Day 39

Day 39

We were all woken up at 5am by one of the cooks with a cup of tea full of coca leaves. For those of you who don’t know they chew on them here a lot for help with the altitude. It’s what they make cocaine from. Sucking on the leaves for 20 minutes at a time numbs your stomach so you can’t get nauseous from the altitude and so you won’t get hungry and can work in the mountains all day long.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get my cup. We all packed up our shit and made the hike up to the house which felt better after being up at that altitude for the night and making the trek to the house a few times while we were there. We dropped off our duffel bags to get loaded up on the horses while we waited for breakfast. Breakfasts were kinda weak. A lot of bread and jam. not really much protein at all. We drank a few cups of coca tea to get us ready for the high altitude and to keep us warm. It was maybe 35-40 out that morning. Packing my bag for the hike was rough. I didn’t want to bring a lot of clothes because it would be getting warmer later in the day and it’s a lot of weight. Along with my big Sony camera and water the bag was getting heavy. I opted for shorts and my down jacket with a rain poncho.

We gathered around that morning. The other two groups were stretching and doing some team dances or something if I remember correctly meanwhile we are learning all about coca leaves. We picked our team name at some point before that yesterday and it was “Pinches Gringos”, which translates to “fucking gringos”. But while the other teams were stretching and doing some rituals they came up with we are all stuffing coca leaves in our cheeks with some black solid stuff to make our body absorb the chemicals faster. We decided that were also going to be called “Team Cocania”

We were off. It wasn’t a race but only if you’re in first place right. We were moving pretty quick. The views were fucking insane guys. The high snow capped mountain in front of us which we were working to get to. We started up the long steep uphill that was named the gringo killer. I think they over hyped it because we were doing pretty well for the most part. We stopped a few times for some breaks, we were covered in sweat but it was still cold out. The horses from the camp and the cooks passed us maybe an hour or two into the hike.

We came to an opening with a large field and a few of us took a seat behind some rocks to wait for the rest of the group while getting shelter from their strong cold winds. We all took a little break here once everyone caught up and had some snacks. I was thrilled I brought back about 20 protein bars from NY which I was munching on. It was so nice talking a little break and making each other laugh the whole time getting to know everyone a bit more and more as the house passed. Aurelio had a lot of funny stories and good info on the local area which was lovely to hear. We hiked and hiked and finally reached Salkantay pass. Holy shit guys this was incredible. It was just incredible. Rocks blasting up to the heavens covered in snow, I guess you can call it a glacier. We all took a bunch of pictures and sat around in the circle for the chief to educate us on the local area. He passed around a little gift he brought which was a local type of alcohol. Now we’re taking shots in the middle of a 12 mile hike! I like this guy and I see where it’s going! Haha

We sat around and chatted for a while after he was done teaching us and then we packed up ready to head out. We had the hardest part of the day over and started the hike down. We were at 15,500 or 16,000′ at the pass and we were descending down to about 10,000′ I think if I can recall and it was all downhill. The groups spread out a bunch and I ended up walking with a polish guy Stefan that showed up early this morning from Cusco. We chatted about all sorts of things which was nice. Then I paired up with Anya and we ended up chatting for hours on the hike down about life, its wonders, psychedelics, sharing our experiences and I think we learned alot from each other those few hours. We all met up at a point for lunch and of course it started to pour as we were eating. I had a lovely view of the whole valley we came down from while eating lunch as you’ll see in the pictures below. We threw on our ponchos and headed down even more into the valley. The group split up quite a bit and I ended up catching up to Ian up front. He was thankful as he hadn’t seen another person for a while and thought he got lost. We made it down into the jungle area of the hike now. It was starting to get really hot and humid. We all hung out for a bit at a little break point where there was a hut with food and drinks. The rednecks got some good old cervezas.

The chief told us some stories about military guys he did the tour with one day and they did it all in two days. Once we picked up our gear Will and I decided to run down the rest of the way. It was some steep dirt downhill on a cliff edge. We had 3 miles to go after the long morning of the uphill and downhill. We were moving so fast bouncing off every rock passing everyone there was to pass. It was so much fun to be able to throw in some hardcore fitness into the hike like that mixing it with taking it slow and talking to people.

Will and I got to camp and took a freezing cold shower, my stomach was destroyed from drinking filtered water from the river and I don’t think my filter was working properly anymore. We all gathered around for some card games and chatted about all kinds of things, did a lot of shit talking which was hilarious, played some more card games and before we realized, it was time for bed. We were absolutely beaten and I crashed again with the rednecks. We were nearly crying from laughing so hard in our hut trying to go to sleep. We had such a good time. No service for two days now and this was absolutely incredible.

The path we had in the morning to the pass. You can see it on the right side and then cutting up to the left side near the middle of the picture.