July 19th - Day 2 of the Trek

This morning we are awakened by the crew offering a cup of coca tea, soap and basins of warm water with which to wash up. Wow! Unzipping the tent to such treats (view, warm water & hot tea) is quite an experience!

Breakfast is soon ready in the dining tent (solid blue tent in photo above). We have porridge, pancakes and toast this morning. Of course everything is cold by the time we eat because it's about 20 degrees outside.

If the tents look unlevel, it's because they are. After everyone makes a visit to the latrine (a hole dug in the ground by our crew, covered by a tent about 3'x3'), we hit the trail. We still have a bit of a climb to reach Apacheta pass so up we go for about 3 hours.

The trail is very rocky causing twisted ankles and sore knees.

We make it to the pass. If you can't tell, I'm the one in the yellow-green jacket.

Salkantay Mountain (incredible!) Cusco's second highest peak.

The whole group at the pass (guide on far left). In Inca times the walkers would leave their shoes, clothes, jewels or simply a piece of rock at the top as an offering.

It begins to snow as we head down the mountain.

The storm moves in.

The snow turns to rain as we get down into the high jungle.

We take a quick break at this shelter.

A very precarious hanging bridge.

Watch your step.

We are supposed to hike a couple of hours to our lunch stop but it is raining heavily when we get there. The guide says it is only another hour and a half to the campsite so we decide to go on. Unfortunately, that was by Peruvian time. It was actually over 3 1/2 hours more.

Our campsite for tonight. It rained off an on all day and we were soaked by the time we reached camp. Even the dining tent is wet. My hiking boots are soaked as well so I asked the cook if he would put them by his cook stove in hopes of drying them out. He brought them back to me the next morning completely dry.

View from the campsite.

It has been an incredibly long day, hiking over 10 miles, up over the pass and a very steep decline. My right knee is really hurting from all the downhill. I've secured an Ace bandage to wrap it for tomorrow's hike. The guide was in quite a hurry today. I'm not sure if he just wanted to get out of the rain or what the issue was exactly. We didn't stop for lunch but headed straight to the campsite. It was a long 7+ hours from breakfast and we were unhappy campers :) to say the least.