Inca Trail Day 2

Patallaqta-Llulluchapampa
9.67 km
1127 elevation gain

Today was HARD.

I knew going into today that it would be more difficult than yesterday. We were mostly flat yesterday. But today was nearly 10 km of straight up, either little up, or big up.

The first half of the walk was dusty and a gradual ascent. The only Incan ruins we saw today were in the valley at the very start of our walk. I was feeling pretty good the first half and we were making really good time. We did the first 5k in about an hour and a half. Boy did this lull me into a false sense of security.

We stopped at a couple outposts along the way to rest and we're playing leap frog with our porters. Once we got to Wayllabamba, that's when things started to get rough. The ascent for steeper and there were some big steps intermittently on the path. It was on this path that John pointed out the Dead Woman's Pass that we will go through tomorrow. It looks very high...

After a wee while of going up, we stopped at a small campsite where we were originally going to stop for lunch before continuing on to the final campsite, but because we were making good time we stopped for a longer rest and some snacks. The porters also stopped for a rest before continuing on ahead of us to begin getting camp ready. I was feeling tired now, but felt ok after the rest.

We continued on with the last leg of the journey and holy shit was it tough. It was a couple kilometers of just big up. Just stairs and stairs and stairs. Luckily this part of the walk was in the forest, so we were shaded, but I was still sweating buckets and mildly panicking I wouldn't make it to the campsite. I had to stop frequently and each time I gave myself small goals to try and reach before I stopped, going from tree to tree or big rock to big rock. The forest was really nice with a stream running through it next to the path. There were also pockets of good views of the mountains and some fuchsias dangling from trees. Unfortunately I didn't appreciate the beauty as much as I would on a flat walk. The stairs and big up just seemed to go on forever relentlessly. But after just over an hour, we reached our campsite. I was spent. Jhon said it was the quickest he's made it up to the campsite, which is surprising because I felt like I was going incredibly slow.

We admired the mountain view and then got to take off our sweaty socks and shoes. The wind up here at 3,780m is chilly, especially with a soaked t-shirt, so I also changed out of that. We had some lunch and one of the porters made a little bear out of oranges and radish to go with the rice; it was so cute. After lunch we got some downtime and had a nice nap before tea.

Tomorrow is our early wake-up at 4am. Tomorrow Jhon says it is the hardest and longest day. We go up to Dead Woman's Pass at 4,200m, the highest point on the Inca Trail before going down a bit and back up again. Tomorrow is also a 14km to walk...one step at a time I guess 😭.Lue lisää