Day 2: 4 seasons of weather

We awoke on a clear morning to the most amazing views of mt. Salkantay. The night was chilly but not unbareable and my stomach was feeling slightly better. I was actually hungry and thirsty! The chatskies (quecha for porters) brought us tea in our tents. We took pictures before even emerging from the sleeping bags. After a breakfast of pancakes and poordige we started the ascent up to the highest point one can go on Mt. Salkantay (15,050 feet). It was hot and we immediately started stripping layers despite hiking in the snow. We reached the view point around 8 am and took tons of pictures with the mountain and the signs. they had an oxygen tank but none of us needed it.

We then left our packs near a rock with a mule and hiked along a more technically rocky "trail" to a hidden and amazing lagoon! it was this blue, turqoise milky color and sat at the base of Mt. Salkantay. it was completely hidden from the trai and I felt really lucky that we got to see it. the water was apparently this special color due to high levels of copper and other metals.

next we each got three coca leaves from our guides and a peice of quartz that we had each picked out of a sacred river the day before. We held the coca leaves in our hands and learned about the incan spiritualuty trilogy of;

• love those around you
• learn knowledge and teach those aroudn you
• work to spread your knowledge and love

They also say to do these things for;

• family
• community
• yourself

We had a moment to reflect and say a prayer of thanks and also to say our own prayers. it was very cool and i was very happy to learn about Pacha Mama (incan spirituality, basically mother earth). 

the rest of the morning we walked in a farly flat-downhill valley which was a much needed downhill. It started to pour rain as we reached our lunch spot and thus we were leaving the sunny glacial area and headed into the rainforse. It rained for a good 2.5 hours and to be quite honest I have had better moments. we each wore these cheap ponchos that covered ourselves and our backpacks. the hiking boots: not so much! Luckily the salesgirl at REI did me well and mine kept my socks and feet dry!!

I played 20 questions with a belgian couple and it was quite entertaining and helped distract us from the rain. At one point we were basically hiking down a small creek. 

we arrived at our camp at about 530 pm (and left our morning camp at 7 am). we were all completely wiped out and drenched! We changed into dry(ish) clothing and successfully taught 5 or 6 people how to play set under the dinner tent. I didn´t eat much of our amazing dinner bc my stomach was still going a little crazy. 

After dinner the guides suggested that we should consider changing our route a bit due to landslide precautions. We couldn´t fully come to a desicion so we just decided to figure it out in the morning. Jessica, Julie and I tucked ourselves into our sleeping bags and it rained so hard for about 3 hours that I thought our tent might just lift up and glisade down the hillside. so that maybe wasn´t the most restful night of sleep I´ve ever had!

the good news: we awoke to clear skies and hot coca :)