I had a fitful night’s sleep accompanied by plenty of shivering. My sleeping bag was horrible, the tent was too short and the thin mattress did nothing to prevent the rocks from digging into my back. I woke up tired, wondering how I was going to manage the hardest day of hiking in my current state.
However, a quick one-two surprise got me back up on my feet in no time. One: coca tea. Our porters woke us up with it and once you drank it the cold in your bones melted away. Two: we unzipped the tent door and the view took our breath away. We didn’t see the mountains too well at night when we came in. They were massive: they looked like they were entirely made of sand with ice at the top. Like a weird coffee-based dessert.
Our spirits up, we dressed quickly and headed out for breakfast. I wasn’t sore at all thanks to all my training. One of our group, James, had come down with diarrhea. I didn’t envy him. But James had trained the hardest of all of us coming into this hike: hauling Tide bottles up the hills of Seattle. If anybody could make it through the hardest day while being ill it was him. So all in all we were in decent shape.
The next 4 hours were steps, steps and more steps. And they were big and uneven, worn by years of exposure. The last thing you wanted to do was come down at an odd angle and sprain your ankle. So we proceeded with caution.
I always account for the worst in my planning. So I didn’t think day 2 would be enjoyable at all. More like something to get past so that I can enjoy the rest of the hike. But looking back, it was much more enjoyable than day 1. You’ve left the villages and dung behind, and you truly start to appreciate the Andes. We crossed a herd of LLama on the trail. That was quite exciting.
We reached a clearing which was the final break before dead woman’s pass. I could see it in the distance: it gets its name because it looks like the breast of a woman facing the sky. So it gives the impression of a dead woman lying down. Yeah, I thought it was a stretch too. Everybody around us was just calling it “the boob”.
Raul gave us a muster before we attempted to make it. This was the highest part of our hike. A giddy 13,800 feet. We had felt bushed by the end of the last climb but again, we all made speedy recoveries. Raul gave us a flower extract to inhale, that would open up our lungs for the challenge ahead. Joshin joked that it was Condor pee.
As we made our way up, the landscape beneath us looked positively alien. There were huge cuts: they looked like a godzilla-sized beast had been gouging the earth looking for worms. I breathed heavily on the way, Raul would go up and down the file , providing encouragement and lightening the mood whenever he felt people were going to give up.
Tomi was the first in our group to make it to the top. He had snapped pictures all the way: the guy was a machine. I don’t remember much of it other than focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, and stopping at one point to take pictures of the boob. We all have very few pictures of this part of the hike: we were too tired to take any. Here’s one of the few: it gives you an idea of the kind of view we had.
But once we got to the summit it was celebration time. This was the tipping point in our trek; if you made it this far you should easily be able to go all the way. We took shots of ourselves jumping as high as we could up there. We finally got to see what the locals called the “cloud forest”. Behind Dead Woman’s Pass you could see clouds stretch away beneath you as far as the eye can see. Just like when a plane makes its descent for landing.
After the euphoria wore off, we realized we actually had another 5 hours of hiking to do. Today’s hike would see us summit 2 mountains: the first was DWP, but there was a second, smaller one. We started the climb down to our lunch camp. Having exhausted our legs on the climb up, our descent was slow; and we stopped for many photos. We could see our lunch spot in the distance, and we kept getting scenic views as we turned corners. I think my threshold for views that took my breath away went up during that descent.
I didn’t get enough time to have a siesta during lunch. But when we set out, I found that I was a lot less tired than the previous day. Perhaps the siesta actually makes you more tired since it lets your body wind down. During our second climb, we stopped at an Inca “runner’s outpost”. The Incans built their structures in a trapezoidal shape to make them seismically stable. This outpost was also curved so it gave good views of the valley on all sides, so it looked very alien.
We were cheated by several signs on the way. Each time we saw one we thought we had reached the top. Since the sun was setting, we felt either too hot or too cold depending on whether we were hiking in the sun or shade. Having been spoiled by DWP and nice views all day, we were all a little touchy; wanting to get to camp and relax. We saw a couple of interesting looking lakes on the way, but we’d always get our hopes up thinking it was the end of the uphill climb: so we were disappointed when we saw them.
Finally we made it: I crunched on a power bar and lay down in the sun for a bit. The rest of the day is a blur as I look back. We headed down, and it got seriously dark and cloudy. We checked out another Inca site. Our guide told us it was optional and it was a tricky flight of stairs to the site with a steep drop off to one side. But it was rewarding; a much bigger site than the ones we had seen earlier. We had no idea that we would see much more massive ones the next day.
By now we had our flashlights out, and we trekked in the dark to our camp. Now that the anxiety of the hardest part of the hike was behind us, moods were much lighter at camp. We pretty much had the place to ourselves: most other teams stopped at our lunch spot and called it a day. Llamapath, along with a couple others, front load the trip by making you climb both mountains in a single day. This makes for a very easy and enjoyable day 3 and 4 as we found out.
The night was magical. Raul gave us a tour of the dark constellations of the Southern Hemisphere, and we ooh’ed and aah’ed our way through them. I made sure I picked up a different sleeping bag this time, and we made arrangements to sleep diagonally in our tent so my legs would fit. I doubt it would have made a difference though. I was so exhausted I slept like a baby Alpaca.
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