We woke up around dawn to the crows of roosters. Stumbling out of my tent I couldn´t see much but mist and the outline of the surrounding mountains. Breakfast was bread with jam, hot chocolate, and weird ass pancakes. I paid Javier for the porter and unloaded my main pack. Then we were off, about 4 hours uphill. I took it easy to start despite the lack of extra weight. If day 2 was the hardest for most, it was the easiest for me. About an hour in it began raining and it didn´t let up for the rest of the day. There was a open ground stop about 2 hours in, with bathrooms and a place to buy water etc. The wind picked up and the exposed area was not a pleasant place to be.
I was in good spirits and not too cold. Of course I was in shorts and a sleeveless basketball shirt. Everyone else was freezing, but they were mostly from Argentina so you can´t really blame them. To combat the cold and rain I donned my rain poncho and put my hands in my pockets. I pressed on. The climb was a great view, as we hiked up the side of a mountain with vegetation reaching only about 2 feet. In other words one could see everything. I laughed hard when I passed a Brit who asked his friend "its hard to tell if its ever going to fucking end." Its always funny to hear the f word in different accents.
I´m lucky my body is resistant to cold. A man has an indicator unknown to women that lets him know how cold his body is by its proximity to the inside of his stomach. Since my hands were in my pockets I knew I wasn´t at risk to catch pneumonia. I got to the highest point we would reach on the hike, dead woman´s pass (pictured), at 4200 meters above sea level, after about four hours.
After the pass I headed downhill for about 2 hours, the weather not improving. At the bottom we got a good view of a long waterfall, not the only one like it we would see in these mountains. I tried to find basecamp, Javier had told me it was number 4, but sometimes Peruvians relish being unhelpful to strangers. Finally I met up with some of my group and since they had Spanish skills we combined my number knowledge to arrive at our destination. After lunch we had about 3 hours before dinner or so and I napped the whole time. I followed a similar routine after dinner. Meals had become a principle time of excitement for the group, as one Argentine, Lola, was beyond boisterous and laugh out loud funny besides. Before I had left for the hike Kerime mentioned to me that I had to place myself in spots where I would be forced to speak Spanish. These four days were it for sure! Though Javier spoke English as did Christy and Shawna, Javier was mostly only available on request, or when explaining various incan sites to us along the way. I spoke to Christy and Shawna everyday but it did little to overwhelm the deluge of Spanish. I definitely have a better grasp on the language now. I can handle the numbers, greetings etc, as well as almost all things around meals or at a restaurant. I know how to ask most questions.
Lola was a dead ringer for a girl I swam with for a few years, in both looks and personality. She gesticulated to a point where you didn´t need to know Spanish to know what she was yelling about. I frequently took the opportunity to poke fun at her, since I knew I was an object of jokes for the 5 Argentinian girls. Once after an long outburst by her and her friends I looked to Augustine, who spoke moderately good English, and he said "they are speaking nonsense" ..."Oh I know that" I said and the table laughed. Another time I remarked that it was a good thing to not understand Spanish when Lola was speaking.
The cherry on the cake was a time I sneezed at the table. Juan beside me said "Salu" (sp) which is effectively "bless you". I said "gracias" and Lola gave me a big thumbs up for understanding what Juan had said. I mocked her because it wasn´t that hard to realize what he had said. What else could it have been?
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