Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 12 –Iquitos and the Laguna Quistacocha

We slept in, but by the time we had taken the last sip of coffee our plans were well laid. We were going to take the bus to Laguna Quistacocha, which is about 15 south of Iquitos. This was identified in the guidebook as a place popular among the locals for some weekend relaxation. Unfortunately the people here are not very good at giving directions, so their default is to defer you to a “moto-kar”. These are the same as tug-tugs or chug-chugs, as found in places as diverse as Merida, Calcutta, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Taipei, or Manila, and like their evil counterparts elsewhere in the world they have taken over the streets of Iquitos like a swarm of bees. The problem is that the driver of the moto-kar may have no idea of where is the place you want to go, but will full confidence will offer to take you there for a nominal fee of 2 Soles. Because we are foreigners we often get the “oh, that is so far” line and we get to pay 3 or 4 Soles for what end being a ride around the block!

So we fell in the clutches of an evil moto-kar driver, who after driving us all around dropped us a couple of blocks from the hotel, smack in the middle of the Belén market (the big, central market of Iquitos), to wait for a mini-bus to Quistacocha. Fortunately for us the Peruvians are very kind to foreigners, so they ushered us to the front of the mini-bus, and in total comfort made the 15 km to Quistacocha.

This is a recreational park in which, for a flat fee of 9 Soles (4 Soles for nationals) you get to visit the zoo they maintain, walk in the jungle, visit the exotic tree nursery, and bathe in the maintained beach of the lagoon. For little additional money you can have a delicious meal at one of the two waterfront restaurants. We dutifully visited the animals (a pretty good zoon for its size and budget), walked (and got lost) in the jungle, admired the exotic animals, walked in the wading beach, and plopped in one of the restaurants to quench our thirst with a couple of caguama-size Cristal beers, and to eat the biggest fish I have sank my teeth on, ever. It was deliciously delicious!

Our last hurrah brought much enjoyment to Annie. I didn’t know that dolphins are common along the Amazon, and that they are particularly abundant in the area of Iquitos, where several rivers come together to feed the Amazon. The place where two rivers meet is called the shock zone, and apparently fish get disoriented when they cross it, which attracts the dolphins. The most remarkable fact about these dolphins is that some of them are pink! Yes, quite pink as a matter of fact, a like flamingos likely a consequence of the creel they eat. Anyway, at the zoo they have a pink dolphin that they are training, and we stopped to see the training. After several tricks the trainer asked if anyone wanted to kiss the dolphin. I immediately lifted Annie’s hand, who had no idea of what was going on. She was thus one of the three people selected, and when the dolphin puckered up she quite fearlessly smacked a good one on the tip of its long snout. Annie was radiant. As a kid she had always wanted to be selected to pet the dolphins or whales, and finally she got her chance here in Quistacocha. She reports the “lips” of the dolphin are firm, a bit like the tip of your nose.

On the way back we took the simple bus and, because it was getting late, had to put on hold a boat trip to the jungle. We did arrange for a trip the following day with a young man doing business off the malecón. Then we bought some food to take along and came back to the hotel to veg and work on our notes (Annie is now writing the anti-blog, so between the two of us we might get most of the stories correct.) Unfortunately as I was writing late in the afternoon I had an attack of the munchies and had to go foraging for some potato chips before I could settle down to write. This diet of mine is not working . . . at all! 

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 11 – Cusco to Iquitos

Up at 4 am to get ready for our early flight to first Lima and then Iquitos. Because of the early hour the father of the family offered to take us, so we had the privilege of waking everybody up at 5:30 am. Let me say here that we were very happy at Hotel Fuente de Agua, in San Jeronimo. It is far from city center (San Jeronimo is past the airport), but the buses that stop at the corner are only 80 cents of a Sol, or US$ 0.32, and the taxi from Cusco is anywhere from 12 to 15 Soles. These small inconveniences were nothing compared with the care and attention we got from the two girls and one young man who ran the show. Even Dad contributed to our well being by driving us to the airport! The food was good and prepared with care, our room was clean and luminous, and the living room became our own to read or receive visitors. A great experience!

The flight to Lima was uneventful, and so was the one to Iquitos. The most significant event was that I immediately fell asleep in both flights and woke up only when the plane bumped against the tarmac on landing. My Honey, on the other hand, was awake all way long, still excited by the experience of being on a plane.

We got to Iquitos and found—thanks all merciful Good Lord—that the temperature was a mere 31 degrees, so we didn’t melt on arrival. A taxi brought us to our hotel, which just by chance is located one block from the malecón (the river boardwalk). After we dumped our stuff we went out to walk the malecón and to find a place to eat. It is a very pretty walk, and it was a thrill to see the Amazon in full flood. After many pictures we found a great café along the boardwalk, but we ordered too much: A ceviche for piqueo, a fish chowder for me and a French potato salad with fruits for Annie as second plate, and a chicken cordon bleu for Annie and a fried piranha for me. I ended taking most of the ceviche home with me, and devoured it for my supper (for those who wonder whether “ceviche” should be written “cebiche” I can only tell that the Peruvian people are not a lot of help; half of the time you see the first spelling and the other half you see the alternative spelling.

After dinner I made the mistake of taking Annie to see the boats. I needed to know the cost (70 to 100 soles per person for a cabin and meals), on what days they departed (pretty much every day), and how long it would take to reach Leticia, Colombia (three days and two nights). Annie was horrified when she saw there were no showers on board, that the cabins were little more than a hot an unventilated metal box, and that the sleeping deck could host 300 hammocks! She had expected to shell an extra ten dollars for a cabin with its own bathroom and shower, but there none to be had at any price.

 Seeing the horror in my Honey’s eyes I quickly reassessed the situation and decided to make the trip with the fast boat down to Leticia (departure on Sunday, and 8 hours of travel time in a glider ship.) We went to the agent to buy the tickets, but Annie was so upset she could not make up her mind just then, so we said goodbye to the agent and headed back to the hotel.

On the way we got sidetracked by the office of Amazon Tours, who after much fanfare offered us a 1 day trip to the jungle for 120 Soles. Not bad, but we are independent travelers and wanted to plan our own adventure, so we thanked them and went back to our hotel, to catch up on my blog and ponder the plan for tomorrow.   

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 10 – Return from Aguascalientes to Cusco

Remembering that the last day still counts, we tried not to be in much of a hurry getting back home to Cusco. From Aguascalientes we took the train to Ollantaytambo, in a beautiful glass-ceiling car that allowed us a full view of the majestic Peruvian Andes.

Once in Ollantaytambo we were picked up by a guide and a van, who drove us to the mountain fortress of Pisac. This is one of my favorite Inca sites, although in fact it is three sites connected by a path that runs along the cliffs. Alma and Tom decided to get back when the stairs started (we are still hurting from the climb to Huayna Picchu), but Margarita, Annie and I made the whole circuit, in awe at the bird’s eye view we were getting over a good stretch of the Sacred Valley.

 

An hour later we were deposited in our hotel, and Alma finally had the chance of letting the guide know what she thought about his services. Although all other people we dealt with had been friendly and helpful, this particular guide was rude to her, and kept her waiting for nearly an hour at one of the pickup locations. I tell you, he must have felt the wrath of old Wiracocha come onto him!

We passed the afternoon packing and getting ready for our respective departures the following morning, and in the late afternoon Alma, Tom, and I took Tita back to her room back in Cusco, and finally had a quiet drink on a second floor restaurant overlooking the Plaza de Armas, where we made wild plans for the future and eventually said goodbye. They are all off to Key West in Florida, to look at buying a house there, and Annie and I are off to the second part of our trip, the Amazon.

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 9 – Inca Trail from Intipata to Machu Picchu

Last night we said goodbye to our porters and cook. They are a bunch of fine fellows and we will certainly miss their quiet, almost invisible services. We didn’t have much of a chance to meet them, as they are very deferential toward their “passengers”, but we all know how hard they worked and will remember them fondly even if we cannot remember their names.

Speaking of our porters, they used to wake us up around 5:30 am, with a hot infusion of coca leaves, so we could wake up slowly and be ready for a 6 am breakfast. Today wake up time was 3:30 am, but alas we had no morning tea (we figured the tip we provided was not sufficient and this was their way to express their displeasure). I was the first one up on that day, and hopefully soothed some ruffled feathers by giving my sleeping bag away to a porter who didn’t have one, and my jacket to another porter who had spent many cold moments looking after our stuff. (They looked after us like mother hens, taking no chances on we being badly surprised by a robbery, so there was always a guard over our tents and stuff.)

Breakfast was Spartan, but most importantly had no coffee (were we out of coffee, or was this another sign of displeasure this time from our Cook?). Now, some of us can switch to tea if needed, but Margarita turned into another being (the Exorcist comes to mind), and in a hoarse voice, totally unlike herself, croaked: WHAT? NO COFFEE? After that we all gave her a lot of space and tried to appease her by pushing with a stick a toast bread with marmalade in her direction.

So here we are, at 4:30 am, ready to go. We walked maybe a couple of hundred feet to the control point, and then sat until 5:30, waiting for the officials in the checkpoint to open shop. The Australians right away brought out the dice and immersed themselves into a game of Zonk, while most of us fell asleep on our seats, waiting thus for opening time. Today the idea is to walk 10 km from Intipata (3,250 m amsl) to Machu Picchu (2.400 m amsl), and to arrive in Machu Picchu at about 8 am.

It was an easy walk (well, there were a couple of spots where the trail was so steep that we had to crawl up like monkeys, holding on all five), and we had plenty of opportunities to look at the landscape and ponder: The famous peak you see in all the photos of Machu Picchu is a spire of granite, from the Vilcabamba batholith, but its most distinctive characteristic is a strong vertical foliation, which is actually pervasive in all the intrusive and metamorphic rocks we have crossed so far. It is very similar to what we see in Kings Canyon National Park, in California, and probably signifies the vertical stretching of the continental crust, as new plutons moved through a “crystal mush” which could be foliated but not induce a metamorphic event. The fact that you see the same foliation in the older metamorphic rocks suggest to me that the crust was overall hot enough to flow vertically as the plutons went past pre-existing rocks. The sedimentary sandstones and conglomerates of the Valley of Cusco, by the way, are a good example of the back-arc fold-and-thrust belt of the Andes. Too bad I could not get hold of a geologic map of the Sacred Valley.

We were half way down to Machu Picchu when Eder figured out that he had forgotten his aluminum walking stick at the checkpoint. Poor guy. He has been more than generous lending out his gear to us (though I still hold him responsible for encasing me in plastic and forcing me to carry a portable sauna with me for the best part of the night hike from Hell).

Once in Machu Picchu we took the obligatory photos from the Puerta del Sol (the Sun Gate), and then farther down to get the full view of the site and the small mountain that forms its backdrop. This mountain is called Huayna Picchu, and I will go back to it later in this narrative. Once we took the photo we went out of the site completely to visit the restrooms, have a drink, and have Tom meet Alma. It was a very touching reunion. Alma and Tom were celebrating Alma’s birthday, and 35 years of marriage, while we were on the trail, so Tom had arranged with two of Tita’s yoga friends to bring flowers to the hotel, to which the girls added a freshly baked birthday cake! Is that romantic or what?

Once rested we went back into Machu Picchu, for a quick guided tour of the site. It had to be quick, because Eder had to deliver us to the foot of Huayna Picchu, which Alma, Tita, Annie, Tom and I were going to climb, just so we could say we did. Let’s see, Machu Picchu is at 2.400 m amsl, and Huayna Picchu reaches only to 2,700 m amsl, so all we were going to do was 300 vertical meters (about 1,000 ft). Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Well, it wasn’t. It was a grueling torture in our already strained knees and ankles, both climbing and going down. But the view from the top was magnificent and, as Annie put it, we are not likely to come anytime soon.

On the way down we visited a couple more temples in Machu Picchu, which is indeed a marvelous piece of engineering, before deciding that we had done our duty as hard core tourists and could now retire in honor. I will say, however, that with all its monumental architecture it is very impressive to me that the inhabitants never carved an image on the walls, left a stele, or placed a monument to the memory of its builder, the Inca Pachacute. Was this because they were forbidden to leave text or statuary art behind? Or did old Hiram Bingham did such a good job looting the site that nothing was left for future generations to enjoy? (Incidentally, word is that Yale University recently returned to the Peruvian people about half of the artifacts “collected” by Hiram Bingham, with the other half still being subject of negotiation.

So tired and almost without energy we joined the queue for the bus that was to bring us down to the town of Aguascalientes when I see, not ten people ahead of me, the profile of my good friend Raul Morales! Raul and I biked the Camino de Santiago a couple of years ago, and Raul and his wife Georgina joined us for the China tour last summer. What are the chances that we were to meet, in a remote corner of Peru, in a place where thousands of people were passing by? We could have been delayed by a few minutes and thus miss them completely, or I could have been facing the other way, or they could have taken an earlier bus, or … The fact is that we met, and for the half hour ride down to Aguascalientes we jabbered away happily, taking stock of our different families and common friends. The only other amazing encounter I have had was when Ramon Arrowsmith saw mw crossing the lobby of a hotel in Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia about 10 years back. Again, it was a chance occurrence that could have failed if I had been a couple of minutes too early or too late. Keeping this in mind, how many of those encounters have I missed, just by a few minutes. Well, for all I know I may have almost met at least a dozen of friends in this way. Isn’t life stranger than fiction?

Aguascalientes is the perfect tourist trap, and we loved it. It is full of hotels, restaurants, and shops, and the night life is gay and vibrant. After taking long, long showers, and washing what was washable (Annie, the “I keep my things forever” kind of a person was so disgusted with the shirt she had been wearing for four days that she unceremoniously chucked it into el tacho de la basura), we gathered and went to look for dinner. I had asked and had been recommended El Indio Feliz, but before going there I asked on a couple of restaurants to see what they offered in the form of roasted guinea pig (Annie almost puked at the idea). But no, El Indio Feliz it was going to be, and an excellent choice it was too. The décor was more that of a Caribbean tavern, but the chef was a true master of international cuisine. We ordered the menu, with onion soup for Alma and Tom, an avocado and papaya salad for Tita and Annie, and quiche Lorraine for me as the first course. Then came chicken in ginger for Alma and Tom, pasta with all sorts of delicious trimmings for Annie and Tita, and a salmon trout with mango sauce for me that was to die for. Pie and ice cream for all of us, and we could fall in a satisfied moment of contemplation. Alma, Tom, and I have known each other for 30 years now, and we have had many an adventure together. To have Annie join this select group was indeed a delight, and we were all happy—even if exhausted—that we had tackled Machu Picchu together. Now to plan the trek of the Himalayas for next summer!

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 8 – Inca Trail from Pasaymayo to Intipata

[My Honey reminds me that just because I become comatose at night, she does not share this useful trait, and that for the last two nights she has been “called” by the full moon to dance in the middle of the night in her birthday suit. Fortunately she is a big girl and has quashed the commands of the full moon at the expense of her beauty sleep.]

I was thinking that permanent damage was unavoidable, as I limped to the mess tent for a cup of coffee. Every muscle was hurting, and my ankles felt like they were made out of rubber. Amazingly we all rallied and after a few warm up steps were kind of ready for the day ahead. According to Eder all the difficult parts were behind us, and the way ahead had easy ups and downs (easy for him to say!). However, we had to make for the distance lost in the first two days, and the goal was to cover 15 km from dawn to dusk.

It was not as easy as Eder had claimed, and I had to tackle every uphill with the old technique of walking 50 steps and then stopping for a little rest. I was back to carrying my backpack, and so was Tita, who alone of all of us carried her full load for the full trip (Brava!).

The road was very beautiful, and once we got on our stride, we actually enjoyed ourselves very much. Our dear Aussies, being full of youth and energy, soon disappeared behind the horizon, but Annie, Tita, Tom, Eder, and myself stayed together as a group, which afforded us a good chance to talk.

Eder is a very smart young man, who studied Biology in high school of JC, worked as a porter for a spell, and then studied and passed the examination required to get his license as a guide. He is now studying Environmental Engineering, and I have no doubt that he will eventually realize his goal. He is in true love with Peru and its ancient cultures, and has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Upon knowing that I was a geologist he asked me all sorts of interesting questions about the rocks and the origin of the mountains. (Andrew, one of our Aussies, also asked me a couple of questions that required a long answer, and he complimented me by saying that he had never learned so much from such a short conversation).

Along the way we visited two or three Inca sites. Each is amazing in the scope of its engineering and architecture, and I wish  had the words to express my admiration for these fantastic engineers and agronomists. For example, they had terraces that extended over a 100 m altitude range. They would plant thousnads of low elevation plants (say potatoes) in the lowermost terraces, waiting for only a handful to survive. Then they would plant the potatoes from the survivors at that same elevation, and pretty soon they had a strain that would thrive at that elevation. Afterward they would transplant a few thousand plants to the higher elevations, and again only two or three would survive. The survivors were selected and planted again, until a whole new generation was “created” that could survive the high elevations. In a similar way they adapted many of their basic plants from the lowlands to their preferred high mountain environment. Pretty clever folks, those Incas.

We had a long but pleasant day, and were happily trudging along, until we realized that its was 5 in the afternoon, and we still had 5 km to go. Now, up here where the atmosphere is thin we have a very short dusk, so all of a sudden we were facing the prospect of a night walk.

Meanwhile, our Aussie friends were already in a site that is close to the campsite, and they were all alone, and the moon was rising early, and they are slightly insane, and their insanity led them to take off all their clothes to do the ol’ dancing under the moon. And a fine spectacle they did of themselves when the camera went off!

Night did come upon us, together with a light drizzle. Now, our amazing Eder, who is some kind of Peruvian McGyver, pulled out his poncho and insisted I had to wear it, so soon I was encased in this tube of plastic, which in no time whatsoever raised my temperature to sauna levels. Annie took the lead, with her powerful REI headlamp; behind followed Tom, who had no headlamp but who has a good night vision and could follow on Annie’s footsteps, then came Tita, me (sweating like the proverbial pig), and then Eder. After about 5 minutes Annie’s mighty REI lamp took a crap, so Eder exchanged lamps with her. As they were doing this Tom spotted a little snake across the road and started playing with it. Eder froze as he warned Tom to leave it alone, because the little guy is one of the most poisonous snakes in this region. Annie had just stepped over the viper, and when she heard that she almost fainted (have I told you that Annie is snake phobic?). So Annie refused to stay on the lead, which was taken by Tita, and I was ready to faint inside my personal sauna, so I had to get rid of it, and in that sorry way we made our way down to the Intipata campground, at 3,250 m amsl. Our excellent Australian friends cheered us in, and broke open the victory beer they had been carrying since Cusco, so we could all toast to “all that ends well is well”.

That night we talked about the origin of llamas and alpacas. It is an interesting story so let me repeat it here. Camelids evolved in North America, and were quite abundant during the Pleistocene, about 5 million years ago (Ma). Then, about 3.5 Ma a group of islands detached from southern Mexico (imagine a long island group like modern Cuba-Santo Domingo-Puerto Rico) migrated southward by plate tectonics and plugged the opening between North America and South America, to become Central America. All sorts of things happened because of this joining of the two continents: Dolphins could no longer swim between the two oceans, so two distinctive groups of dolphins evolved only a few kilometers apart; the circum-equatorial current could no longer follow the Equator, and the Gulf Stream was born; the warmth and moisture of the Gulf Stream brought much rain and snowfall to the northern hemisphere and the Ice Age got on its way; and … the camelids were able to migrate first to South America, where the guanaco served as evolutionary stock for the llama, and the vicuña served as evolutionary stock for the alpaca. Once the Ice Age got on its way sea level dropped, and the North American camelids (and the horses) were able to migrate through the Behring land bridge into Asia, where eventually they gave rise to the dromedary and the camel. Paradoxically, camelids (and horses) became extinct in North America by the middle Pleistocene, about 1 Ma ago. Who would tell the presence of the cute llama bears testimony to the vagaries of plate tectonics and evolution!

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 7 – Inca Trail from Wayllabamba to Pasaymayo

Nothing like a good sleep to recover the strength and spirit. And we will need both because ahead of us is the prospect of Dead Woman’s Pass (4,700 m amsl or 14,000 ft). Tom decided to handicap himself a little with a good crack at the head against the dinetel of the evil pit toilet, plus the beginning of something that looked like Wiracocha’s Revenge.

 

Me, I hired an extra porter and wore the thick jacket I had bought in the Cusco market precisely for this day. The extra porter was a 67 year old local man, but I justified it to myself by thinking that it was not that I couldn’t do it, but rather that the porter would be better adapted to the high altitude. Besides, he would only be carrying my backpack, which was no more that 10 kg. Later I saw my backpack strapped to the already ridiculously large load of another of the porters, and the old man carrying a large combined load of tents and kitchen implements. What they had done was simply use him to lighten a little everybody else’s load!

 

We started at an elevation of 3,000 m at Wayllabamba, so we had quite a slope toward Dead Woman’s Pass, only 5 km away but with a gain in altitude of 1,700 m. The canyon we followed was beautiful, and a fabulous example of the Andean cloud forest. We saw a giant hummingbird, endless orchids, and all sorts of interesting plants. Our guide, Eder, was an endless fountain of biological information, although I felt he was trying to hang out behind me to shoo me along. Finally I had to tell him to go ahead, “porque no me gusta que me andes carrereando.”

 

The goal was to reach the pass by 11:30 am. Ha! It was the never ending story, with one false summit after the other, and it was not until 2 pm that we reached the top. It felt good to be on top of the world, and to see how far we had come, but I felt the pass could be renamed the Dead Mexican Pass and that would not be too far from the truth.

 

Then came the killer descent. From our lofty perch we had to descend in less than 4 km to Pasamayo (3,650 m amsl), where we would have a very late lunch and camp for the night. It was miserable. Imagine descending a million steps of uneven height and you will have a pale idea of what that ordeal was all about. The first half we made still happy and cheerful, but the mood turned somber as hour after interminable hour we battered our knees against the cold stone. Actually, it was only two and a half hours later that we reached camp, at about 4:30 pm. Again the Aussies (arrival at 2:30 pm), and Margarita and Tom (arrival at 3:30 pm), accorded us a cheerful reception, and Annie and Tom dove into their respective tents to recover for a few minutes, the former from exhaustion and the latter from Wiracocha’s Revenge.

 

I don’t quite remember exactly what we had for lunch, followed 30 minutes by Happy Hour, in turn followed 30 minutes later by dinner, but whatever it was it tasted delicious, as only a repast in open air can taste. Needless to say we retired early, and despite the chill of the evening we slept the deep sleep of the exhausted.

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 6 – Inca Trail from Piscacucho to Wayllabamba

I am back to our chronicle. The following morning we woke up way too early, and by 5:30 am were ready for pickup, together with Margarita and Tom, who had woken up even earlier. The outfitters were there on time and after loading our gear we went back to central Cusco to pickup the rest of our party, which consisted of two young couples of Aussies: Marikki and Andrew, and Kira and Ross. We couldn’t have asked for better traveling companions! They were sociable, and funny, and altogether great sports.

By 7 am we were on the road to Ollantaytambo, where we made a short stop for coffee and breakfast, and then proceeded to Piscacucho, which is the traditional start of the trail. It is a small town with a train station and enough place for outfits to spread their stuff and pack. In our case we had seven porters and a cook, so we were on a one-to-one ratio between helpers and visitors. The porters are local farmers, who in the tourist season might make the minimum salary of 650 Soles per month (about US$260 per month). It is hard to be a porter. Presumably they are limited to a load of 25 kg (50 lbs per person), but I am pretty sure each of them was carrying close to 50 kg (100 lbs). We tried to alleviate the load by paying for an extra porter, but I suspect that the original seven just took their share of the fee and distributed amongst them, rather than getting an extra man. I chose to carry my full load in solidarity to the porters, with the idea that I would hire an extra local man for the second day, which promises to be the toughest.

Today we only walked 10 km, with a relatively modest gain in altitude from Piscacucho (2,700 m amsl) to Wayllabamba (3,000 m amsl). The initial walk was delightful, as it followed closely the Rio Urabamba, and I couldn’t help but remind Annie that this very river would empty into the mighty Amazon. In a way, then, we were walking on the headwaters of the Amazon!

Along the way we saw in the distance the remains of the Inca sites of Qanabamba and Patallaqta, at which point it became time for lunch. Lunch is a grand affair here in the trail. The porters hurry along the way, and have the mess tents set by the time you get there. The cook gets busy and as soon as you arrive there is a fresh glass of lemonade waiting for you. Then comes a five-course dinner with soup, salad, rice, main meat dish, and dessert. Everything tastes so good!

Annie and I met our old nemesis along the trail: The pit toilet! My first encounter was particularly gruesome, because the “stuff” was all over the floor. What poor aim some people have! Later I found a cleaner version of the torturous contraption, which requires you to get rid of jacket or vest, to minimize smearing them with you know what. Then you have to squat (something that becomes harder with age) making sure you are not likely to pee on your leg, and planning distances well enough so the bombs go down the tunnel. Then you have to clean yourself, trying not to drop your glasses, camera. Or iPod into the depths of Hades. It is definitely a performance that improves with rehearsal after rehearsal.

The second half of the walk was fairly sedate, but we were beginning to gain altitude and I was definitely puffing. I was glad to see in the distance our Aussie friends, cheering us as we came into camp, a couple of hours behind them. Tom and Annie made a beeline for the tents, which were already pitched and ready for immediate occupancy, and took a nap. I hung out with the younger generation, which were in the middle of a hotly contested game of Zong, a game played with dice. Just as they finished and I was getting ready to join them we were called for “Happy Hour” (pop corn and coffee), and shortly thereafter we were served supper. This was a chance to get some hot chocolate inside us, because as soon as the sun set a chill settled on the land.

Annie padded our nest as well she could, because she was afraid of being cold, but the liners worked wonders, as always, and we spent a very good night.