Inca Trail: Day Two
06/20/10
In Canada, I am an average-sized dude, though my nostrils are different sizes, a beauty trend passed on from my mother - one side resembles the Africa continent, while the other could be the wrinkle line near a baby´s armpit. In Peru, I was a Yao Ming giant, which means I had knocked my head on multiple ceilings, including one leaving a bathroom, forcing me to walk out bent forward massaging my head, looking like I injured myself from drinking out of the toilet.
For the entire night, I struggled with my body being too long to fit in the tent without laying on my side on rocks, while my shoulders were too wide to fit inside my sleeping bag. The result left me wearing my sleeper like a strapless dress, my knees up in the birth giving position. By the time I fell asleep at around 2 a.m., I was awoken at 3:15 a.m. by roosters armageddon screaming. If I ever become a farmer, one my first day on the job I woul call a meeting with the roosterstell them to wake up around 9:30 a.m. If they do not respond correctly, I would crack their spirits by eating scrambled eggs in front of them. Thankfully, a couple hours later at 6 a.m., a porter knocked on our tent´s wall and handed us two glasses of coca tea to prepare for the altitude. It was the first time we had received room service while camping. Awesome.
Walking outside the tent, we dodged chickens while I attempted to stick my foot so far up a rooster´s bootae I would have known what the animal was thinking. We brushed our teeth in a nearby bush, spitting on top of a pile of cow poop. In the distance, the rising sun had turned the brownish mountains golden. My feet were cold in shoes and socks, while our porters prepared breakfast wearing sandals.
Day Two was the hardest section of the Inca Trail. Lack of sleep over two days made me no more prepared than if a doctor told me I was pregnant. Young lady, I too am surprised by the size of your ovaries.
“To the hill of destiny,” Boxie-boo proclaimed, watching the sun cast light down the shadowy mountain at 7:35 a.m. as we began our hike. My nose was already slightly burning from the thin air, but my armpits felt silky smooth. Leading the pack, I felt like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with my fellow hikers behind me, but without wearing a push-up bra and nobody tiny screaming “High Ho”, though, it would have been nice. Our feet crunching on rocks, we began our first incline from 2,950, eventually leading to 4,215 metres.
By the time we reached the Wayllabamba check point, we removed our clothes fast like triathletes. Our passports stamped, we looked at the hardest incline to date, as our next meeting point was 350 metres higher. Valeriano had told us to meet him at a rest stop that had our group´s flag, two stops ahead.
“Porter,” a group yelled marked by Canadian flags as we passed. For some reason, Boxie-boo and I were hauling ass. I thought of being called a porter a compliment, the same way it was nice to have a donkey sniff my bumhole a day earlier. We were in the zone, ignoring our troubled eyes and faltering breaths, our smiles coming and going, mouths wide to the point that even our gums were drying.
“Is this pace okay?” I asked, my voice sounding as though as I was just punched directly in the lungs.
“I´m actually doing okay. The next flat part I will grab more leaves,” Boxie-boo replied, having become an addict to coca leaves. We will never know if they actually helped, or if chewing on them was simply a placebo effect. Coca leaves, according to our guide who was no where to seen all day, contain 14 alkaloids, one of which is cocaine (Don´t worry, Mom, not enough to make the drug, as it would take thousands of leaves).
We were a good team on this day. I held my hand back to help Boxie-boo up steps that were higher than a foot, sometimes two. We continuously motivated each other. When my heart rabbit thumped in the back of my head, I remembered to take in slow, deep, fuill breaths while twiddling my pen in my hand to allow my mind to focus elsewhere, beyond the burning in my calves. In the rare downhill sections, we reminded each other to be careful of our ankles, passing tourists every couple minutes.
…One and a half hours later…
The trail turned to straight rock, staircase after staircase between one and two-foot high. Step after step. Thighs sumo wrestler vibrating. Exhausting. We skipped the first rest stop and the trail began to live up to its reputation. My muscles switched from tight to jello. “I have bad headache,” Boxie-boo said. It could have been altitude sickness, or possible dehydration, so we rested quickly a couple trail turns ahead, at which point we were joined by Ming.
At 10:25 a.m. we arrived at the second rest stop with no flag in sight. No porters. We waited for half an hour, eventually joined by Fabienne. The three of us figured there was no way we would be faster than porters, even though they carry larger bags and we had a head start. Ming asked other guides if he knew about Cusco Explorers and was told our lunch stop was much later. “Let´s just get it over with,” Boxie-boo said, and we moved on.
Reaching higher altitude, the air became thinner again. We were above 3,600 metres, with over 600 more to go to Warmihuanusca Pass, the “Dead Woman´s Pass.” AT this point, I felt a pre-serve tennis ball bouncing on the back of my skull, then smashed into my brain. We continued on staircases scattered between sharp rocks, caveman-like tools. The mountains began talking to me. A puzzle of small dark plants sat amongst light, yellowish brown scrubbery, writing me a message across our mountain. How do you like me now, white boy? Another mountain, across the passageway, added to the conversation. Your penis has shrunk from overexertion. How did it know?
The thin air resulted in Boxie-boo needing more stops, while she kept telling me to go on without her. Nope. The low oxygen levels had given me the frozen, loose gum facial expression of a dog mid-run. The rabbit no longer thumped on my brain, but instead, seemed to be have invited over a female companion. I felt half-dead, the feeling of my lungs collapsing and forced open with each breath. When Boxie-boo asked to stop, my response was “No problem.”
Ever since passing the slower hikers, we were keeping pace with a 72-year-old Canadian, one of the fastest foreigners in the Andes Mountains. Taking a break, he stopped beside us.
“They say you burn more calories by having sex than hiking the Inca Trail,” he said. “What am I doing here?” The four of us burst our laughing. Around the next corner, a resting guide told us we were approximately 3,900 metres above sea level, then pointed to the pathway between two mountains.
“All the way up there?” Boxie-boo yelped, the literal truth passed off as absurd. “*Beep* my life.”
Continuing across shark rocks and staircase steps of smooth stone, we kept moving, limited our stops to only 10 second breaks. We realized when we stopped longer, it felt impossible to keep moving. Boxie-boo began walking with her hands on her knees, face downwards and swaying, looking as though she was dragging an invisible beluga whale; one with a blow hole that only released curse words.
“One second, I need to grab something from your backpack,” I said to her. The moment she took it off, I strapped the bag to the front of my chest as if preparing for lamoze class. “Let´s keep going, you are doing great, babe.”
“I can…” her voice drifted away, losing breath. “…Carry the bag.” I kept walking.
Nearing the top with only 30 steps left, I felt a sudden surge of energy, an adrenaline rush of pure stupidity. I told Boxie-boo I had to run it, to just get it over with. By the time I reached the top, I was gasping for air more than Monica Lewinsky during her internship. I sat down on a rock, heaving and delirious. We had finally reached 4,215 metres, the highest point on the Inca Trail, and the four of us took a celebratory photo, before heading 600 metres downwards to camp. Fabienne decided to wait for the others, while Ming joined Boxie-boo and I downhill. We walked, jogged, and occasionally, gripped the rock wall beside us like caged animals reaching for freedom.
“You are too fast,” Valeriano said, finally catching us with a few metres of camp, a statement my soccer teammates hear from their wives after some alone time.
“What time did you arrive at the second stop?” he asked, stopping us on our route down the Pacasmayo River Valley, giving us a break from steep staircases, pounding my knees with vibrations that left mine without feeling.
“Around 10:30 a.m. and waited until 11 a.m.,” Ming said. It turned out, the porters did not get there until 11:30 a.m. By the time we arrived at camp Pacaymayu at 2:20 p.m., there were no foreigners in sight and few porters. Our last porter showed up at 3:40 p.m., at which point we were finally given lunch, while the other hikers on tour began showing up from 5:20 p.m. onwards.
All night, the topic of conversation was how it was somehow possible we beat the porters. Yes, we had a head start and little baggage in comparison, but still, it was an expected pace. To celebrate, I rubbed my burning thighs and calves with Tiger Balm, then contemplated how many ibuprofen tablets it would take to leave my entire body without feeling. I took three regular strength.
That´s all for now.
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