Peru - Friday 23 October 1998
Mike is celebrating his birthday today! We also celebrate Dawn's birthday, officially at the last day of our holiday. We sing birthday songs for them before breakfast. Our porters bake a special birthday cake - with real candles!
Our breakfast today is a huge pile of pancakes, porridge, yoghurt and bread. Delicious! We should be able to finish our heavy duty today!
Patricia warned us for this second day, the heavyest of all Inca Trail. It's almost all the time climbing up a mountain, whereas the climate is very bad over here.
Right from the start the path is going up. Our group splits up immediately, everyone walks at his own tempo.
I stay behind, together with Joanne and Elisabeth. It's quite tough for them. Joanne has bad knees, Elisabeth is ill. I decide to carry Joanne's bag. It's no problem for me, I like to help her.
Elisabeth keeps on telling me I don't have to wait for her. But Freddy doesn't wait for us and some places could be dangerous. If she really gets sick, there has to be someone with her. And, I like to have someone around me instead of walking alone. I wouldn't walk much faster myself, so I stay with her.
When we reach the top of the mountaine, Mike has left already for two hours. We agreed to wait for each other there, but it is too cold and wet to wait for such a long time. Only Freddy is waiting for us when we arrive. I'm quite disappointed, but I do understand why the others couldn't wait.
It's quite a walk again to reach the place where we have lunch. It's still raining, but here we can shelter in a hut where we even make a small fire. For lunch, we have a Peruvian stand menu: soup, rice, chicken and groceries.
Then we have to climb again, for another hour. This is really tough. I carry Elisabeth's bag this time. She is too tired to talk. She also is quite standoffish.
Our next campsite is right on top of a mountain. Our porters build a kitchen between some rocks, they already put our tents on a flat sqare of grass.
Our view from this place is the most beatiful I've ever seen! clouds are rising up between the mountains all the time, the view is changing every single moment.
We are at a level of 3.950 meters. Mike stands us champaign.We bought him a present: champaign!! That's a lot of champaign. This must be the best holiday Mike has ever had.
Freddy sais he's gonna tell his next group that he is celebrating his birthday on second day of the Inca Trail; he likes to drink champaign on this height.
It's really cold now. We decide to share the space between the rocks with our porters, sitting comfy in our sleeping bags. Joanna, Freddy, Elisabeth, Ronald and I are the first.
Later, Dawn joins us. "Where is Diederick?", she asks. "He is sleeping", I answer. A little later, she has to go to the toilet. When she comes back, she is together with Diederick (she woke him) and another sleeping bag. After a little time, Dawn and Diederick are embracing really cosy. It seeks like they really like each other!
After dinner (still between those rocks) we decide to go to sleep early. Only Diederick en Dawn stay awake. They want to sleep over there, but the porters send them to their tents.
