5:30am. Another early start. Packing, breakfast, and back on the trail.

This was a long mile day — 14.7 total.

It was a little chilly at the top but beautiful. This was the highest elevation I had ever reached (and still is) at 15,200 feet. No altitude issues. I felt great. Our guide company had hot tea for us at the top, so we enjoyed the pass, took some pictures, ate a snack, and then prepared to descend to the valley on the other side.

 

My favorite part about this day was that it was long, and I hiked with a lot of different people. I got to know Mark and Melanie who are from Montreal, Canada. I spent a lot of time hiking with Santosh who lives in Detroit. His wife, Michele, had some issues with the altitude and wasn’t feeling great, unfortunately. And I hiked with Gotz and Tanja from Germany. I also had some great conversations with Jimmy and with our cook (era todo en espanol). These were all great people that I found much in common with and they really were the highlight of the entire trip.

As we descended a storm rolled in. We had some lightning and thunder and we were the highest things around, so I started hauling to lower ground. It started to rain as well, so I broke out all of my rain gear and trudged along. Fortunately, the cheap rain paints, totally not cheap Arteryx jacket, and Keen boots were perfect and I stayed dry as a fly. I don’t know what that means.

While waiting for the others, I found a little shop that sold beers for 3 soles. $1 for a beer in the middle of the Andes? Yes, please!

When the ground caught up, we trudged through the rain a little further (20 minutes maybe) and reached some tents where we stopped for lunch. The rain eventually passed and we were left with a fantastic view of the area we came from, and Salkantay peak.

After lunch, we had a bit more hiking to do to reach out camp. We dropped lots and lots of elevation and got back into more of a jungle-like setting.

A bit later we made it to camp.

When the horses arrived, the team set up tents under these straw huts. That’s where we would spend our night. After dinner and some drinks, of course.

Camaraderie and friendships were building at this point, so we all enjoyed some beers under the pavilion.

This camp had hot showers (for 10 soles) so we had a chance to clean up for the first time in a few days. It was… well… primitive. But, better than the alternative of nothing.