Peru Day 11: Paying the Porters

Image by Ginger DJ via Flickr

6am start with a brew served through the tent flap again. We'd managed some sleep though it was the coldest night so far. Didn't appreciate the tight schedule for breakfast, toilet and decamping, it was just one big rushed hassle. Even though the ham and cheese omelette was good I wanted a few more minutes to let it go down before the trek. Mostly because my stomach wasn't happy but at least the walk was relatively simple stopping for a break/lunch at around 11am. Whilst Kerry was visiting the ladies Socrates let me in to a secret that the cook was to make a birthday cake for tomorrow's breakfast!

The rest of the hike was actually quite relaxing with the paths high on the mountain side with stunning views of distant waterfalls and walking through a couple of small tunnels. The flora and fauna was, like the rest of the hike, colourful and varied traveling through some cloud forest areas. The very last stage was almost a jog down to the final campsite as we'd found some untapped energy or just wanted the day to end with the prospect of a shower.

The restaurant/campsite was quite run down and had a booth/cashier system to pay for drinks, showers and food. The cost of the shower was about 5 Sols plus a hotel sized bar of soap an extra 1.20 Sols. It was debatable to say the shower was worth it as the water was cold and icky feeling of getting dressed in puddles of dirty water.

Our cook had cooked up some extremely addictive cheese won tons and popcorn for a pre-dinner snack. The porters had erected a toilet tent so we didn't have to use the distant restaurant's - shame the zip door had broken.

Porter tipping
After our unusually cold dinner (a flattened, huge meatball and chips), Socrates announced the porter's ceremony would follow and recommended we should discuss the amount to tip. He could only advice on splitting the tip by the group of 7 porters and and the catering staff. This was an awkward decision and although Kerry had read it was US$30 per hiker we were keen to provide more. In the end it was about US$50 from each of us distributed by the 3 catering staff getting $100 and the 7 porters getting $100. It was up to them how to split amongst them. We said a few words of appreciation, translated by Socrates. Finally we shook each and every porter and catering staff's hand. The internal worry of whether we tipped enough continued amongst us though felt better that Kerry overheard some American students saying they'd tipped alot less.