November 25, 2016
Black Friday on the Inca Trail.
Crap, it rained in the night. Not a huge problem, but Anika’s pack towel and our hiking poles were outside getting all wet. Nathan spent part of the prior evening outside looking at all of the stars. There was no moon and no clouds overhead and a giant expanse of sky full of stars. He saw a lightning storm to the east and a falling star streak across the sky.
Breakfast was a huge bowl of cut-up bananas and cantaloupe, granola, yogurt, bread with marmalade of guayaba, which was yummy, but we have not yet Googled to see what the heck it was, and coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. (Turns out guayaba is guava).
Pretty sure Manuel’s burros did not have names, because when they misbehaved, he shouted out “burro!” More than once Manuel had to go chase them down and corral them back up. We decided the light grey one was Chip, the browner one was Carlotta, and the grey/brown one was Tomas.
We picked up camp and started hiking at about 8:30. There was a lot of fog and clouds and very little sun. We climbed to 4500 meters (14,763 feet) and looked down on several lakes. Lunch was spent at a small Incan site along the trail. We saw only 3 or so groups of local people, mostly riding horseback. We walked for about 15 kilometers until 2 or so when we set up camp. It had been misting slightly, but once camp was up, it started to rain heavier. We read in our tent until dinner.
Dinner was quinoa soup, with peas, tomato, potato, onion, red pepper, and carrot. The second course was spaghetti with a tomato sauce of tuna, carrot, and onion. We finished it up with cocoa and coffee and went to bed.
