Our alarm this morning was porters “knocking” on the tent and telling coca tea, coca tea, coca tea. When we unzipped the tent we got hot coca tea straight into the “bed” 🍵. The night went well as we slept on the comfortable mattress and had warm sleeping bags.
Today we planned to catch up with all the distance we lost due to strikes and finish the day according to the original plan. On the paper second day of the Inca Trail already is considered by far the hardest one, so it got even harder.
After having breakfast we got officially introduced to all the team that helps us do the hike. Everyone told their names, how old they are, how many years they are working on the trek, and most importantly, how many children they have. The age of porters, who carry 25-30kg each day with large backpacks vary a lot, youngest being 23 and oldest 64, which is very impressive.
The trail today went most of the time up and most of the time on the old stone Inca stairs. We had to elevate from 2700m to 4200m to what is called a Dead Woman’s Pass. It meant 4 hours of constant steep climbing which sounded terrifying. Fortunately, coca leaves came to the rescue. Chewing them together with the volcano ash released the effect which made breathing easy and us feeling really energetic. We reached the top successfully while admiring incredible views along the way.
The guide told interesting stories about their feeling towards Spanish conquerors and the remains of the Inca empire. Most of the people between themselves speak the Quechualanguage in this region and feel somewhat alienated by the “Lima side” of Peru which has taken Spanish customs much more willingly. As we are hiking with the guy from the indigenous Shipibo amazon tribes of Peru that also have their traditions and speak their language, it was interesting seeing him express his support and understanding of Quechua peoples.
After taking pictures we started going down. This section for most of us was even harder, as the descent was long and steep which hit knees hard. All the day was cloudy which made going up easier but when we reached the camp, the sun started shining. For now, we were really lucky with the weather as we hike during the rainy season.
In the camp, we were again treated to amazing meals and afterward only thing we wanted to do was just jump into our sleeping bags and fall asleep.
