Day 4 of G-Adventures Inca Trail

Wake up at 5:00 am. It is raining heavily. No hot koka tea. No Jacuzzi service (the usual plastic bowl with warm water to wash the face and hands). Rohody delayed wake-up because of the rain. We had an alarm clock. Breakfast was intended to be 5:30 am is now 5:45 am. Not the problem. We wear all rain gear and plastic ponchos over it. The daypack covered by the ponchos, too. A little medio luna of dwarfs with colorful jackets.

The dinner, breakfast tent (=porter lodge) and the cooks tent.

The path to the toilet:

The kitchen:

The toilet flush crashed in the night. Rohody makes an emergency toilet available. A pretaste of what will come …

After breakfast (hot tea, hot porridge, bread butter and strawberry jam; there is also “coffee” with optional “guinea pig milk” – I donot trust powder based energy drinks) we leave sleeping bags and inflatable mats, as well as our duffle bags in the tent. The porters pack and carry it for us to the next camping area.

We start walking at 6:30 am at 3.077 masl. We walk all the time up. Short breaks, the group is splitting up.

13.03.2018 07:23 S 13°15.4856′ W 072°27.6959′ altitude: 3.271 masl @ Break at Llulluchapama Campground

We flee from the rain. Somewhen sun comes out. We try to dry and do jumping pictures.

Somewhen at noon we arrive at Warmiwañcusa (Dead womans pass @ 4.220 masl).

Cold and windy up here. It stopped to rain. We see a lot of porters on the trail. They all wear company colors (red, green, blue, ours are purple with a large g on the back). They all carry huge backpags, i can’t believe that they carry 20 kgs maximum each. However, there pace is impressive. Some of them wear only sandals, ours have proper shoes. All the same.

We wait for all to arrive on the top, Rohodys carried a bottle of rum, sacrifices some to pacha mama, and everybody takes a nip and tells his thoughts. Oxygen is low up here and awakes emotions.

We do some group pictures, jumping pictures and start the slippery stoney decent. Always keep to the mountain side.

At 14:30 we reach Paqaymayo Camp (we are site 6 at 3.600 masl) where Felix is already waiting for us and leading the way to our tent.

13.03.2018 14:30 S 13°14.0609′ W 072°29.8840′ altitude: 3.657 masl @ Paqaymayo Camp

We wait for all, get our tent, wash ourselfes with the provided “jacuzzi service”. As all arrive we have lunch with 4 deserts. Then we do siesta until teatime. Weather is dry at least.

After teatime, we have dinner. I am absolute not hungry. We go asleep quickly, ascent and descent left their tracks on us.