Day 91 09.10.15
*Warning – this blog entry may contain several landscape photos, if this is not of your liking don’t read this blog entry*
We woke up early, received some coca tea straight at the tent door and got ready for breakfast. We had some lovely porridge, in liquid form and some bread and jam.
Then we got to know the crew that was working for us and took a lovely group picture in front of our campsite view.
This is the view from our tent and the horses grazing below.
We walked up from our campsite and headed up and up. Below you can see our little tents in blue / green just getting packed up.
Just the early morning sheep herding.
We passed several houses with people going about their morning business. Every once in a while little school children would run passed us back down into Socma to school. Yes, they run the distance we did in half a day every morning and get to Socma in about 2 hours. In the afternoon they do the same trek back up the mountain in 2 hours…
Some beautiful flowers along the way.
Having a small break before heading further.
Up, up, up we go.
Loving the landscape.
Even further up. At this point, one of our group, troubled with the altitude, got up on one of the horses and was rode up.
We were constantly followed by or following a different group, dressed in all in neon orange. Here you can see them at the right side of the mountain.
Yet further up.
Closer to the peak.
This is how steep it got. Here we stopped every 2 minutes to catch our breath. Even though our breath came back quickly, it was a bit tedious. At least my knees were playing along!
Looking back on the rest of the group.
Farming happening at about 4200 meters. (Even though they are more Incan remains than current day farming.)
More view.
Finally, the first pass at 4400 metres.
And yes. The jumping photos happened. (After many bloopers, our guide managed to take one after the first trial.)
We headed onwards towards the second pass and evidently our lunch.
You can see the lunch tent in the distance.
Beautiful flowers along the way on cacti.
We got to the campsite and had lunch.
Vegetable soup.
Lomo saltado with rice and potato mash.
For desert I can’t remember what we had, but it must have been good.
We headed on further and saw different birds flying about. For example this hawk too.
More beautiful landscape.
Short break.
A random white horse on the top of the hill. It was just missing Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings…
Trekking from the first pass to the second was just such a delight, the landscape being stunning!
Second pass!!! Yey!!! Kuychicassa at 4450 metres.
This is where we had to go down from… :S
Very very steep.
We all walked or slid down this part of the trek ever so carefully, and some of us looked like a right praying mantis with our walking poles used as support… I fell down several times and it was just sooo steep and the rocks were sooo loose.
This little mountain goat knew all the right bends and turns to take to NOT fall on your bum.
This is the passage we walked down (between the two cliffs!).
The view was a reward though!
We headed on towards the sun gate, which is actually a wind gate due to the high winds around this area.
More view.
Happy campers.
We headed further down towards our campsite. This was the worst part for me, because my knees weren’t happy at all about this.
Nice view of the Veronica Mountain with its snow covered peak, and the wind gate right next to it.
Passing some ruins on the way down. These ruins are said to have been from more of the elite in society and possibly from priests that went up to the wind gate to pray for rain and sun up at the wind gate. The wind gate was also used to be able to observe the entire valley below and to be able to deal with any enemies that were coming over the hills.
We finally made it to the campsite. I have never been happier. Well :).
We had some tea in terms of some popcorn and some cookies and then had another rest before dinner.
For dinner we had some vegetable soup.
Some pasta with vegetables and chicken.
And as a desert – wow! Cake!!! They literally made cake on a small camping stove. I have no idea how they did.
Afterwards we headed back to our tents in the dark, watched the stars a bit and fell asleep instantly.
