3rd day!

Oh, this would be the best day!

We woke up after hiking midway up the mountain already. Yesterday was all uphill, hours and hours of uphill. Today we would reach the highest pass, Dead Woman's Pass in the morning. It was just a 2 or 3 hour climb from our camp. We were well rested and ready to go.

I was just chatting away with everybody at breakfast. I was already sore. My legs and my feet were feeling the effects of the hike already. I had discovered that the downhills needed to be taken sideways, for me, in order for my knees to not scream. And my right foot needed to go down first. So I was wearing some weird kind of blisters on my right pinky toe, and my left big toenail was also getting bruised because of weird pressure on it from having to go down so many steps that way. Oh, and I had a bad ankle blister on my left foot that I had decided I was just going to ignore at least until lunch. All that was okay, I was doing it! (next time, two walking sticks and knee braces for me)

Kalyn had two strange blisters pop up on her feet the 2nd day. They weren't from her shoes rubbing her, they were like bites that were infected or something, they were full of puss. She will admit to being really wimpy about this kind of thing. She showed us at dinner what was going on with her foot and Dave, the Marine medic said he would be happy to dig out his supplies and lance those blisters for her. Now,  she practically passed out the last time the doctor needed to take a vile of blood for a blood test, I knew this wouldn't go down smoothly. She went back to the tent with Dave, and Pierre, the medical student from Oxford went with them. Troy watched and said Pierre held her hand the whole time and Dave told her that he was putting some numbing cream or something on her foot so she wouldn't feel a thing (though he wasn't). They fixed her up fine!

Well, like I said, we were ready to go after breakfast. I took just a few steps on the uphill climb to start off and realized I was going to need to stop to breathe. And then I thought I might be in trouble if I was starting to have a problem this quickly! I kept going, just a few steps at a time and then stopping to breathe. Ricardo, one of our guides who frequently ended up taking up the rear of our hike suggested that I just keep doing that and don't sit down to rest. So I did! I took the water drinking very seriously, and every time I stopped I took a drink. The problem with my water bottle today was that it was leaking, and the higher we got the colder it got. I had a huge wet spot on my shirt and I was starting to get really chilly! Pierre had loaned me a glove to help my hand from getting sore with my walking stick and I kept the other one in my pocket while I walked. At some point I caught up with Troy and the others and he traded water bottles with me.

Here I am, making my way up slowly. I would stop to look back at where we came from and marvel at us for going so far! And we were in the Andes Mountains! And those peaks I had looked up at from the valley below the past few days were really close now! It was truly beautiful and I was truly grateful to be there that day. And I was getting really chilly!

Troy carried the camera. There aren't a lot of pictures of him. He was really juiced up on this climb. He was feeling the excitement of being there and it was important to him to get the absolute most out of this hike! He is really proud to say today that at the age of 47 he was the oldest person on our hike and the first person up Dead Woman's Pass!

He had to take his own picture once he got there because there wasn't anyone else there yet,

Here's the marker at the top, congratulating him on his successful climb!

He built his own little rock cairn for good luck once he was up there. He must of waited for us for a little while.

There's Carrie and Madison at the top!

Oh, here I come!

 

Together at last.

Getting up there is a big deal! It's the highest point on the trek and you know you are in for some spectacular scenery for the rest of the day.

And you're up in the clouds!

Waay down there you can see the little village in the valley. That is where we were headed now. I was nervous about this. So many times when I looked at pictures of the hike, it looked like you would have to be careful with your footing or you would fall off the mountain. I guess there might be a couple of places where it made me a little tingly, but not too many. Anyhow, I learned first hand that if you slip and fall, there are plenty of those prickly dry bushes along the trail to stop you from rolling too far down the hill along this stretch.

I did fall once, and I rolled for a little bit in those prickly bushes, and I looked across the canyon at where most of the rest of our group was and it seemed like they were looking at me directly, wondering how the heck I just did that. I kind of waved to let them know I was okay, but they said they never even saw me at all.

 Now here's a picture of Troy! It's a good one too. He is really enjoying this. Life is good today!

After we all made it down the mountain we stopped at a campsite there and ate sandwiches.  I ate both of my sandwiches for energy, but I kept looking at the hill/mountainside that we were about to ascend and I could not make myself happy about it. I could see a group of porters up there and it looked like they were practically climbing vertically up.

After we began the hike I did find the place where I had to climb like a monkey, using hands and feet, the steps were so steep. And there were a few spots where the trail really clung to the side of the mountain and the footpath became a log bridge sticking out of the side of the hill (with railing) and I thought about how my fear of heights really disappeared when I had to concentrate on my footing. The hillsides really began to look more like jungle fauna than those dry, prickly bushes that I took a roll in once before. And when I think back, this was really some of the most beautiful scenery I remember. We got to Runkuraqay and stopped to take a look back at where we came from, there was a really good view of Dead Woman's Pass. You can see what looks like a silhouette of a woman lying down.  And then we ascended higher, past two little ponds before reaching the 2nd pass. We all made a cairn and made a wish before descending down again to where we would eat our lunch.

This part of the hike was really beautiful! And I read later that at this point, we were on the Eastern slope of the Andes Mountains, and it was turning to jungle. I didn't know that at the time, I just noticed that it got really beautiful. There were flowers and hummingbirds and bees everywhere. Kalyn said Nilton called it the cloud forest. The Incas built a tunnel through a part of the mountain here. There were some very impressive Inca palace looking places along the path here. I think a few of our tour members climbed the steep steps to explore one of them, I walked on past when I got there. I could see them down there from far away while I was still negotiating some steep steps up high. I realized as I walked by myself (about 5-10 minutes behind the others) that I was walking alone in the JUNGLE! as I got near the place where we would stop for lunch.

Here's Troy and Kalyn going through the Inca tunnel.  Very steep steps!

I loved our meals, I know I've mentioned that. And I got a chance at lunch

to take off my shoes and ask Dave for some of his blister bandage stuff and get myself fixed up nicely for the rest of our day, which was promised to be more of a flat walk, relatively speaking.

 This is another good picture of Troy.

As I recall from our flora tutorial along the way, this plant grows very slowly and is very old.

Our 3rd pass would be our last camping spot. It was in the clouds.

There were llamas up there.

Pictures don't even show how mystical it felt and looked up there. And that is exactly how it felt as we walked into camp through the clouds and saw the tents set up and the llamas roaming around.

The next morning we would end our hike at Machu Picchu. I've got to dig up those pictures now. I will work to get those on tonight sometime.