It took me an hour to get warm in my sleeping bag last night, but eventually I was more or less comfortable. It didn't help that the ground beneath me and my well-used sleeping pad was practically frozen and that the timid bow I tied under my chin kept coming undone, letting the rented sleeping bag hood slip off my head. Michael said he was cold all night. (He chose not to bring long underwear bottoms on the trip.)

Still, even the chilly tent was warmer than the air outside. Unzipping the tent and crawling out was not fun, and brushing my teeth with icy cold bottled water was painful. The water was so cold that I chose not to wash my face, the same choice I had made the night before. That's the part of camping I don't like, the feeling grubby all the time.

But unlike with ordinary camping, there was hot tea in the dining tent and a cooking staff who had prepared a hearty breakfast of porridge, bread, pancakes and some kind of delicious berry syrup that someone dubbed Inca Jam. Or maybe that's just what it was called, I don't know.

Now that it was daylight, we could see that the valley was not unoccupied after all. We had shared it with a couple of small stone houses and staggering quantities of horse manure. And as the sun finally rose up over the mountains behind our camp and spilled precious warming rays over us, a young person drove a herd of sheep down the mountain and around the edge of our campsite.

After we'd packed up our daypacks and left our tents standing and our things for the porters to distribute among the mules, Milthon led us a short way out of the valley where he gave another lecture. The five families living in this area, he told us, work cooperatively to plant and harvest the only crop possible here, potatoes. (Did I mention that Peru grows over 4000 varieties of potatoes?) The closest town is Santa Teresa, so schoolkids stay in town all week, returning only on the weekends. There are no doctors or nurses nearby, so if someone gets sick they have to walk all the way to Santa Teresa or to Mollepata.

I thought of the journey we'd taken yesterday, how we had driven long past Mollepata before beginning to walk and how the walk had nearly killed me. Surely the locals would be in better shape than I, but it was still quite a walk. Much too long for a person with, say, appendicitis or a bee sting allergy. But if you could avoid those acute problems, apparently you'd do quite well. Milthon said the valley residents' healthy lifestyles allow them to live to be extremely old.

One of these elderly residents sat in the grass and watched us as we all fell into line and started the day's trek. She looked as if she thought we were crazy, but she responded politely to our greetings.

The walk was all downhill, a dirt path through the fields and then eventually down along a ledge above a ravine. Far below us, but still audible, was the river, which must have carved its deep canyon over thousands of years. Milthon stopped us again to point out how the landscape had changed from stark brown rock to thick, green foliage.

The weather had changed too. We had left the numbing cold behind at the campsite. Marshall, who had started the day in shorts, was vindicated. As Milthon talked, there was a flurry of zipping off of pants legs and applying of sunscreen and insect repellent. I put on some sunscreen and a hat, but skipped the repellent. As much as I hate gross, itchy bites, I hate rubbing poison into my skin, so I decided to wait and see if there were actually any insects to be repelled before I broke out the DEET.

Given the relative easiness of the trail, I had no trouble keeping pace with the others today, though I didn't have all their energy for chatting. I found I had to pay a lot of attention to my feet if I wanted to avoid slipping on the many loose stones. Milthon stopped us every now and then to point out different plants and discuss their uses. Possibly he had been doing something similar yesterday while I was trudging along at the end of the line and trying not to ride the horse, but I don't know.

We walked and walked and walked. Slowly we were working our way downward, coming closer and closer to the rushing river. Very occasionally we'd reach a short uphill stretch. The uphills were like the peanuts in a box of Cracker Jack, I thought. You wouldn't want to eat a whole box of them, but they make a nice break from all that sweet popcorn. Or something. I was getting a little tired by then, and looking forward to lunch.

I walked alone a lot this morning. Michael was well ahead of me. There were times when I could see no other person anywhere around me, just the narrow trail under my feet, and glimpses of the brown ribbon of it circling the mountain far ahead. To my left was leafy hillside rising almost vertically, and to my right was the dropoff to the river, growing steadily closer and louder. Across the ravine were more mountains. Unlike the jagged, snowy peak of Salkantay, which was slipping away behind and above us, these mountains were richly green and smoothly mounded, but still impossibly high.

I caught up with the others at a break spot, just outside a village of three or four small stone houses. The good grass spots were all taken, so I sat down right in the dirt; clearly I was tired. I even drank a bunch of water. As soon as we started walking again the eager beavers left me far behind, but I was walking at a decent pace and enjoying it despite being tired. The day's snack was a green-skinned tangerine, and I sucked the juice out of it as I walked, throwing the peels deep into the bushes.

Finally we reached the river we'd been tracking all morning. The front runners had stopped and were frolicking in the icy white water as it flowed through and over boulders. Unfortunately there was not enough time for me to dip my feet in as I was bringing up the rear again, so I just crossed the bridge with Joseph and the horse right behind me. The trail started to wind uphill, but the downhill walking had already taken its toll.

By the time I reached the lunch spot at Colipapampa, my knees were aching from the downhill jarring. But I managed to walk normally past the amused local guys who paused in fixing a stone wall to watch my progress. But once in the dining tent, any sitting or standing actions on my part were accompanied by groans. Joseph said he had some medicinal ointment he would give me after lunch. Milthon greeted me with the tea kettle. "Apple juice?" he asked me. "It's cold."

Cold! Yes! I'd woken up freezing and despising my icy water, but just a few hours later the thought of a cold drink was more than welcome. Unfortunately it turned out that the juice was only cold by relative standards. If I had been served tea at that temperature I would have said it was cold. But juice at that temperature feels warm. Still, it was tasty and had little apple chunks it in which was interesting. Lunch was soup again, followed by stuffed avocados, pasta salad, and vegetable salad.

Joseph's medicine seemed to be a kind of local-brand Ben Gay. I didn't know if it would help me since I wasn't sure if the problem was a muscular one or not. It seemed to be my kneebones that were doing the complaining. But I smeared some on anyway. Joseph is so nice.

After a rest spent watching a family of pigs rooting around, and some feeding of bread to dogs and chickens, we took off again. Following a lecture from Milthon about our surroundings, we headed down an extremely steep and dusty trail to a hot spring, which I was very much looking forward to. A scalding hot waterfall poured out of the cliffside and into a man-made rock pool. Below us was the river again, hissing and roaring along.

The pool was a bit muddy and not as hot as the water pouring into it, but it was very pleasant. I have never been in a natural hot spring before so I don't know how this one compared, but I enjoyed it. My knees even stopped hurting in the warm water. Standing in my bikini under the waterfall on the platform over the pool was not so pleasant. I felt like I was in a beer commercial and quickly got back into the pool.

All too soon, we were out and dressed and had climbed the rocks and crossed the stick-and-dirt bridge back to the trail, where we met the money-lady. She wanted a sol from each of us for use of the pool. A sol is reasonable and I didn't mind paying it, but I wish I had known about it in advance. And then we were off again.

For some reason I'd thought that after the hot springs we'd be almost at the campsite. I don't know why I keep making that mistake. There was so much more walking. Hours and hours, all downhill. It was not a gentle grade, but a steep and abrupt course down a narrow trail covered with loose rocks and pebbles. Each forward movement was more of a slide than a step. Again I was glad to have my trekking pole.

My knees started hurting again right away, and after a while my right toenail started to hurt too, having been pressed up against the roof of my shoe too many times. I don't know if I chose the wrong hiking boots, or laced them improperly, or if this is just a hike that no shoe can stand up to, but my toenail was not happy. I hope I don't lose it.

We crossed a couple of chattering streams and then for a while it was uphill again. And then downhill. And more downhill. And then more streams to cross. And then mud. And then dirt again. We passed a cornfield planted in a practically vertical patch of earth, and once the trail had washed out and down into the ravine, and someone had had to dig into the mountain to create a new trail.

There were loose stones everywhere and I had to pay attention to every step. I don't know how the others managed to get so far ahead given that it wasn't so tiring to walk downhill. I think I was going so slowly because I was more nervous of slipping on the rocks than everyone else. Michael was able to walk faster, but he held back so he could walk with me.

It was a tough walk, but this time it was still light when we entered the camp at Wiñaypoco, and we were walking, not limping. Well, maybe I was limping a little bit. But it was a good day. Challenging but doable, whereas I'd found the first day had been ridiculous and demoralizing. Marshall and Gerry, our Southern gentlemen, had volunteered to split up into the one-man tents, so Michael and I had a bigger tent.

The two-man tent was much better. There was only a little bit more floorspace, but there was so much headroom in the domed tent that it was pleasant to sit in it together, something that was not true in the triangle-roofed one-man tent.

And there was beer. We were camping at a point where the trail widened into a small field and there was a little store there which sold large bottles of beer. No houses in sight, just the small wooden store that re-opened at Milthon's request.The beers weren't refrigerated but the air temperature was cold enough so that they were adequately chilled. We also had popcorn, provided by the cooks, and green olives provided by Jonathan.

Tonight I was much less tired than last night, but I was still somewhat still and dull in the dining tent. Jessica asked me a couple of times if I was okay, and even asked about my iron intake. It was weird how close she got. My iron is fine, but there is the whole pernicious anemia/B12 thing. I had been worried that this would affect the trek but I don´t think it has.

I'm tired, yes. But I don't "feel pernicious" as i put it when I get the periodic overwhelming bouts of exhaustion and heaviness. I'm pretty sure I'm just good old fashioned tired from a long day of walking. Maybe more tired than the others because I'm in less good shape, but just tired. It's a nice feeling, regular tiredness that I earned through hard work and that didn't just come upon me for no reason and that will be gone after a good night's sleep. So far, so good.

Dinner was a delicious lomo saltado (a local dish of sliced beef, potatoes, peppers and onions) and rice, and more vegetables, with chocolate pudding for dessert. We all wore our hats and jackets to dinner as we had last night, but the food stayed warm on our plates much longer.

Upon leaving the dining tent, we found the same overwhelming number of stars as yesterday. Matt from Australia pointed out the Southern Cross, just over the ridge of the mountain across the gorge from us. I was pleased to see that I had guessed correctly on that bus ride from Nazca to Cuzco.

Though I felt much better than I did last night, I still went to my tent early. I need all the sleep I can get. It's warmer tonight, and I decided to try to do without my fleece and my grubby socks, but it's still cold enough to need everything else.