Today, nonna's birthday, our second day of hiking was harder as it was 45min downhill then 4hrs uphill. We crossed the impressive apurimac river on a solid brigde, at about 1500m, and then climbed up all the way to the camp in some isolated mini hamlet made of just a few houses. It is simple, quiet and nice.
There were 3 huge landslides last night and I could see that the guide was walking fast to avoid any mudslide or rockfall. When we were climbing up we saw rockfall on the other side of the river that crossed the pah we were on a few hours before... A bit spooky. Here the camp is comfortable and protected from mudslides. We are now back at 2900m, still lower than Cuzco.
In the afternoon, Max and our guide Erick went up to recon the path to make sure that it's safe for the following day. I heard another guide telling Erick about a huge landslide and that he "almost died there". Maybe I misunderstood the conversation in Spanish. Anyway, when they returned Max said that the path was sketchy, and he rarely says that. He actually was almost hit by a microwave sized rock while crossing a gully that had a recent landslide. Erick was a bit scared and the muleteer that went with him completely refused to cross that gully. That didn't sound good for the next day, as it would be extremely complicated for the mules to cross these sections...
Over dinner Erick told us that we would try to pass these mudslides sections the next day and continue as long as it didn't rain overnight. Otherwise it would be too dangerous for the mules and we would have to turn back and return to Cachora in 2 days. Quite a disappointment, but at At least he proposed another route where we would drive from Cachora to another village and hike the Salkantay trek, which joins our original path.
We went to bed Under a mostly clear sky, the stars were very bright and we could see the milky way. Beautiful night at 3000m, and hopes for the next day...
JN