Guest Written by Sidney:
Day two of the trek, despite not actually including the highest altitude, probably had the highest highs and the lowest lows.
The day started early with a massive omelette each and an exciting ride across the river in a man powered cable car; our guide did the pulling while we giggled nervously reading the "dos personas maxima" sign. It was only when we reached the other side that we noticed our guide was not carrying his bag. He explained that today was "solo hiking" and that he would meet up with us later for lunch after organizing some pack horses to carry our gear to the camping spot.
We felt pretty good about ourselves after crushing the 4-5 hour steep uphill hike in 2 hours 15 minutes. Only afterwards did we realize that this would mean waiting 2 hours for our guide. We warmed up with some delightful mint tea at the lunch spot, which came made with freshly picked mint.
We succeeded in our goal of making friends when two Canadians also stopped at our lunch spot. The friendship may not have been voluntary on their part, but it ended with them feeding us their leftover lunch snacks, so we considered it a win.
Our guide eventually arrived, but without our bags or any horses. We ate lunch, then continued our solo day with a self guided tour of Choquiquerao, the first ruins we were scheduled to see on our trek. We spent over four hours wandering through the ruins, which were empty save six other travelers (quite the contrast to Machu Pichu which sees 2000 visitors per day!). The self guided tour was a bit questionable in terms of accuracy (Guide Marley, are you sure that the meter high stairs meant that ancient incas were giants?), but it covered more ground than any of the others we saw. We got off the beaten track, finding loops of hidden trails through partially restored terraces and well labeled must see centers. A highlight was a steep trail down to terraces decorated with white granite mosaics in the shape of llamas. We also added another friend making success to our list when we hiked to the llamas with a solo traveler from Luxemburg after offering to take his picture.
Our friend making streak continued when we returned to camp and our guide wasn't there to meet us yet, and we found a Mexican-Canadian couple who we had bumped into on the trail earlier in the day. They were super friendly and helpful, translating from their cook news that our bags had yet to leave the Playa, our previous campsite. When our guide's backpack arrived with all of his warm layers, we started to accept that we might be alone for a while in the cold, as the Playa was a minimum 5 hour hike away (mental math: 5 pm plus 5 hour hike = 10 pm tent/bag/food arrival). Our new friends turned out to be interesting and friendly AND guardian angels. As the sun went down and we started getting cold and hungry, they offered us extra layers and all of their day's leftover snacks. When we were cuddling for warmth in the dark alone outside, debating eating our emergency cliff bar, they were in their food tent eating dinner and convincing their cook to feed us as well (oh what beautiful words: "dinner in 20 minutes"). Relieved that we wouldn't in fact starve, we enjoyed the wonders of the inside of their mysterious food tent, where a cook worked away busily on the opposite side of a tarp, and only his head would pop up periodically when he delivered delightful foods including soup, spaghetti and dessert.
Once more, while we were enjoying the comfort of their food tent, our new found foster parents were organizing our accommodations. Ana would share her tent with us while Daniel would sleep in his guide's tent to preserve our honour.
We cuddled, swaddled in all of our borrowed layers, and slept soundly until 2:30 am when knocking on our tent prompted an automatic "no gracias" from me. Marley had the presence of mind to prompt me to accept our bag from our guide who was knocking on the tent.
The day had the potential to be extremely uncomfortable, but it ended up with us up on the new friend count, well fed, warm and happy with our experience at the ruins. Oh Canada, we love you and our fellow countrymen/women.
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