05:00 breakfast followed by a presentation, to our porters, of a bag of Coco Leaves each (definitely designed to give them a little more energy) set us up for a good morning. Our guide showed us the profile of the rest of the trek, which to be honest scare the sh*t out of me (and Nigel I think although as usual he kept very cool!).
The day ahead entailed climbing for around 3 hours up to ´Dead Woman's pass´. So called because of the profile of the mountain showing a face and large breast, although having already seen one casualty being piggy-backed off the mountain I feared otherwise. Dead Woman's Pass rises to 4,200 metres and is definitely a potential killer. Nigel stormed ahead with a few other members of the group and without the use of his inhaler strode up the woman in around 3 hours and then diligently waited in the rain and freezing cold for only about 15mins for me to join him. Oh my goodness I nearly cried a few times up that horrible mountain as the altitude made me feel really sick and the rain had arrived, forcing us to wear our ridiculous ponchos which as you can imagine did not make you feel good!
Lunch was 2 hours away, almost vertically down hill, for 900 metres, in the rain on a slippery stepped path. Almost worse that going up but not quite. We ate well, nearly fell asleep on the lunch table and certainly cursed the Mountain Gods before starting our afternoons hike.
Another 3 hours accent back to 3,900m almost took the funny side out of Peru. The rain did clear and the scenery was absolutely stunning but our bodies where working in overdrive. Before reaching our second campsite (and of course being greeted by a further round of applause) we had to again descend down the mountain to 3,300m. By 17:30 we made it to an amazing location, up in the clouds and at the height of snow capped peaks. It was incredible!
Before bed, more hot soup beckoned, more cold washing and of course a little more yoga, saluting the sun, stretching our muscles and preying for good weather.
CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS!!
