Eventually, I saw one of the porters coming back towards me with the horse. Just in time, too – I had reached a really steep part and the altitude was making me breathe like an asthmatic smoker. I made no friends with the horse, though. He’s used to small Peruvians, not giant North Americans. There were times where I could have sworn he deliberately walked right at the cliff’s edge, hoping to startle me off his back. But he did get me up that last bit of uphill in time for me to walk the rest of the way to camp before the sun set for the night.
Camp was at Ichupata (4250m; 13,943ft), Salkantay Mountain looming right over us. Our tents were set up and the horses unloaded, one of them rolling free in the grass. By now, we were bone cold despite our layers, gloves, and wool hat bought in Cusco. We didn’t linger long over dinner – the food and hot drinks helped warm us up but the temperature was probably closer to 0 degrees Celsius than we’d have liked. Getting comfortable in the tent was a bit of a task due to the cold and because the ground wasn’t exactly flat. Sometimes I woke up in the night, finding that I had slid down to the bottom of the tent. However, I was reminded of why I was doing this when I went outside in search of the toilet tent.
“There really isn’t anything quite like enjoying a stunning piece of Mother Nature in solitude” — AGREE!
Nice post, Kendra
Thanks, Faye!
err did you really need to mention ‘bush pee”?
And I was only on the horse for about 15 minutes and had to come off! You make it sound like I was on it for the whole time. The second time was also for about 15 minutes. I was too heavy for the poor thing to be allowed on for longer.
I will, however, say that you were very diplomatic in not saying that it was my fault that it was later in the day than expected lol.
That horse did not like either of us, that’s for sure! And day 1 was quite your introduction to trekking, eh 🙂