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The Inca Trail: Day 2

Our first night on the Inca Trail, I slept horribly. Blame it on the noise from party in the village, blame it on the stiff mattress pad provided by the trekking company, blame it on the rain that began pattering on the tent about 3am, or blame it on the reputed “sacred energy vortex” upon which Machu Picchu and the Camino Inka are constructed, but I would get a total of 6 hours of sleep over the course of three nights of trekking. Despite/because of this, my body was perpetually revved.

So I was laying in my sleeping bag, listening to the rain grow in intensity, and then fade, and then grow again. Further away, I could hear the porters start to stir. Soon, Raoul the Assistant Guide came to wake us up, accompanied by two porters carrying a kettle of hot water and assortment of teas. This is the standard wake-up call for trekkers on the Inca Trail. I suppose the hot beverage is supposed to coax people awake, but I’m the type whose is prone to dawdling over her mate de coca.

I think I ate more carbohydrates at breakfast than I eat in a normal week. Everyone knew that the second day up Dead Woman’s Pass was the hardest, so toast, pancakes, and gruel were steadily consumed with grim faces. Our group was a motley assemblage of Anglophones (15 including us): One early-20s couple from Vancouver, one early-20s couple from England, one mid-20s couple from India who live in Minneapolis, one mid-40s couple from Montreal, two young British women who just graduated from university, a mother-daughter pair from Connecticut, and one lone rather nutty New Zealand lad who was traveling in South America for 5 months.

When we signed up for the Inca Trail, I had envisioned our trekking group being filled with gear-heads, but it turned out Mr. P and I were the only gear-obsessed hikers in the group, probably because we’re older and have bountiful disposable income. After breakfast, I put on my rain jacket and backpack rain cover. Several people didn’t have any rain gear whatsoever, and most people only had flimsy ponchos.

We bid goodbye to camp. Our next campsite would be more remote, without beer or water for sale.

Campsite Store

We paused to look at some exotic trumpet flowers. We would also see some hummingbirds, but they were too fast to photograph.

Inca Trail Flowers

Porters from our group and other groups began to trot past us. They needed to get ahead to set up tents for our arrival. Notice that the porters wear sandals (heavily preferred over boots).

Porters

Our guide Will had initially wanted our group to stay together and take our time on this strenuous section of the trail, but the rain began to build in intensity, so he told us to go at our own pace to the mid-morning snack tent a few miles away.

Mr. P on a Beautiful Trail in Shitty Weather

Really, really well-constructed trail. Somehow, despite our extra load and extra age, we were far ahead of most everyone in our group. Soon the two British girls caught up to us and the four of us would rush through the storm to the mid-morning snack tent.

Inca Trail

Because of our fast pace in the pouring rain, the porters weren’t ready for us at the mid-morning tent, so we stood under some trees as our group slowly converged. The unfortunate people without ponchos had completely soaked packs and sopped sleeping bags; our guides rushed around to find ponchos for them. After the mid-morning snack (tea, crackers, and a puffy cheese sandwich), it was time to face Dead Woman’s Pass. Originally we were going to have a group photo at the top, but due to the weather our guide instructed us to keep going until the campsite.

We started off. My survival instincts began to kick in. I just wanted to be done with this hike. All those hours in the White Mountains paid off as I doggedly hiked up the notoriously steep incline of Dead Woman’s Pass.

Porters Headed Up Dead Woman’s Pass

I was about 5 minutes from the top of Dead Woman’s Pass when the nutty New Zealander from our group passed me. He told the rain was getting ridiculous and he just wanted to finish. Indeed, the rain was beginning to freeze and the wind was voracious. I reached the top of Dead Women’s Pass, which was deserted except for a line of resting porters and the New Zealander, who now had bragging rights in our group, but whatever. He knows who was at his heels.

Porters on Top of Dead Woman’s Pass

The New Zealander and I stood together and peered down the pass, watching Mr. P trudge up the final steps. The New Zealander took our picture next to the sign with the “4125 meters” altitude. That’s 13829 feet! (Unfortunately, both Mr. P and I closed our eyes in the picture. We’ll just have to go back.)

On Dead Woman’s Pass

The weather wasn’t getting any better, so we headed down the pass. Our guide told us it would take 90 minutes, but it took us about 60 minutes. Close to the bottom, one of the British girls madly scampered by us. “I have to go to the loo!” she whispered to me. She was a super-fast hiker. She told me later that she was trying to stay with her friend, but the rain was getting too ridiculous.

We reached camp at 12:15. The rain was coming down strongly. A porter directed us to a tent and sorta pushed us into it. We were dripping wet, but our clothes and sleeping bags had stayed dry. I was shivering as I peeled off my wet clothes and dried off with a towel. All we could do was huddle in our tent.

View from Tent

When the rain abated, I left the tent to use the restroom. The British girl invited me into her tent; she was lonely, so we chatted while she demolished a bag of chocolate raisins. Soon, other members of our trekking groups began trickling into camp. Lunch wasn’t until everyone arrived at 3pm; it turned out that conditions had really worsened on Dead Woman’s Pass, with hail and snow. One woman from another group was crying hysterically; another woman twisted her knee after skidding on some rocks; one man was taken down on horseback. I’m surprised no one developed hypothermia. The guide said that, in 12 years on the Inca Trail, he never saw snow on Dead Woman’s Pass at this time of year.

The rain stopped around 4:30pm and some sun even peaked out. The British girls started a game of charades. Optimism revived, then died as the clouds moved in and the rain commenced around dinner time. After dinner, the porters brought in a pitcher of a warm rum drink “to help you sleep,” but I would need a lot more than rum to help me sleep.

Day Two was a memorable on the Inca Trail, but for all the wrong reasons…

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