Salkantay Trek, Peru - Day Three

I could barely crawl out of my sleeping bag this morning. My legs were so stiff that I wondered if I would even be able to do the day's trek. But a walk to the toilet tent and back loosened me up some, and I figured it would all work itself out on the trail. (And what other option was there?) The swimsuits and towels we'd draped over our tent were still exactly as wet as they'd been last night. Breakfast was the usual tea and some chopped fruit and granola. The fruit was excellent, but without milk or yogurt, I skipped the granola.

There was some kind of delay before we all started walking. I didn't know what was happening, but I rarely do in group situations like this, so I just hung around and waited. At least the wait allowed our wet things to dry in the sun, which happened surprisingly quickly. Today was warm, and I started the day perfectly comfortable in just a t-shirt. And then at around 9:00 a.m., we were walking again. Or hobbling, as the case may be.

Just like yesterday, the trail was steep and littered with loose stones. I was slower than usual on my stiff legs, but as we worked our way down to the flat, stony riverbank, my legs started to loosen up as I had hoped. We walked along the river for a while, its thunderous progress wrapping us in a cocoon of sound. After a while, the trail led up into the woods, and the rushing sound abated.

After some time we came across a snack stand set up by an enterprising local woman. She even had cold drinks and benches set up. I didn't buy anything, but was happy for the chance to rest. Of course, by the time we started up again, my leg muscles had refrozen and it took another hundred yards or so to loosen them up. That was the first of three snack spots we passed. The second and third were less trekker oriented and more geared towards providing supplies to the tiny communities around them.

At the second I felt that we'd barely gotten going after the first stop, but at the third stop, I was ready to sit down, and did so immediately. We chilled in the shade for a while, eating our snacks. Milthon had a cold. I felt terrible for him. The last thing you need on a hike like that is a cold. But he didn't complain, and he refused our offers of various cold remedies.

Two little kids came over to check us out. The little girl, around five, could have been special ordered from Central Casting - adorable and shy Andean village girl. Her dark hair was done in two braids and she had on some sort of pinafore over pants. She peeked around corners at us, but answered our questions only with shy smiles.

Her little brother was not so shy. He was also astoundingly dirty, with mud or something smeared all over his face and shirt. He toddled up to Michael, who was sitting with his right foot on his left knee and eating a stick of beef jerky. The boy looked up at Michael and then leaned casually against the shelf of Michael's lower leg, like a guy at the juice bar of a trendy gym. He didn't speak, but he indicated that he would like some beef jerky.

Michael hesitated at first. One never really knows what it's okay to feed to other people's toddlers. But then he broke off a little piece of jerky for the boy, who popped it into his mouth. After rolling it around for a second or two, the boy grimaced, removed the piece of jerky, placed it on Michael's shoe, and walked away. I guess he didn't like it. A nearby dog got the saliva-covered morsel, and then hung around us for a long time, hoping for more. Dogs are really good at that hopeful look.

That was our longest rest, but eventually we had to get up and start walking again. The trail leading down from that stop was the steepest and narrowest we'd had yet, and half the group piled up behind me while I picked my way down. But soon enough we reached an area that was of normal steepness, and it got easier.

We hit another bottleneck at a stream bridged by a large log and as we waited our turns to cross, another group came up behind us. These trekkers were carrying their own large backpacks, and maybe that's what made them feel they were entitled to bypass the line and go marching across the bridge ahead of us.

I was determined to pass them again, but even with their packs they outpaced about half of our group. But my faster pace was still a faster pace, and the trail had grown flatter, and after a while Michael and I found ourselves right up with the front-runners. And we were even, for a short while, in the lead. Not that it's a race. But it was nice to know what the other end of the line was like for a change.

The trail flattened and widened until it was a dirt road and we could walk several abreast. Michael started talking to someone else, and I found myself walking next to Milthon in an awkward silence. "You don't talk much, do you?" Milthon said. Which, if you're shy like me, you'll know is a question that's almost impossible to respond to. But we managed to churn up a small exchange, which allowed me to relax enough for us to have a real conversation.

We talked about books, and how I'm a writer, and how much Milthon likes to read. He gets English-language books from a university library in Cuzco and can't get enough of them. And then we were in a town. La Playa was the largest town we'd seen since Mollepata, which is not saying much. But there were a couple dozen faded wooden buildings at least, on either side of the dirt road, and schoolchildren walking about. The playa in this case was the riverbank.

We were led around back of the town's store and into a large grassy yard. At the edge of the yard, a trail led down to the river, which we could easily hear. It was only lunchtime, but this would be our camp for the night. I heard a couple of different stories about why we weren't continuing on to our planned stop of a school field in Lucmabamba - mud, overcrowded - but I didn't much care. Milthon said we could go down to the river before lunch if we wanted and a bunch of us did so.

I knew the water would be too cold to really get into, but I had visions of sitting on a rock at the river's edge and soaking my hot, tired feet in the cold water. Down on the shore I quickly stripped off my boots and sweaty socks and found a likely looking rock. But as soon as I'd dipped one foot in, I yanked it out in outrage and horror - it was COLD. Not refreshingly cool as I'd dreamed of, but ridiculously cold. So cold that it took a while to work up the courage to dip in the other foot to even them out.

Michael, however, hopped right into the water and went under, head and all. Wow. When I saw him do that - twice - I thought I'd try again to stick my feet in, but it just wasn't happening. Michael even risked losing his hands by rinsing his t-shirt in the icy water, and we could see clouds of something murky being squeezed out of it. I would have loved to do the same, but I only brought the one t-shirt. (One of the sacrifices I made to try to keep down the weight of my things for the horses... a stupid sacrifice because a) a change of shirt does not weigh that much and I really could have used it and b) everyone else brought their bowling balls and encyclopedia collections.)

Eventually Milthon called us for lunch, which was soup, of course, followed by an assortment of pasta and tuna and vegetable salads. After lunch, some of the guys played fútbol with Denis, the nine-year-old son of one of the porters. Denis is the most adorable kid, but he works like a grown man. We've seen him driving the mules and setting up tents and displaying his polite, grownup manners and otherwise being a little man. But he was all kid when messing around with the soccer ball. I think I freaked out some people when I said I wanted to eat him, but all I meant was that he was a really cute little kid. Is that so wrong?

In the dining tent, we played the first ever game of Ozzie Boom, which is like playing Uno, but with a regular deck of cards. It got its name from a story the two Australian guys had about another Australian they'd met in Hawaii. (One of those stories where you don't actually have to be there, but you do at least have to hear the story from someone who was there.)The game was interrupted by Milthon who came to inform us that tomorrow our things would be transported by truck and that the porters would be leaving in a short while, so we might want to pull ourselves together to tip them.

This caused a painful discussion of how much to tip, made more difficult by the fact that we didn't know how many porters we were tipping and that some people came from places where tipping is not customary. (Both of these problems might have been smoothed if we'd actually been introduced to the staff and become acquainted with their number and humanity in the beginning.) Some numbers were tossed around and rejected. Percentages were mentioned, but we had not all paid the same price for the trek. Finally a delegation went to ask Milthon his thoughts on the matter.

Milthon said he thought around $5 per person might be a nice amount, but that the guys would prefer soles over dollars. So we all threw in some money and Marshall served as a casa de cambio for those who had only dollars with them. The porters came around to say goodbye and collect their tip, shaking hands with everyone. It was clear they didn't know who we were either, as they shook hands with some of us twice and some of us not at all. But they were friendly, and seemed very appreciative of the money.

After that business was over, we got back to our card game. Which I won, making me the first known winner of Ozzie Boom. Nice. It was a really good afternoon. Because of the short hiking day, for the first time I had enough energy to actually talk to other people and I found it was a good group.

The afternoon faded away with general hanging out. Michael went down to the river to take some long-exposure shots of the water. When the tents were put up, I moved our stuff into one and made up our sleeping bags. Michael's always the one who goes and gets us provisions, and I always make the beds. It became chilly as the sun set, but it wasn't the horrible numbing cold of the first night, and it was pleasant to lie in the tent and chat.

Someone had discovered that the store we were camping behind sold cold beer out of an actual refrigerator, so there were quite a few liter bottles on the table as we waited in the candlelit dining tent for dinner. Dinner was, as always, soup, followed by spaghetti with a vegetarian tomato sauce and grated cheese, and some stuffed peppers. But there was a flaw in the plan.

The cooks had used the same number of large metal trays to serve the food that they had every other night. But tonight two of the trays contained just sauce and cheese. Toppings, not solid meal components like rice or vegetables. So there wasn't enough food.

At every other meal we've had tons of food left over, so it wasn't really in people's minds to ration and take less than they wanted, and a couple of people who got to the food last didn't get enough. That was bad. But we'd had a less draining walk today and everyone came forward with supplemental food from their packs, so no one starved. Still, you want a nice hot meal at the end of the day. Not enough food is not good at all.

I have heard terrible stories about how some agencies don't provide any food for the porters and cooking staff other than what's left over after the hikers finish. It's one of the reasons I wanted spend more money with a better company. I know the staff has been eating, and until now the group has certainly been getting plenty to eat, and it's been pretty impressive food, too. So I hope it was all just a miscalculation and we'll have an abundance of food again tomorrow, because it's supposed to be the worst day. I'm having a hard time imagining how anything can top Day One but if it does, we're going to need all the food we can get.