Day 2: INCA TRAIL (The Challenging day) _____________________________ SIG'S VIEW: Woken with a cup of tea and the zipper on our tent - Breakfast was served. Vic was again in good mood as her prayers had been answered and pancake was on the menu. Optermistic and blaming anything that made me feel better for my poor performance, we set out on the 'Challenging day'. Not even an hour had passed before Jerome was complaining and talking of turning back. The heated discussion lasted a good half an hour which, like a blessing from god, gave me enough time to discover Coca Leaves. Reading and research had told us the Inca's used to chew the leaves of the Coca plant. The effects were meant to help the effects of altitude, tirdness and hunger, BUT without the use of a small mineral stone they we're said to be useless. Stoneless, i still stuffed numerious leaves into my mouth and to one side and smiled through the less than appealing taste. To hide the taste i popped a sweet into the other cheek and sucked until the 'Should i stay or should i go' debate had ended! Well from this point on it was a whole dirrerent experiance. I Trotted on and up. Smiling, enjoying the view. Gesturing and offering 'Hola Amigo - Commo est a?' to every one we met. Soon enough we made it to the last stop before the highest summit on the Inca Trail 'Dead Womans Pass' and i didn't even realised i still had my bag on my back! Enjoying it? i was loving it! After a long long wait for, guess who?, Jerome we started the final accent of day 2. It was steep, it wasn't easy but together we made it. (thats Vic and i NOT Coca and i) Our final few steps we're cheered on my a large group of fellow gringos who waited on the top. EXCELLENT!!!! Benous Vista! Mucho Freeo! We ambled back down to camp 2, Pacaymayu, and we're met by our porters who were worried about us. They gave us hot tea whilst on the trail and set off in search of the others. We made camp at around 4pm and enjoyed a delicious Dinner of chicken and tomato soup. Around 3 hours later, and in pitch black, the others arrived. Jerome stomped off to his tent and snored like a walrus, Romy sipped a little soup before joining him and Poor Bonet Cursed in Spanish to the porters to our amusment. My spanish isn't great but: 'Misarablez', 'Loco', 'lento' and 'Fat Walrus' speak for themsleves :) _____________________________________________________ VIC'S VIEW: Day 2 and Early to bed, early to rise.... 5am to be exact! In the agencies advert they described today as "challenging" thats spanish for "bloody hard work"! and it was. I remember Louise talking very fondly of this day and I now know why. Jerome woke feeling unwell and didn't eat any breakfast, he told Bonet he had food poisoning from last nights meal but we all felt fine. Sig and I stocked up and drank plenty of cocoa tea. Bonet had given us all advice on how to tackle the day; drink plenty of cocoa and walk very slowly. She told us that we shoudln't stop and if we felt like stopping to walking even slower. This sounded liek great advice but as we reached the 2nd check point Jerome was already having second doubts. He hadn't listened to a word Bonet had said and was doing nothing to help himself. Bonet was so patient and we spent after half an hour waiting for Jerome to decide if he wanted to carry on or not. Romy was adament that she wanted to continue and soon Jerome was happy to carry on. Bonet advised Sig and I to walk at our own pace, she would walk with Romy and Jerome and meet us at the 1st meeting point of the day. And so we were alone on the Trail. We took things steady and soon reached the 1st point. We waited for about 40 minutes and soon Bonet and the Dutch were within sights. As soon as Jerome reached the meeting point he threw his sticks to the ground and lay on the floor. It had obviously been a hard first part of the morning. But we still had much further to go. Bonet suggested Romy walk with us and so the 3 of us set off up the very steep mountain. It was very hard going and the sun had started to break through the clouds making it very hot. We took it easy, each taking it in turn to be the leader. We finally reached the 2nd stop point of the morning and resting. Lots of other groups were there buying drinks from locals and eating energy snacks. We waited for Bonet as instructed and 1 1/2 hours later we could see them coiming up the steps to the resting place. Jerome was not amused and we were getting cold. We were the last people of the day at this point and even the guard wanted to go home. It was reaching 1.00 and Bonet again advised us to go on. Romy this time stayed with Jerome (I think this was maybe Jerome's idea) and we set off for the long long climb to dead womans pass. The scenery was breath taking, quite literally. It was very hard going as it was all very steep. We remembered what Bonet had said and walked very slow. Sig had some cocoa leaves which we chewed on and these really helped. We met some really nice people as we walked along, we chatted and complained about sore feet together. There was a huge group of about 60 from the UK and they were doing the trail for charity. Each person had a different charity that they were raising money for. Although Bonet had advised us not to stop we did have a few brief pauses to take pictures and to get our breath back. We also had a bottle of coca - cola which really came in handy when we were feeling a little tired. Dead Womans Pass was the name of the highest point in our walk today and it really felt like that at times. The point we had to reach was at 13776 ft (4200 m). As we made our way to the top I could see little ants standing at the summit. I prayed the ants would get bigger and they soon resembled people. We could hear cheering as another person reached the top. It was great for morale. As sig and I got closer to the top we saw a lady with the group pof 60. She was in a bad way and had to have oxygen, clearly the altitude had got to her and she looked very pale. We passed her and soon reached the top I heard a man shout "go on girl!" he can't be shouting for me I thought but yes he was and the group at the summit started cheering for Sig and I! It was amazing. As we got to the top of the pass they all clapped and a man took our photo for us next to the sign that said Warmiwañuscca 4200 m - 13776 ft. Soon after the lady who had to have oxygen was making her way up and so we joined in with all the clapping and cheering. It was just fantastic. She did so well. After the exhiliration of reaching the top we still had to climb down the other side. This too was extremly steep and we couldn't see much due to the clouds. Thank goodness for the stick! It really came in handy. We could see our camp (Pacatmayu) down below. Bonet had instructed us to ask a porter to bring some sweet tea and bread for Jerome when we got to the camp. But as we got closer we could see 3 of our porters approaching us. They were so worried about us that they had second guessed and brought us tea en route! What service this is! The only problem was we had the unfortunate task of telling them that Bonet, Jerome and Romy were still coming up the other side and could they take some to them as Jerome hadn't eaten all day. 2 of them ran up to find Bonet whilst Herman led us to our campsite for the night. We reached camp at 4pm. We had supposed to arrive for lunch but due to Jerome feeling unwell we were delayed. Richard had thankfully given us a snack pack and so we weren't too hungry. Bonet and the gang arrived at 6pm. Jerome still refused to eat and went to bed whislt the rest of us talked about the day and ate a lovely meal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------