Inca Trail – Day 2
Topic: Travel| 1 Comment »Day 2
We got up bright and early. At five the porters knocked on our tent with hot tea. But we were already kinda awake due to the devil rooster that got up at four.
The hard part about day 2 and 3 is that you start hiking straight uphill. No warm up whatsoever. After breakfast we started off. It was cold and we all wore sweaters and coats but off they went just five minutes into the day’s hike. We hiked straight up for three hours. It was brutal. Much steeper than even the steepest part of the trail to the Y in Provo. Worst of all as bad as steep trail it is the stairs that are without mercy. It was hard. The weather was great though: nice and warm. Cloudless sky. Not too hot.
A big part of the trail was under thick vegetation. We made it to the lunch spot. Yay! It suddenly got really cold because we stopped hiking and the spot was in an open area.
After lunch it was two more hours strait up to dead woman’s pass. The stairs were deadly. The last fifteen minutes were pure hell. We had to make mini-goals. Get to that bush, then stop and rest. And over and over. Never more than fifteen yards. It was exhausting but so incredible. Pushing yourself every single step. It really was a spiritual beautiful experience. I will never forget it. Neither of us ever felt any altitude sickness, but I am not sure I would do much better at sea level. In those five hours we made a altitude change of 1200 meters. It really was straight up. But I would do it again in a heartbeat.
We rested for ten minutes, and then started straight down the steps to the next valley. For some it is harder to go down the stairs than up. For David carrying the big backpack it was a death march. Luckily we did not have to hurry so we took our time reaching the camp. It was really sunny and the scenery was beyond words. It was heaven. Neither of us likes hiking with a walking stick but for such extreme downhill hiking on stairs it was our best friend. We brought collapsible walking sticks so we made hem long for downhill and short for uphill. It really turned up to be a priceless possession.
The view from our tent at the campsite was of a jungle covered valley. Again, there are no words.
