Peru Day 10: Nearly Dead Woman's Pass

A pretty crap night's sleep due to the slanty position. Even though the tour provided a ground mat and blow up mat, and we brought our own blow up mattress it was a hard rest. The donkey, dog and rain sound effects didn't help either. Breakfast was at 6:30am was a limited choice of Peruvian porridge.

Our guide warned us it would be the hardest part of the whole trail and it certainly was. The first section was challenging but, unlike the hot sunshine from yesterday, it was refreshingly cool having to wear coats at the start. The first break didn't come soon enough for Kerry and we were allowed to rest and eat for as long as we liked with the next section taken at our pace. Our packed brunch was a green mandarin, chocolate bar (Sublime) and a ham/cheese sandwich - all well needed fuel for the worst part of the trek.

It was a punishing, never ending steep stepped journey which could only be taken at a slow, short stepping pace. We left the last rest point at 11am for two hours of energy sapping hell. Our French-Canadian friends didn't rest like us so were at least 30 minutes in front. Kerry was soon out of breath with the altitude's thin air and starting to doubt herself with the challenge. Poor girl almost gave up as we both felt at rock-bottom. Some tears, some motivational talk and some swearing at the 'rocky b*stard/f*cker' got us to the top of the aptly named 'Dead Woman's Pass'. It was slightly annoying hearing all the cheers of the Americans motivating their friends but as we saw our rep, Socrates and Julien and Cynthia waiting for us it gave us enough energy to finish. Hugs and more tears to congratulate each other, even I nearly drew a tear for Kerry for making it this far.

We rested for 15 minutes before tackling the long 90 minute stepped path downwards. It wasn't quite as tough but after awhile the boredom of crunching knees became tiresome. The sight of camp was a blessing, although there was a little way to go having to wind our way through the dozens of other campsites. The hike's talk of fast food such as KFC, pizza and burgers along the way, I nearly shed another tear as the main course of lunch was almost a wish come true of chicken and chips.

We tried a siesta having tried a new comfort tactic but the deafening sound of running water was all around us. As we came out of unsuccessful siesta we noticed how the porters were taking turns to guard our tents with one of them serving coffee to us without having to get up - a nice touch.

Due to the altitude and late lunch we couldn't really do the evening meal much justice. Had a few rounds of a card game called President then headed to bed. As well as the constant sound of rushing water, a 1000 frogs decided to practice their Kermit chorus making sleep almost impossible. The tent was pitched between two streams of mountain water and the ground being concrete hard made the situation worse and both of us lost it big time with a tantrum at our pillows. God knows what time we'd somehow got unconsciously comfortable but sworn we'd never, ever do camping again.