Day Two....

A challenge is probably the biggest understatement of the century! Day two should have been named something along the lines of "Yeah right!" Kim and I opted to have our packs carried by porters today and tomorrow as we had struggled the day before. The start of the day was not too bad. We made pretty good time to the first stop and decided to keep going upto Dead Woman's Pass almost straight away before the weather closed in. Dead Woman's Pass is some 4,200m above sea level and was very hard going. Eventually we crawled to the top of the pass only for it to start raining.

The descent over the other side was hellish and nigh-on impossible. The rain got heavier and heavier and steps turned into streams and rivers and as a result very very slippery. Both of us slipped a few times and skidded down the wet steps a little. It was a pretty miserable descent to the valley and our ponchos did not fare well against the conditions. Eventually after a couple of hours of pretty desperate descent we made it into the first camp for lunch which was extremely welcome. After lunch the rains began to subside and we had a bit more of a descent before climbing again up above some more Inca Ruins and over the icy cold lakes at the top of the second pass. From then on it was downhill (almost all the way) to camp but we did stop off briefly to climb a cliff edge to see another Inca site just before our night´s campsite. This was a pretty impressive place and we saw it just as the sun was going down below the clouds (our campsite was above the clouds so beautiful pictures (like the one pictured for this entry).

Camp that night was enjoyed by all, especially me as I was feeling 200% better than last camp. We ended up playing cards with all our group and it was a lot of fun. We had a really great group made up of Ozzies, Yankees, Germans and Brits. Our guides were really great too! AND!!! I got my first good night's sleep in about two weeks!