we got in to camp, we had a GREAT surprise for us. Tea, handmade nachos and guacamole! OMG, I'm not sure anything has tasted as good as that did. Mmm, my mouth is watering remembering it. Man, it was really really good.

That night we had...not sure what it's called...lightning without thunder? Not dry lightning, that's just without rain. Anyway, it was lightning without the sound. Amazing! Started after we were in bed, and is evidently very common. I was out going pee and it kept going off. I wanted to stay out and watch it, but it was VERY cold up this high...and with no clouds to keep in the warmth... this was the night I really suffered. I'd gotten a cough and sore throat back in Cuzco, and by this time it was preventing me from sleeping. Luckily Toni had some great cough drops that really helped. In retrospect, I think my cough and sore throat were actually the start of High Altitude Sickness.

We tried to get good sleep and rest that night, because the next day was going to be our "big" day. The day we ascended to 16,000 feet!!!!!