We are awakened at 6:00 in the morning by a porter arriving at our tent with a fresh cup of Coca Tea. We quaff it down while packing our stuff up and join everyone in the mess tent for some quinoa porridge and flapjacks. Everyone in our group is somber at breakfast, with the thought of gaining and losing 4500 feet over 10 miles at elevation has our brains thoroughly occupied. For icing on the cake, there was a steady drizzle and we all donned our fashionable plastic ponchos for the uphill slog.
Regardless, we all answer the call to begin after breakfast and find ourselves climbing, climbing, climbing for the first 3 hours to the summit of Dead Woman's pass. I wish I could say it was no problem, but that would be a bold-face lie. We weren't the only ones having a tough time. We passed several folks from a group that had started from the same campsite an hour earlier, and the porters, who had litterally been running past us yesterday with their massive blue tarp covered loads, were taking much more frequent breaks and pouring out as much sweat as we were. Of course they were also carrying about 40 pounds more...
Not much conversation occurred during this slog, as everyone kept their heads down and their feet moving. Every once in a while we would raise our heads to look around and try to catch a view, but it was fairly futile as the clouds had thickly settled in around us. Once we looked up to unexpectedly find some llamas blocking our way, but they seemed not all concerned about us.
Finally, we saw a few folks from our group standing on a ridge with their packs off which promoted Carrie to yell out "please tell me that's the top!' They yelled their agreement, and gave us the energy we needed to bust out the remaining 50 yards, arriving a reasonable 6th and 7th place out of 15 (one of the girls had already been sent back to Kilometer 82 with a porter). This felt nice, as we had been worried about our ability to hang with the group (we were the 2nd and 3rd oldest people in our group).
Finally, we were perched on a narrow ridge with would have afforded us the ability to see for miles in both directions were itnot for the cloud we were standing in. Our guides insisted on another group photo (despite the fact that the group hadn't gotten there yet) of us standing in front of the "view", as you can see in the photo here. The temperature was considerably cooler, so the 10 of us took off after 30 minutes or so without ever seeing the remaining members of our group (not too worry,as our head guide had remained back with them.) We did well on the backside, as we used our trekking poles to good advantage while negotiating the many, many Inca steps that lead usdown 2000 feet to our lunch spot. Carrie's knee did hurt her on the way down, but regardless we were the first two people to arrive at the mess tent, and patted ourselves on the back while warily eyeballing the steep trail leading up out of camp towards the second big pass of the day. We had a nice long lunchwhile waiting for the rest of our party (some members looking extremely pale and haggard upon arrival), and then we set off to summit the 2nd pass.
After a 15 minute walk directly up hundreds of Inca steps, we came to another acheological site, an acient Inca look-out / shelter for Incas traveling the trail to Machu Picchu. Ozzie told us how this would probably have been a first night stop for those traveling from Cusco - a trip that so far had taken us a 3 hour bus ride and two days of walking.
The 2nd pass was the official ending of the highlands section of the trail and the beginning of the Rain Forest section. Surprisingly, Carrie actually got stronger during this 2nd section, and despite the effort required to crest the 2nd pass, and after enjoying a very beautiful mile-long section of flat trail through the jungle, we again were the first two people to walk into camp that late afternoon. We took a short nap before dinner, ate dinner, and then went right back to bed and were asleep by 8:30 once again, but this time with the final thoughts that the worst was now behind us. Day Two had been no picnic, but we had gotten through it better than we had anticipated. Even better, this meant we both now knew that we were going to make it to Macchu Picchu!
Regardless, we all answer the call to begin after breakfast and find ourselves climbing, climbing, climbing for the first 3 hours to the summit of Dead Woman's pass. I wish I could say it was no problem, but that would be a bold-face lie. We weren't the only ones having a tough time. We passed several folks from a group that had started from the same campsite an hour earlier, and the porters, who had litterally been running past us yesterday with their massive blue tarp covered loads, were taking much more frequent breaks and pouring out as much sweat as we were. Of course they were also carrying about 40 pounds more...
Not much conversation occurred during this slog, as everyone kept their heads down and their feet moving. Every once in a while we would raise our heads to look around and try to catch a view, but it was fairly futile as the clouds had thickly settled in around us. Once we looked up to unexpectedly find some llamas blocking our way, but they seemed not all concerned about us.
After a 15 minute walk directly up hundreds of Inca steps, we came to another acheological site, an acient Inca look-out / shelter for Incas traveling the trail to Machu Picchu. Ozzie told us how this would probably have been a first night stop for those traveling from Cusco - a trip that so far had taken us a 3 hour bus ride and two days of walking. 
The 2nd pass was the official ending of the highlands section of the trail and the beginning of the Rain Forest section. Surprisingly, Carrie actually got stronger during this 2nd section, and despite the effort required to crest the 2nd pass, and after enjoying a very beautiful mile-long section of flat trail through the jungle, we again were the first two people to walk into camp that late afternoon. We took a short nap before dinner, ate dinner, and then went right back to bed and were asleep by 8:30 once again, but this time with the final thoughts that the worst was now behind us. Day Two had been no picnic, but we had gotten through it better than we had anticipated. Even better, this meant we both now knew that we were going to make it to Macchu Picchu!
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