Inca Trail--Day 2

     The second day of hiking was a beast of a day with 12km (7 miles-ish) of walking from an elevation of 3000m (1.9 miles) up to 4200m (2.6 miles) and back down to 3600m (2.2 miles).  That's nearly a mile up in 4 miles of walking....no.....climbing.  Needless to say, foul language exited my mouth often, and my anger was mostly directed at Tony Horton from p90x, Sean T from Insanity, and a dearest friend who convinced me to carry my own stuff.

     My saviors: pep talks, zig zags, and oxygen (even if it was in small amounts at this elevation).  The pep talks mostly came from myself, but I'm sure Pdub and Shamuel had some input.  As for the zig zags, this reduced the amount of "up" at one time.  Near the end, I was a mess of bad language, motivational words, one single zig zag followed by a break and intense breathing.  Looking back, interval training probably wasn't the best mode of preparation.

On day two, we started at around Wayllabamba, crossed Dead Women's Pass (the peak), and ended at Pacaymayu.*

Headed for the clouds.*

Oh so cute.

Group photo....snap, snap.

Sexy photo!  Manny, our guide, was obsessed with taking the sexy photos.

George, George, George of the jungle.....

Nap time?  NO!......more stairs.

Cheese!

Breakfast number 2.  Boy, did we need several meals on this day to replenish the number of calories we burned.  The meals were probably the best we had during our entire stay in Peru.*

Please stop your upward momentum and pose for a picture.  Thank you.

Crossing bridges.

Resting.....Thank you, walking sticks, for keeping me upright.

Stairs and stairs and then more stairs......and just around the bend, stairs.

Zig......Zag......breathe......So tired....can't do any more!

Almost to the top!!!

I was lucky the scenery was amazing.  It kept my mind off of the "up."

I came, I saw, I conquered!

Whoo hoo!!

Can someone just come and get me?

Dead Women's Pass.....Well-named.  You can see the trail off to the right.

Here come the clouds.....

The we-made-it-in-one-piece picture.

Sticks of happiness, accomplishment.....and heck yeahs!!!

Now that right therr is a waterfall.

Between 1996 and 2001, over 1,000 tourists were trekking the Inca Trail.  As you may have guessed, the trail was getting heavy wear and tear, and the tourists were camping wherever they chose.  The Peruvian government made a stop to this by limiting the number of trekkers and only allowing those with a guided group on the trails.  Now 200 tourists and 300 porters/guides are allowed on the trail per day.  Based on a friend's recommendation, we chose Peru Treks and were very happy with them!

Drying our clothing out from a day of sweat and rain.  Thank goodness for dry-fit.

There's nothing like sleeping to the sounds of a waterfall.

On day 3, we woke up and tortured our bodies with even more hiking but saw some wonderful sights.  Pictures to come!

*Pictures taken by other heavily breathing, fellow hikers.